Pokemon trainer walks for five months to get world’s first Pokewalker shiny

An avid Pokemon player and Shiny hunter recently achieved a world’s first when hunting and finding the first ever Pokewalker shiny.

The Pokewalker was released in 2009 and boxed in with every localized copy of Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver. Designed to look like a miniature Pokeball, the pedometer would count a trainer’s IRL steps and reward players with items and rare Pokemon encounters, some of which can’t be obtained in-game.

Sadly, these Pokemon can’t appear shiny as they’re usually locked. However, through the use of an Action Replay, players can remove the Shiny lock to hunt Pokemon using the Pokewalker. While some players may not consider these Shinies legitimate, they still fall within the traditional 1/8192 odds making them incredibly difficult to find.

But that didn’t stop ShinyCollector, a Shiny Pokemon hunter known for his annual Uncatchable Week event, from walking for five months with six Pokewalkers strapped to his ankles in pursuit of a purple Wailord.

Pokemon trainer finds first-ever Pokewalker shiny

ShinyCollector would start this grueling hunt on April 8, 2022, with a single Pokewalker and the goal of finding a Shiny Pokemon. However, this hunt would stretch across five months and 11 days before ending on September 19, 2022.

He detailed how the hunt dictated his daily routine for those five months and how it became an obsession leading to him purchasing five more Pokewalkers. But the grind eventually paid off with a Shiny Wailmer he named Moby in reference to Captain Ahab’s own obsession with Moby Dick.

And in a way, this hunt consumed ShinyCollector’s legs, similar to how Moby ate the leg of Ahab. SC didn’t lose a leg, per se, but he did strap three Pokewalkers to each leg that he would continuously monitor throughout the day.

He stated that every 200 steps would roughly translate into a single Pokemon encounter, and that not every encounter guaranteed a catch. Each Pokewalker can store up to three caught Pokemon at a time, meaning he’d have to transfer those three Pokemon before continuing to hunt.

The hunt ended after 2,341 encounters, which is fairly lucky when considering the odds. But despite being 5,000+ encounters under odds, the hunt was still a long and arduous process. So long, in fact, that ShinyCollector documents he lost 25 pounds during the hunt.

We highly recommend checking out ShinyCollector’s video on the process behind finding the Pokewalker shiny as well as seeing his reaction when the hunt finally ended.