gpsblake

I remember reading about CCCooperAgency finding over 100 caches in a single day. If true, that is over 4 per hour or one every 15 minutes without taking a second to eat, sleep etc.

I am going up to Baltimore next month and already have planned to do a geocaching day using only the Light Rail system. What I have done is got the coordinates of each Light rail stop and then did a search for geocaches that are within a half mile. Got several marked, not including Baltimore's virtuals. I'll buy a all-you-can ride in one day ticket (about 3 bucks). However, a negative note: GPS reception on buses may be tricky at best though (like if the bus is crowded and you have to sit away from the window. So a person might have to do a little bit of homework before the bus route, like knowing what place to get off the bus, so perhaps you might want to give a note or clue on what streets you have to exit the bus to retrieve the stash. Cheers, The Blake

Won't matter, you can read this group as a guest, you simply can't respond to messages. Also...... He has to also make it so that the site cookies are disabled when leaving (don't use the remember me function) and that the browsers settings are set not to remember "passwords" or it won't matter. Most people have their browsers set to remember passwords. Cheers, Blake

I suspect there are more issues to this than just geocaching and of course, we don't know the wife's side of the story. I love geocaching, my wife thinks it is stupid but she doesn't get in the way, with the unwritten assumption that my family comes before geocaching. Which I do, my family does mean much more than geocaching. Now checking your profile, if it is your main one shows only five finds, hardly something for a person to be upset about so I really suspect something is wrong besides the geocaching. However I will say this, going behind her back to buy a GPS unit would be cause for her to get upset at you. I know my wife would be upset if I spent over 100 dollars behind her back without telling her the reason. Such things breach trust in a marriage. So things were wrong before the geocaching. I honestly hope it works for you and your wife and your family.

True, however, what is the difference between geocachers making a 20 foot circles around a tree looking for a cache and campers setting up tents, tables, showers, etc? Cache owners should return to their caches periodically to make sure the surrounding environment is not being destroyed. This is called being responsible, and in any activity you will find those that are and those that are not. Very valid points, especially with campers. They do far more damage to the environment. Place a tent down for a night on grass and you will see what happens, about a 100 sq feet of dead grass. Most caches I have found have very little or no visable impact and I am sure that most cachers take the time to hide their tracks after they find the stash. Cheers, Blake

If it is hidden, how does it impact your enjoyment of the land? You will only know one is there if you are looking for it! Yes, not all caches are hidden well, but very few people ever just find a cache without the waypoint in their GPSr. Team, I'll debate from the other side for a minute. If a geocache is hidden and out of view, it does not take away from the view and such. However, OTHERS having to FIND it will have to dig and poke around to locate it, which can be a problem and affect the area. Cheers, Blake

No, you should not take it on yourself to remove the cache with the lone exception that if the owner/manager of the land would directly ask you to do so. You should log your concern on the cache page and email the owner. I found one last week that required me to slightly duck under a really old, rusted barbed wire to get to. I made a note of it on the page when I found the cache. Now looking back, I am wondering if I tresspassed (is a old barbed wire a general sign of no tresspassing?) My log for this cache is at: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?lu...A-7F5CF6A0544B}

http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx Guidelines on how to place caches

Perhaps it was a troll, like I said, I don't know. However, my point is, if we label every single person who comes on here as a troll for opposing geocaching, it will not help us. Maybe I am being naive here.

might be a troll and might be someone who is legitmately concerned about geocaching, I don't know. However, I am going to reply. I think caches should list if bushwhacking is involved so we only do bushwhacking when we know we have to. Rather than just brand them as a troll and ban anyone who opposes geocaching, perhaps a little dialouge with those who oppose our hobby might help smooth down the tensions between geocachers and other groups (cavers, environmentalist, historians). But just to mock and ban people who oppose geocaching isn't going to help further our sport further. Just my three cents.... Cheers, Blake

Website about geocaching before it was really called geocaching http://web.archive.org/web/20000621194709/...yngwie/gps.html The earliest cached copy of geocaching.com http://web.archive.org/web/20001109140600/...geocaching.com/ (notice the 8 total new caches placed in the last 7 days) and the number of states that didn't have caches placed. You can go to archive.org type in geocaching.com and look at the history of this page and sport for yourself. Cheers, Blake

My 9 year old daughter used the GPS on a swing at the park to tell her how fast and far she had gone in the swing. She said it kept going North, South, North, South, North, South, North, South etc. and when she was done on the swing, she traveled nearly a mile at an average of 2mph on the swing.

Thanks. I guess the difference between magnetic north and real north for something that is 150 feet from a waypoint at a bearing of 360 would mean very little. Just trying to get this cache where one of the directions is take a bearing of 360 and walk 150 feet.

Probably a stupid question but always best to ask. Thanks.

Thanks for all the comments, I just think it would be neat to have a national site for all of these, so if we visting an area, we can punch in the coords, and find the nearest historical markers to go visit and learn about. Kind of like benchmarking hunting, except more history to them. A lot of people would be surprised how many of these are in their area but never noticed them. I might as a pet project, start saving coordinates of the historical markers I run across in the county I live at (Lexington) and then map them out using the coordinates (along with the info on the markers). It would be a challenge to log them all in just one county.

Roadside historical markers an example (cloudy picture) http://img.Groundspeak.com/benchmark/lg/54030_200.jpg I am curious if there has been an attempt to use GPS units to log a database of all these around the country? I think it would be pretty neat to gather such a list, post it on the web, and allow people to search for markers near their area, so they can go visit them. Could even have a log of visits set up to talk about each marker, just like a cache find is. Just curious if this topic has been discussed before?

quote:Originally posted by 9Key:Why was he burying his caches?! remember their concern might be not the burying of the cache but FINDERS who might assume it is buried and start digging, kicking around, putting their hands into sensative plants, and such. It also depends on the word, buried. Buried could mean kicking around pinestraw to find a cache (we all have done that one, moved pinestraw around or seen them buried in pinestraw, twigs, et al) or removing twigs and such to see if a cache is there. It might also be a liability issue, if someone sticks their hands into a tree trunk and gets bitten by a critter, they could sue the park system. I believe cache's should be allowed in National Parks, as long as they are on and right near established trails where people are already walking but do not require bushwacking and/or moving around of the scenery, that might concern them also.

From usenet discussion group. Ref: http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/msg01095.html NPS Morning Report - Monday, March 11, 2002 02-056 - Lake Roosevelt NRA (WA) - Geocaching Incident Rangers recently conducted an investigation into geocaching in the park. Geocaching is a sport in which individuals or organizations cache materials at particular locations, then provide the GPS coordinates via the Internet so that other people can attempt to find them. Some times caching entails digging, which presents obvious problems in national parks. On February 27th, Patrick Hall asked permission to bury a geocache within the park's historic Fort Spokane Unit. During the conversation, Hall made several statements which revealed that he'd previously been investigated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for this same activity, and that other geocaches might already be buried within the park. Ranger Jaime Green investigated and found that two caches had already been buried near Fort Spokane by a geocache player known as "Fuzzybear." Additional investigation uncovered a connection between "Fuzzybear" and Hall. Hall was interviewed and admitted placing both caches. Parks concerned about this activity within their boundaries may go to http://www.geocaching.com and search for caches located in their areas. [Chris Rugel, DR, Fort Spokane District, LARO, 3/8] Ref: http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/msg00806.html NPS Morning Report - Wednesday, March 21, 2001 Geocaching - There is a new web-based activity called geocaching that has affected several National Park Service areas. The Ranger Activities Division asked Olympic NP SA Mike Butler to investigate. Here's his report: Geocaching is an activity in which participants hide a cache and take a position at the location using a GPS receiver. The position is then published on the group's web site with an invitation to search for the "treasure." Caches often contain a notebook or log book and something the finder may take. The finder is asked to put another item in the cache for others to discover and will often report the find on the web site. Several caches have been found in National Park Service areas. The webmaster for the site (www.geocaching.com) has been contacted. He was very surprised that geocaching is illegal in NPS areas, and understood NPS concerns about the damage geocaching has and can cause to historic, archeological and natural sites. He agreed to work with the Service to discourage further geocaching activities in parks. Two related activities were also discovered. Letterboxing (www.letterboxing.org) is a phenomenon similar to geocaching in that a player takes directions from a web site and uses those directions to find a hidden object. In letterboxing, the directions come in the form of a riddle and the hidden object is a stamp which the finder can use to stamp a piece of paper to prove that he has visited the site. The web site showed the location of at least two letterboxes in parks. The parks have been notified, but the Service has not yet contacted the webmaster or game managers. The Degree Confluence Project (www.confluence.org) is another web-based activity where people try to visit various latitude and longitude integer degree intersections and report their findings on the web site. In this case, however, no objects are placed in the ground, and there are no apparent regulatory violations in areas where cross-country travel is allowed or where the confluence is not on a protected site. There has been no attempt to contact the project organizers. [Mike Butler, SA, OLYM]

quote:Originally posted by dustyjacket:Post in the cache page if the property is under the control of a government agency, or specify if it is on private property with permission, or any other oddity about the property ownership. (I have seen a few folks do this.). Today I had actually went hunting for a cache at an old jail that is completely surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Next to it is a park so I asked the policeman there if there was a way I could search for the cache hidden at this old jail. He told me no, it would be tresspassing, and he has had problems with geocachers tresspassing in the past. What I did, I don't know if it was right or not, was to leave a note on the cache page stating this with the recommendation it should be archived. Was I correct in doing this or should I have simply kept quiet?

quote:Originally posted by White Rhino: The problem doesn't arise from the hollow that has the cache in it, it is from the hollows that are investigated by people looking for cache's because they look like "likely" hiding spots. I think it depends on the area of the country also. For example, sticking your hand into a dark hole in West Texas during a hot day is asking for a snake bite or scorpion sting. However putting your hand into a tree along a commonly used trail is much less risky. But always poke around with a stick and use a flashlight. If you can't see, you don't go reaching. And always wear gloves, good gloves. When I get enough cache finds, I am going to put up my own cache but it will not be in a tree trunk or in a dark place. It will be unique.

quote:Originally posted by Mopar: Experience matters in everything else we do, why not geocaching? Go on a job interview and tell them that experience doesn't matter. Dude chill out a bit. Geocaching is meant to be fun and not be taken seriously as a job interview and such. The think the point is just use a bit of caution before sticking your hand into a place that you can't see. In other words, poke it with a stick, use a flashlight or something. Also I think if a critter is hiding in a spot where a geocache is located, it should be noted on the log so the owner can consider if he/she wants to move it to a different spot or not.

An example of this is: . There seems to be a lot of these, some right out in the open, some buried in brushes and forgotten Has anyone attempted to log these via their GPS system?