terratin

Cheers Red. I haven't done cross country skiing in ages but would really love to try it again. Never tried snow shoes though and haven't done much snow caching. Oh, we found one in Norway and crossed a small, surprisingly deep snow field. That was good fun (apart from the wet trousers). Lets hope this works out.

Thanks a lot! There seems to be a lot to do even in winter. I hope this goes through; I will talk to my manager next week. Hmm.. I can also imagine staying in a lodge in the mountains for a few days and really go and enjoy the snow. I never tried downhill skiing, but maybe I can lend cross country skies somewhere

Congratulations timberdoodlehunter and wow, the location of your latest cache looks fascinating! Mrs. terratin

Thanks for your answer. At this moment I still have to convince my manager to sent me to Calgary but if that goes through then I could imagine that we chose a mountain lodge if we stay a bit longer, or return to Calgary every night if it's just 2-3 days extra. Really, I don't know yet what's the best. The whole trip should not be too tiresome otherwise I need a vacation after this, and 11 hours of air travel When does the snow usually start falling in the area and how much? I read that it might be snow-free in Calgary until January, but what can we expect from the mountains? It's such a shame this trip is only possible in winter. I would give my FTFs for visiting the actual Burgess Shale mine Mrs. terratin

I might have a chance to go to Calgary on business during the first half of December, and as I've never been there before it would be great to extend this trip a bit for some caching. I'd love to pick up some EarthCaches and see a bit of the Rockies. What are the street conditions like during that part of the year? Is it possible to drive through the Rockies and also log this EarthCache Burgess Shale - GC16D7W? What is an absolute must do in the area? Cheers, Mrs. terratin

Did a few that were fun, though most would probably qualify as challenges. Love the Nørrebro series, which took us through our favourite part of Copenhagen, good selection of mysteries, regulars and multies, and good location information. Still two missing though. Various mural painting or statue mysteries dedicated to various parts of town were great as well. As well as solving the big questions mark in the water SW of Copenhagen. We still have to pick all up though as they are placed not quite in our usual cycling direction. Det Danske Alfabet was a lot of fun: finding caches with every letter of the Danish alphabet. And Rogaland Rundt: find a cache in every of the 26 community of Rogaland, in Norway. Some communities only consist of a small island, others had such small saturation that you had to do a serious mountain hike. And the first Qatar power(line) trail was great! Endless long ride through the desert to pick up three caches along some power cable towers in an ever changing landscape. I think there are 3 more caches now. I hope we can do them one day.

We always try to write longer logs, especially when they belong to a puzzle we spent days solving or for really nice locations or hides. But lets be honest, what can you write about a bison thrown behind the bicycle stand at a supermarket or a film canister underneath a garbage bin? "Quick find, thanks for the cache" is about everything, really Of course, alternatively we could as well put the cache back without logging it when we find out it's not the most creative one

Possibly another bug? Just logged a not found, but it's not appearing right above the logs with the overview of how many founds, not founds, etc. edit: with some caches the finds, not finds, etc counter doesn't seem to count at all anymore edit again: ok, the counter works, it only takes a few minutes

OK, the layout is working now. I just noticed another difficulty with the new log layout: If you want to cache abroad and at least have a look into the logs in other languages you have to copy and paste all the additional information into your translator website, which looks like this: ------------ terratin [Premium Member] Premium Member 996 Found it Found it today Today at the office, somewhere in the background the new German colleague talks about walking around Copenhagen with his kids. mumble castle mumblemumble boats mumble drunken house.. someone: drunken house? Answer: yes, my kids call it that way. It's blue (being blue = being drunk in German) because it's constantly been drinking from the wine barrel that stands there. Mrs Terratin, suddenly all ears: OH! Thanks to Mrs. Terratin's marvelous interrogation techniques it took a long while to find out where the barrel is hiding, followed by a phone call to Mr. Terratin for the final coordinates. The cache ... --------- That's a lot of useless information in there And now look through some dozen or so logs. Mrs. terratin

Another comment on the new log layout: it is too big for small monitors (and I suppose for smart phones and such). On my 12" screen I see 'premium member' in one line, below a big photo, then with another big space my number of finds, and then the log below this. One not too comprehensive log covers my whole screen with all the additional information above and the big spaces between all items. If I am out caching and would want to find more information within the logs I have to skip so much useless information and scroll down a lot just to read the three last logs. Please change back to the old layout. Maybe it wasn't pretty, but at least it was usable on all sorts of devices. Mrs. Terratin

Phew.. more than 100 placed! I would not know how to maintain them, and send answers to all the loggers I think I'm quite happy that ours don't get found so often (on the other hand: Cincol, send a few more people around, will you? ) and I have a few more ideas which are very unlikely to to be found a lot either Mrs. Terratin

I don't think the roads are much of a problem since this is in a National Park. I assume they keep the roads clear, but I really couldn't say for sure. The road from Calgary to Banff/Yoho National Park would be clear as that is the Trans-Canada Highway (unless there is a blizard going on or something). It seems the biggest challenge in the winter is that the information signs get buried in snow! I wondered why I wasn't seeing any logs on that EarthCache the first winter until someone logged and said they had dug down through the snow to find the information signs. Crazy! In December, you should be ok though. Unless they get some kind of crazy storm, I don't imagine the snow would have accumulated high enough to bury the signs yet. You might want snowshoes to get over to where the signs are though. I do have a contact name for that Park, so if you wanted me to find out for sure, before you drive out there, just let me know a few days in advance. I can contact the Park and see what they can tell me about the road conditions/snow levels. If you're going to Calgary, don't forget to stop at the Big Rock EarthCache as I mentioned in my previous log. It's an EarthCache and a Virtual, so you get a 2-for-1 deal and it's not very far outside of Calgary. Thanks a lot for your answer. When I got approval for this trip (if... ) I'll jump into the Canadian forum and ask about road conditions and where caching is possible in early winter. The Big Rock.. is big. Not having logged many glacial erratics yet this is also on the ToDo list now Mrs Terratin

Oh that's yours. Sounds like a great cache, and the Burgess Shale is such an important site Is your cache accessible in winter? While it's just some 200km from Calgary I can't even guess what the roads will be like. You don't seem to be getting many logs between November and March. If it goes through my trip to Calgary would be in December Mrs. Terratin

The Burgess Shale is there! I really hope my planned trip to Calgary gets through! On a similar note: I would love to log an EC at Siccar Point, if there was one

Gosh, thanks for reminding me of that! We definitely need to rent a car and drive up to Skagen for this cache! Mrs. Terratin

Brilliant! Now that's one we'll take along and try to 'solve' when we're on holidays. One puzzle i enjoyed is Matematik med Ma & Pa. It's simple maths but different. Mr. Terratin

I'd be inclined to say no, I would not. The point of an EarthCache is for someone to learn a lesson while there at the site. If they do not answer the questions, it just shows they were there but didn't attempt to learn a thing. The questions are part of the logging tasks so if you do not do them, then you haven't earned the right to claim a find on it. Agreed. Moreover, as a photograph isn't allowed as a logging requirement for Ecs, the photo is nice but by no means a substitute for fulfilling the requirements. Mr. Terratin

That happened to us as well, in a forest with really bad gps reception. However, we don't know what it was that we found. Might have been some animal vaccination stored for the next season, some food thrown away and not eaten or drugs, or something completely different. To be honest, it felt like potatoes wrapped in aluminium for a barbecue that were forgotten (though the box was really old and broken. I guess potatoes would have turned into something squishy), so who knows

How does this translate in the reviewing process? Do you merely ask the CO to add something or are you actively enforcing this (by denying publication) when the developer doesn't change/add to his EC? Mr. Terratin

In my experience, if the logging process is not completed in a week it ain't gonna be. A month is very generous. There is no rule that I read that says we as owners need to send all the follow-up emails either. Those are just a nicety that many of us choose to extend... True, it sounds pretty long and maybe is too long, but it's also a time frame we are comfortable with: One or two weeks after a found log we send a reminder indicating the questions really have to be answered. One week or two weeks depends on if the logger likely is on a vacation and also on our own swiftness; we don't start a timer when a new log arrives If there's no answers or any response whatsoever after another two/three weeks we delete the log and send a second mail explaining why and inviting the cacher to send the answers and relog the EC as found. Et voila, a month has passed... However, upon reconsidering i have to agree you're right and maybe we should move on to the second part (delete the log) sooner. If there's no response to the reminder within a few days it's probaly unlikely there will be a response at all. Anyway, my question about the guidelines is answered, so this thread can be closed. Thanks Mr. Terratin

Yes, that's what i sort of remembered, thanks. Their choice indeed, the only 'requirement' when it comes to first logging and then sending the mail is 'within a reasonable time frame'. And given what i've read in other threads, the month or so we use seems pretty lenient. Mr. Terratin

Sudden slew of non-answers and the earlier discussion in Is it a waste of time or common courtesy? got me thinking about when/how to log an earthcache. I was pretty sure somewhere in the guidelines it says you can log an EC immediately as found and have to send in the answers to questions within a reasonable timeframe. But i've been searching for that and can't find it anymore or did i make that 'rule' up myself? As far as i'm concerned i don't care if people first log a find and then send answers or the other way around; eitherway i have to keep track of the logs and corresponding answers. Moreover i find it rather annoying when an EC owners 'demands' an email with answers before you are 'allowed' to log a find. As we like to log caches in order of finding them, we log a find and send the answers just before or right after posting that log. As for posting a note instead of a found, as CO you still need to keep track of the notes to make sure it won't get changed into an 'illegitimate' find at a later date, which to me seems even more effort than keeping track of find and answer pairs. Anyway, I'm curious what the official guideline on logging earthcaches is, if there is any. Mr. Terratin

We used to send a request for answers after about a week and then another one after another week and then finally deleted the logs. However, we've seen that if people don't respond to the first email, they also won't respond to the second mail (based on a very small sample of i think 3 or 4). We changed our scheme to two-strike: after one/two weeks we send out a first friendly email explaining what an Earthcache is and that there are logging requirements, which really are a requirement. If no response follows after another two/three weeks we'll delete the log and send another email with basically the same text as the first email and explain that because of not fulfilling requirements and the lack of response the log is deleted. Ending with an invitation to send us the answers and relog the EC as find again. Our experience so far is the one/two weeks we wait before we send out the first mail usually is enough to receive the required answers. We had one or two cachers contacting us after the first email and just one response after the log deletion. Have to add though we only have 5 earthcaches at the moment and none sees a lot of visitors. Despite that, i think we have deleted 4 or 5 logs so far. Mr. Terratin

Hmm, for us using the bikes is mostly a means of getting from cache to cache as we currently don't have a car. We're not too enthusiastic about cycling though. Mrs. Terratin

Copenhagen, Denmark We'll have to do a bit more biking around, and finally solve those darn puzzles! Mr. Terratin