Fellow Cachers,
On two separate days over the past week I have cached in the Indianapolis Area (Last Sunday and Today). Among the many caches I have logged there were many located under the skirts of light poles. This is not just isolated to Indy, I have seen a few in Fort Wayne (where I now live) and the very first Light Pole cache I logged was in my home town of Bay City, MI.
I have one concern and one personal comment regarding this type of hide.
1.) There are getting so many of this type of cache that are of difficulty of 1, 1. At many of these locations a move of 3-5 feet (to a bush or tree) would have changed this to a difficulty of 2 or 3, 1. (This comment is my personal preference for a challange and please take this with a grain of salt)
2.) At many of these locations it is so obivious that there is a cache there (OR someone thought there was one at that location and checked) because there are large scratches and or scuffs on the paint and metal. I have noticed the scuffs are less noticable if the skirt is plastic rather than steel.
The reason I bring up point #2 is that in many of these locations, as were retrieve and return these caches, we are damaging private property. If this was a cache in a nature preserve, would we step on the flowers??
It may come to the point if we keep damaging these light poles we may be banned from even placing this type of hide in the future. (I don't think Target, Meijer, Walmart, etc... are going to like repainting these poles every two years.
I just wanted to bring my concern of the caching commuity. I would hate for cachers to get a bad name over this.
Happy Caching!!!
IgottaFind.
