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ZeLonewolf

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Everything posted by ZeLonewolf

  1. Times change. What may have been OK two days ago, may no longer be OK. Oh come on now. How often do we see a forum post about a cache being blown up by the bomb squad? The hand-wringing about caches placed on electrical equipment and so forth? We've been hyper-anxious about "suspicious packages" dang well since 9/11 AKA the earliest days of Geocaching before you or I even started. So no, I don't think times have changed.
  2. Just use common sense when placing hides. If you are questioning it now, it never shoulda been there in the first place.
  3. Hi folks, My girlfriend and I are planning a road trip through Canada in July, by way of the Niagra Falls - Toronto - Montreal route. We are trying to figure out the most interesting way to make our way from Toronto to Montreal finding geocaches along the route. We're setting aside two days to make this trip, with an overnight stop somewhere in between, probably around Napanee or Kingston looking at the map. I'm looking for any advice about which route to take, where to stop for the night, and recommendations on geocaches. Also, any general advice about caching or travelling in Canada in general is appreciated. Thanks!
  4. That second GC code brings up a cache titled "Quail", did the name change?
  5. That sounds awesome. Finally, an excuse to use my headlamp!
  6. Hey folks, My girlfriend and I are planning a Geocaching/sightseeing road trip (in that order) in July as part of a long detour of a 1-way trip eastern Pennsylvania to Rhode Island. Other than "GC39: The Spot", we don't have any specific caches planned out along our route. Below I have listed our stops along the way. These are all places I've never been - I would love to hear your recommendation for must-do caches along the route: Allentown, PA Utica, NY Ithaca, NY Buffalo, NY Niagra Falls, NY Toronto, Canada Montreal, Canada Lake George, NY Thanks!
  7. All the more reason to log the DNF -- so I don't have to go looking for it after you!
  8. A tangential but basically on-topic anecdotal story. For about a year and a half, an iPhone was my primary caching device. I had even placed a number of hides with it -- successfully mind you -- carefully using an app that averaged the coordinates over several minutes. Didn't have any issues with poor coordinates. Finding caches with the iPhone on the other hand was definitely more of a challenge. Then one day, after a frustrating day of caching and hiking along the Taconic Crest Trail, I decided that since I cached A LOT, that it would be worthwhile for me to pick up a Garmin 62s. So then I decided to hide a cache. So I drove out about 8 miles and hid The Lost Village of Hell's Half Acre with my brand-new FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR high-end precision GPS receiver. I turned it on, waited for it to report 12-foot accuracy, and then snapped the coordinates. Needless to say, the coordinates taken by my FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR GPS were off by ONE HUNDRED FEET, across the road in private property. I noted that the coordinates showed up across the road in Google Earth as well, but I dismissed this as simply an inaccuracy of Google Earth. After all, I had a FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR precision instrument that could not possibly be wrong. After the initial DNF, I went back, and this time (having ditched the iPhone at this point), I whipped out brand-new Android phone. I figured, if the a 2-year-old iPhone could take usable coordinates, a newer smart phone with two extra years of technological advancement under its belt should be even better. So I set the phone on top of the cache site and waited for the coordinates to settle. I was pleased to note that the coordinates it gave me were about 90 feet different from the Garmin's coordinates, so I posted the corrected coords. Now, the next cacher did find the cache, but only because he was able to use the provided hint -- coordinates #2 were ALSO almost 100 feet off! Thankfully, this cacher posted updated coordinates from his GPS, and those are the coordinates that the cache now uses, and has been found 100% of the time since that first DNF. As a side note, I am 100% certain that the site in question is haunted, but in any case, I ate some humble pie that day when not one but two GPSs gave me terrible coordinates. Long story short, now I always make sure my GPS is warmed up, and I use coordinate averaging, and then I test them out. If the coords come up soft (happens maybe 10% of the time), I re-average them. Now, while I think hiders should take care to take good coordinates, I do agree with briansnat that it's not necessary to obsess over them. Multiple visits in my book is not a requirement for most modern GPS units -- just use the coordinate averaging feature and do a spot check afterwards. Oh, and while Google Earth is not always 100% accurate, it's a REALLY GOOD sanity check.
  9. It's 50' in, you need a flashlight, that constitutes special equipment. Maybe terrain is not a 5, but without a flashlight, the difficulty is 5. Scuba gear is special equipment. A boat is special equipment. Tactical tree climbing gear is special equipment. A flashlight is pretty ordinary equipment that I always carry with me and anyone can pick up at the local dollar store. I would rate this cache any where from 2.5 to 4 terrain rating depending on how hard the cave is to access.
  10. (emphasis mine) Oh boy. I would personally look at that 1% DNF stat and say, "here is a geocacher that doesn't bother to log his DNFs, and is thereby hurting his local caching community". Logging DNFs is a POSITIVE contribution to the community. By NOT logging your DNFs, you are doing a disservice to other cachers and cache owners. I proudly and diligently log ALL of my DNFs, which happen about 10% of the time. My stats: Found It!: 3,188 Didn't Find It: 303 Needs Maintenance: 64 Needs Archived: 49
  11. I have heard many cachers complain about the prevalence of poor-quality, or caches that need maintenance for months or years, or any number of other lameness issues that have plagued our sport as of late. Yet many of those same cachers are unwilling to use the NM, NA, or even DNF logs. If you don't post a DNF when you couldn't find a cache, YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM. If you don't post a NM when the cache needs maintenance, YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM. If you don't post a NA when the cache is clearly abandoned, YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM. Local cache quality is up to local cachers. Everyone has a responsibility to other cachers to report problems when they see them. If cachers are more willing to use DNF, NM, NA, the culture will change.
  12. I love caching in the winter. It kills all of the annoying living stuff that makes life miserable in the forest during the summer.
  13. You can hide a cache perfectly well with a phone, you just have to be a bit more careful and get an app to average coordinates. There is no need to run out and spend $100s on a dedicated device. I hid a bunch of caches with a phone before I got my GPS and they're just fine. On the flip side, I once hid a cache using my Garmin 62s that was almost 100 feet off (apparently it was cranky and hadn't warmed up yet). Yes, smart phones have real GPS receivers in them now (this is a common misconception that just won't go away). Better advice would have been "do your potential seekers a favor and average your coordinates over a 5-10 minute period, minimum, so that you obtain accurate coordinates!"
  14. This particular case is easily and quickly dispatched with a "Needs Archived" log, preferably with a photo of the No Trespassing sign attached. I have had to do this on a number of occasions, and the reviewers ALWAYS take trespassing issues seriously, and has resulted in the cache being archived so far 100% of the time. If we are aggressive about posting "N/A" in these situations, it will happen less often, and hiders will learn.
  15. +1 That to me is the essence of a challenge cache -- sharing the experience you had with others. My gf and I found a cache every day for a year (the result of a not-fully-thought-out bet between us), and we made a challenge cache to share that experience with the community. If we would have created that challenge cache without having actually gone through it, it would have been super lame - even though it technically would have met the requirements.
  16. My feeling has always been that it is inappropriate to issue a challenge cache unless that cache owner has personally completed the requirements of the challenge.
  17. Virtually every cache I find with an Needs Maintenance tag on it has been fine - it's just that the cache owner hasn't taken the flag off. Maybe we need to find a way to automatically prod cache owners on an increasingly regular basis to show them how to do so? This. Perhaps a monthly auto-email reminding COs of caches with outstanding NM.
  18. Check the CO's profile. If he hasn't logged in recently (within the last few months), he might have stopped playing the game. In that case, if the cache has significant outstanding issues, a "needs archived" log is completely appropriate.
  19. I've done this in Nassau (which, when you take the geo-tour, is MUCH more sketchy than you might think!) We prefer the off-the-beaten-path tour anyhow, and we got it. We're going on another to Cabo San Lucas, and we're planning to cache there as well. In addition to getting a unique tour of a new place, it's also a very inexpensive way to spend your vacation
  20. Best idea yet! Hmmm...this gets me thinking...
  21. I have recently inherited a large number of ammo cans.. a whole bunch of the 7.62mm and .50 cal cans (the "standard" two sizes) as well as a number of larger and taller cans that would probably qualify as a "large". Placing them usually involves stuffing one or two of them into a backpack and going for a nice hike deep into the woods. Now, when I cache, I really don't care what's in caches swag-wise as I'm really in it for the hide-and-seek aspect of the game, and I always TNLNSL... So, I am always at a loss as to what to load the caches with as far as swag. It usually involves a trip to Job Lot (our local overstock clearance store) and acquiring random items to toss in. Do you have any advice on what you tend to put in larger caches, and/or what you like to find in larger caches?
  22. There is a cache quite near me that does this exact thing (I haven't found it yet, but it's high on my list!) and it's well regarded. I think generally you'll want to have some kind of access to a permanent power source in a building in a public area. The CO reads the forums, so he can probably give you some pointers. You'll obviously need to get explicit permission for this one unless your house abuts a public park or some such similar situation. Good luck!
  23. Would this include hides in mall & supermarket parking lots? Apartment complex property? I hope so. I would hope that Groundspeak would come up with a more, well, adequate definition of "adequate permission" which I still have yet to see. Many hiders feel that they have automatic adequate permission to hide in such places, hence the proliferation of that type of cache.
  24. First off, I am a fan of power trails. I had a lot of fun doing the "Hang 'em High on Highway 51" series, to the west of New Orleans, however, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the trend towards trespassing and private property issues on the power trails out west. When I was in Vegas, I went to look for the "Trail of Fears" (since the Trail of the Gods had been archived before we got there), and we found that we had to cross into (clearly marked) non-public power company land for the trail -- and there was NO note of any kind on the cache page that permission had been obtained from the power company. Against my better judgement I ended up giving a half-hearted search for the first one, failed (ouch), and then cow-towed it back to town. This new "tresscaching" trend is alarming. Although I know they have enough work to do already, I feel that the reviewers need to do a better job in reviewing the land status of a cache (or series) placement. The notion that "the hider checked the box and GC.com can wash their hands of it" simply isn't enough. Perhaps a new field could be added to the submission form that requires the hider to demonstrate that they have adequate permission (with a link describing what adequate permission means with examples). I am finding that in general, it is a more frequent occurrence than it used to be that finders are sent on private or otherwise inappropriate land to locate caches. Sadly, I expect that nothing will be done unless this comes to a head in some very public (and embarrassing to the sport) way, such as a fatal altercation with an irate property owner or such.
  25. Today, I went to download a pocket query (any pocket query) into my Android phone...after a few seconds, I get an error message that says "Download was not successful. Please try again later or check the status of the Pocket Query at Geocaching.com. This happens both on 3G or WiFi. Groundspeak, please fix this!
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