Ringrat

I just got back from a trip where I was able to add 3 new countries to my list: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Also three new German states: Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and Hesse. I'm up to 20 countries, which makes me pretty happy! At least one more on the list for next year.

I was also last there in 2008 and most of the (very few) caches I found are now archived. Easterly Extreme is one of 2 still standing, and it's awesome.

I spent 3 weeks in Iceland a couple of years ago in Aug-Sep and loved it. We rented a small AWD and drove the ring road (with detours). I really enjoyed the eastern fjords but for a short trip that's not a feasible destination. My favourite spot was Landmannalaugar, which is possible to visit on a very long day trip from Reykjavik, but in November you'd be very lucky to find a company still running super jeep tours to there (a quick search turned up a couple running until Oct). The Golden Circle, though touristy, is a must. If you're into diving or snorkelling, I would recommend the Silfra Rift (can be combined with the Golden Circle), it's amazing. We went with dive.is and found them to be very professional, but there are other operators as well. I have mixed feelings about the Blue Lagoon. For someone on a short trip and with limited transportation options, it's an easy way to get some hot water in (there are buses that stop there on the way to/from the airport). But we visited at the end of our trip, and after visiting 20ish other hot springs and local small town pools, we found the Blue Lagoon to be touristy, expensive, and the water not that nice. It was a very inauthentic Icelandic bathing experience, and hot water is a special thing in that country. So, if you're keen to visit, fine, but I would also find some other places to experience hot water. Any pool in Reykjavik or a small town would work. Just make sure you read the rules of bathing first so you don't offend anyone. Reykjadalur was wonderful (it's a hot river you hike into). If you have some time in Reykjavik, head out to Perlan for a nice view, the Sagas museum, and a couple caches. It's a medium-length walk or quick bus ride from the center. Enjoy!

Agreed. It's only been a few months since they were adopted and many of them will have only been seasonally available for the past couple of months. Combine that with the logistics of getting into some of them and I think it will take some time to get into all of them to do maintenance. I'm close enough to the OP's caching area to occasionally see new caches of his pop up in my notifications (wrong side of the mountain range, but still...) and these caches seem very much like his "type". Hopefully he's able to visit in order to keep them going.

Several caches have disappeared recently in the southern BC Rockies too for the same reasons. Haven't been found in 6 or 7 years, and 1 or 2 DNFs that generally just indicated that the person had been turned around due to weather or been too tired to search or something. I was sad to see them go. I have a strange conflict going on regarding these caches. I am generally in favour of caches that aren't being maintained with an unresponsive owner being archived. However, I find that my first instinct is a double standard. Roadside micro in bad shape? Make it go away. Backcountry cache that rarely gets found? My first reaction to an archival is sadness. If the owner isn't responsive anymore they're basically the same thing, but I sure have to force my brain into submission to admit that.

As VP said, thank you for getting in touch with the community. It appears to be this cache: This Rocks!. The cache has been disabled, which ensures that people won't be searching for it. Again, thank you!

They're saying that any notification will come on the blog/newsletter because that's how GS communicates with the geocaching community. Sending out a blanket notification of something like a souvenir to those who HAVEN'T subscribed could be considered Spam. After all, those people have chosen not to receive some communications.

So, so many amazing pictures in beautiful places in the world. This one (on the way to Ironstone Ridge Viewpoint) is the most recent picture that stands out:

We once found a cache (Ten Wells 04 near Exmouth, WA) where I was nearly cut off getting back to the car by a bunch of Emus. I already had picked up a few rocks just in case trying to make my way around them. In the end, no animals or humans were hurt in finding the cache. It was on the same road, doing the Ten Wells series, that a 'roo decided to jump into the side of my rental ute. Big dent just behind the drivers' side door. Dazed 'roo. Unhappy traveller. Though I guess that's no different to the deer where I live now...

I'm thankful that our National Parks allow physical caches at all. Yes, the policy is quite restrictive, but not unreasonable. By not allowing any trade or trackable items at all, the ambiguity is gone about what might be appropriate SWAG. No lighters, pocket knives, food or other smelly items, so they don't have to police them and problems are reduced. Cachers have varying ideas of what's appropriate, so instead of relying on people to use their judgment they've just eliminated it. Sure, there's no trading for kids, but the other option would be no geocaching at all, so I think we're doing ok. Many of the Parks have gotten on board and hidden caches themselves, which is great. Most of the physical caches I've found in a Park have been size small, often a small L&L. They've generally all been easy to find and well-maintained. No complaints!

I have a couple of (older) challenge caches that I'm slowly working on, though I recently completed one I'd been working on for a couple of years. Should be able to add 3 more countries and 3 more German states this fall during a trip. Just small, local goals otherwise...a couple cache placements I have in mind and a couple others that I started a bit over a year ago before an injury sidelined me from the kind of extended hiking required for them.

Voted! Not that I can get them in Canada anyway.

I've found a couple that are rolls of film. Pull out & sign the film.

There was a new EC published close to me in April and I saved it until EC Day. Although it was only 6 km as the crow flies from my house, it was still a 2 hour round trip. The next closest EC to me is about 45 minutes away. After that there are 4 about 2.5 hours away (in multiple directions) and 3 more 3 hours away. There are a bunch more in the 3 hour range if I head to Calgary, but I avoid cities unless absolutely necessary. I was able to satisfy the requirements of the August souvenir with a CITO. So yes...that EC 45 minutes away from me won't get found anytime soon, even though I drive past the location all the time. I'll be saving it for next summer/fall. For me, I love finding EarthCaches and will always look for them first when I'm travelling. However, around home I find the souvenirs to be a dis-incentive to find them earlier. I am hoping to place a new one or two, but I need to come up with a good location and information first!

A quote from the Newsletter today: "Your next Geocaching Road Trip ‘15 souvenir is waiting for you. All you have to do to earn the Meet Your Road Trip Crew souvenir is attend a geocaching event before September 3. That includes any event, Mega-Event or even a CITO Event." I guess they can't make up their mind.

Zanadian's Adventure I've done plenty of neat caches in Canada, but this one stands out. It's not particularly tourist-friendly, but it is amazing.

I've only ever released two, and then gave up. One went missing rapidly in BC, after travelling very little. The other bounced around BC for a bit and then went to France and then Germany where it also disappeared. So I'm 0/2 with one in Canada and one in Germany.

I prefer buttons. All I ever write for field notes are things to prompt maintenance notes later, things like "wet" or "full". Yes, entering coords or a waypoint name can be slightly painful, but it's not unmanageable for as often as I do it. I actually waited to get a new GPS for the eTrex30 to come out, because I didn't want a touchscreen. I spend 8 months of the year in gloves or mittens, no way!!

The BC Geocaching website just got re-done and the new forums aren't seeing much traffic, but you could try posting there. BCGA There is also the Metro Vancouver geocaching page, and their forum looks a little more active. MVGeocaching

+1 I use Ibycus Topo in Canada, though. Also free.

I generally carry my Olympus OM-D E-M10. I have a pancake lens for it that does most of what I want, though last week while walking through several herds of bighorn sheep I was sure wishing for more zoom.

There are some flowers showing up around here! Out hiding caches recently and these were a couple of the lovel flowers I came across.

Out on a hike and placing a cache a couple weeks ago, in winter range habitat for a variety of animals, we ran across several herds of bighorn sheep. They weren't too concerned about us.

I think that the system is ok the way it is. I saw a suggestion in the thread for giving an idea of how recent the FPs on a cache have been awarded, which is an interesting thought. I use FPs mostly for my own records of caches I liked, and also to show to the CO and maybe others that I liked it, though I prefer to use the text in my log for that. Others use FPs to look for caches they might like to search for. I don't want my FPs auto-returned to me upon archival because, the way that I use FPs, having it on the archived cache has value to me. If I were to be out of FPs and find a cache that I loved, I could then make the decision as to whether I liked it more than another cache on my favourites list and choose to remove a FP from another cache and award it to the one I just found. I like that the FP system has a limit on the number of favourites that I can give away, and is not the equivalent of cliking "like" on an unlimited number of caches.

Tough question! I fall into the "hiking anyway but geocaching along the way" group, especially when it comes to long hikes. In general if I'm hiking with geocaching being the primary goal I'm probably going for the day and not more than 35 km (21 miles or so). The longest hike I've done was the 184 km (114 mile) long Walkers' Haute Route and I found 2 caches along the way. It was in 2008, so there weren't too many en route and I wasn't willing to do much detouring. There are a few more along the way now, but still not many.