drfred

The most fortunate thing about wanting a rock geocache container is that there tend to be lots of rocks around. All you need is: If you want to buy a rock, I can sell one to you - cheap!

Seen most of those and loved them. The pipe with water was fun, and then was replaced by another which took nearly a gallon to fill! There have been several variations here... I had a cache that was a bison tube up a tree on a fishing line loop, but despite using heavy duty line it kept breaking and I had to archive it. Perhaps I'll find another way to do this again. One of my favorites was a model airplane on a loop of line several hundred feet long hidden on a hillside. The coords put you at the bottom and you had to reel the plane down to you (and of course back up after the find) The ammo can 30 feet up into a tree is always good.

Shocked! yes... But I'll tell you the way to not be so shocked - tinfoil! Simply get a small piece of foil and form it into a cone, then place it onto your head. You'll be amazed at how clearly you can think once you are free of the government's mind control...

Please go find your reviewer and beat them up for me.

The problem isn't having premium membership or not...the problem is not being able to see your own caches. It is pure silliness if you can't see your own caches. I understand the situation here is different, but even if someone without a PM wanted to hide caches restricted to PMs, they should be able to see their own page! As a programming problem this is trivial - Groundspeak needs to fix this immediately! (disclaimer: I've been a PM for ~7 years, so that's not an issue)

Why would anyone hide a cache and not put the name of the cache and the hide date in there? I've got some micros and nanos and even put the name in those. this is not difficult

I have a great idea for a new cache - a mystery cache, of course. The cache is hidden on/near electrical equipment and is fake, but the kicker is that it will be fully powered with 115 volts (or 225, if you like). There will be a light showing that it is active. There will be a ground fault detector attached to an outlet that you have to trip - maybe stick a screwdriver into the socket to do it. Once the GFI trips the cache door will open. The biggest problem is that the finder will have to be asked to reset the ground fault switch before leaving and I'm afraid some will not... So how can I get a GFI switch to automatically reset? Do they make "soft" GFIs that I can have reset on a timer or I can do remotely?

An early experience I had with this was ~5 years ago when a nearby cache was missing and parts were found at the site. I posted a "Needs Maintenance" log and was slammed from the cache owner as well as another local cacher to replace it myself. (!?!) I hadn't had much cache experience at the time, but to replace someone else's full size cache seemed odd to me. The owner and I started an e-mail flame war that finally ended when I DID replace the cache - not so much for the cache owner but for my own peace of mind (and for the smiley!) Looking back (and this is much easier now than it was 5-6 years ago) I should have hit the cache with a "Needs Archived" note and replaced it with my own cache. Community maintenance is a great thing - to a point. I moved from the Raleigh/Durham area ~5 years ago and have several caches in the area that have been kept up by the community - one was recently archived and I am secretly thankful!

Nice one. Got relatively quickly. I may have to incorporate this idea into one of my upcoming toughies... Thanks!

Well, I was scrambling to come up with a pun of my own, but my brain is fried, so I think it would be best to let it go...

What is what? I see a mountain with a sunset. What else am I supposed to see? There are some clouds, of course...

Fantastic camera, but it's the complete opposite of what this guy is looking for! OK, true. But I would argue that with the super lightweight 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX lens you can take it just about anywhere, unless you are rock climbing or rafting... For the cache hunt I don't want to lug the d90 on I bring an old Canon PowerShot SD1000. Fits in the pocket, is rugged, lens retracts, and the picture quality is great. Cheap, too. When the PowerShot is even too much I have the camera on the iPhone, which is a must carry item for me. If you want an all-purpose, super rugged camera that can handle water and temperatures I agree the Olympus Tough series is the way to go - not so cheap, though, if you want good quality pictures...

Alright, I'll jump in. Just to avoid being PC I'll say you are all right, and all wrong. It all depends on placement. Keep your cache dry with good placement and the container won't be too much of an issue. That said, my take: 35mm film containers: white "innies" fare better than black and gray "outies". Both do OK overall but too many are filled with mush over time. The key around here is the inner baggie. Key holders: Work great for the first year or so. The plastic flip top ones tend not to be as waterproof but do better in the long run. The metal hide-a-keys really start to rust after a few years and get very difficult to open. Those and the Hillman ones also tend not to be waterproof so unless a good inner baggie is used the logs turn to mush. "Bison" tubes: Love these myself but they don't hold up great over time. At least they are cheap and are easy to replace. Biggest problem is O ring failure causing a breach in the SRB joint allowing pressurized hot gas...err...I meant to say O ring failure leading to moisture getting into the seal. This can cause the contents to get moist but also can cause the top to rust onto the container. I carry pliers now due to the number of bison tubes that have become fused shut. Small containers: Glad lock and other small "Tupperware" containers are hit-or-miss. Remember that the latest, cheaper, Glad and Ziploc brands are designed to be disposable, and over time develop cracks in the lids or the containers themselves. The "Lock & Lock" containers are a notable exception and hold up quite well. In my experience they are easy to camo tape and still seal well. Ammo cans: Great, great, and great. In all my geocaching I have not seen an ammo can with water in it unless the lid was clearly improperly closed by a previous finder. I've found a number of underwater ammo cans. The latest here lasted several weeks before someone didn't put the lid on right and it sank. Just check the sealing ring when buying one and you should be good to go. Alternative containers: food tins, novelty items, are fun at first but usually don't last. Most of the completely homemade containers I have seen are ingenious in their designs and fun to find but not all are designed with longevity in mind. Blood collection vials are definitely waterproof. Just think about making log retrieval easier. Some logs I've seen have used a paper clip bent around the log to pull it out. Works well until the paper clip rusts. Biggest key: maintenance. Replace the container. Replace the baggies containing the logs. I only keep about 25 caches active at any time because that is all I can actively maintain.

[stupidity removed by moderator. Poster is advised to grow up.]

Nikon D90. Best all purpose camera period. Get a fixed 35mm lens and you are good to go.

OK. I'll admit that I am a late logger on purpose. The FTF game is just that - a game within a game - and there is no recognition from GC whatsoever about it. So why log one at all? Why spoil the fun for the others out there who think they have a chance at it? This works particularly well on puzzles. I'm sure that most of you have experienced running out with the anticipation of being FTF only to see someone elses name atop the logbook - I've become the STF master in these parts with over 150 STFs. How about running out for a cache and find that you are #8 or #12 on the list for a cache not logged yet. Happens here all the time. In the land of PHAH (see dixiecachers.com for definition) if a cache has been posted for more than 1 hour it has been found. If posted more than 1 day it has half a dozen finders. Don't fret about the logs...

Sorry...that came off wrong - I was trying to make a point about the 4chan type crowd and say that we have much more to offer and are a great group in general. I hate to see our forums degrade into petty arguments.

This thread has been particularly toxic, and that is saying a lot. Just a few choice words from this topic: And those words don't even get close to capturing the sneering condescension of most of the posters, whether responding to the OP or other posters. Now the GC forums don't get anywhere as nasty as many on the web, but we are geocachers - not petty, whiny, socially inept computer geeks sitting in parents' basements in PJs eating twinkies and wondering what it would be like to meet someone really, honestly, for true in person - are we? ahem? anyone? Beuller? Beuller?

I was going to make a similar point. I have had a couple of caches hidden at a local mall for years. Management knows the caches and is fine with them. Every 6 months or so I get a string of logs about people getting run off by security - usually because it is a new set of guards that don't know about the cache. The biggest problem I find is that people TRY to "act stealthy" which just gets the security guards' suspicions up. If a guard comes up to me I'll tell them what I'm doing and usually tell them that their manager knows about it (LOL...99% of the time these days no one ever asked permission but this seems to mollify them).

I can't get people to do a 2 stage multi here. If people got a smiley for each stage I'll bet there would be more interest. The most I've done was one with 18. My longest hidden is a 7 stager - only 5 finders in over 2 years.

Took care of a lady in the ICU a few weeks ago who got herself there eating poke salit... Yes, it is poisonous. No, cooking 3 times does not get rid of the poison. And yes, the berries themselves are one of the most toxic parts of the plant.

How about another forum thread leaving a bad impression on non-cachers and cachers alike...

I used to get into the whole FTF thing, but was always beaten out by a local cacher who has over 500 FTFs. So my game is the STF. You have to time things just right - wait long enough for one person to get it but not so long that the whole crowd has been there. Caching couples and teams really screw up the whole STF game, but the spirit of the game is still there. That said I have 147 FTFs and 192 STFs. That's out of ~3500 caches so about 10%! I work and have a very busy job these days, so my caching numbers have been going way down over the past year. Oh well...

OK, I was driving near the area today and made a side trip to get this one...Keep in mind it is 100 degrees in Alabama these days. Got to the area and walked over a great old bridge that is out of service. The GPS pointed me about 75 feet off the trail - only problem is that 75 feet off the trail is 100 feet down. Scrambled/slid down the hill and thrashed through the poison ivy along the way. There were a number of places to hide a cache at the bottom, but nothing close to the "confirmed" coordinates. Looked for 30 minutes at everything nearby including a pedestrian bridge with no luck. Oh well, such is geocaching. The only suggestion I have is to indicate what to look for. If this is an ammo can that is one thing, or if this is a micro, it's another. When out in the boonies with "No Service" on the phone, no access to the site, and iffy coords, any suggestion is greatly appreciated! Thanks for a great cache - I'm sure it's there, but I couldn't find it today. Crawled back up the hill, sweaty, mosquito bitten, and tired to log my DNF...

I do what the previous cachers said - grab a stick off the ground and wave it in front of me while walking. Works pretty well. I really am not afraid of spiders because what can they do to me? So a few rare spiders might make me sick if they bite me? A few not so rare mosquitoes can do the same... I really don't want any insect bites, so I try to be careful so I won't get itchy bites, but it is a matter of perspective. On the other hand, and maybe I need to start a new thread, there are plenty of snakes out there that can hurt us while caching. I have had a few run-ins with poisonous snakes while caching (copperhead, cottonmouth, and rattler) and harbor an unrealistic fear of snakes. I know the majority of snakes I see while caching are harmless, but one sight of a black racer, corn snake, or rat snake while walking through the grass in tennis shoes or sandals and I'm outta there...