Blue_Ranger

Allegheny State Park Geobash was this past weekend, and one of the big attractions at ASPGB is always the night caches. 9 new ones were published this year, 1 just a few days before, and 4 each on Friday and Saturday. We discovered that because night caches are so popular there, there's a lot of old firetack trails that go nowhere... caches are up for 2 years and then archived, and it seems when CO's recover their old night caches, they usually don't pull their firetacks. When there's a turn, you have to examine the firetacks in the new direction-- if they look old and rusty, you probably don't want to turn there. On a couple of the caches, we pulled some of the clearly outdated tacks on our way back, so the next group would have an easier time of it.

Can those type caches near electrical devices still be published? I have found a few, but often wondered if they actually met guidelines. This one in particular was placed in 2014. My magnetic letters one just went live Sunday night, and yes, I did tell the reviewer what it was.

A couple other urban hides I've found that were creative: 1. a junction box, with a bit of conduit coming out the bottom to act as a stake. It was planted right up tight to the side of an air conditioner, placed with permission outside a library. 2. A fake cap made for a hollow post.

Urban hides are nearly always micros-- it's very difficult to find a good spot that will hold anything bigger. But they don't have to be ANOTHER boring skirt-lifter. I just hid a few right in the middle of my small town. One is a magnet stuck to an electrical box, on the face is some meaningless letters and numbers, peel it off to find the log inside the back. One is a bison tube made to look like a stake holding down a curb stone. The other is a welding rod holder, I got very lucky and found a cannon without a barrel plug!

I just posted a link for this cache on a Facebook page for a group that meets in Mt Morris, hopefully someone will be interested! Er, the SUNY Geneseo one, that is.

I just started caching in January 2015, so I missed out on following this adventure. Thanks Bench Mark for giving it a bump so I found this thread! The video link no longer works, but I'd love to see it. Has it maybe been uploaded to Youtube or something?

A few weeks ago, while I was out with a few other cachers, I was getting close. I was a little ahead of the others, and I called out that I was really close, and stopped to let the GPSr catch up. While I was standing there staring at the screen, one of the others says "There it is." It was literally right at my feet!

Wicked devious, and a really cool idea... but it's sure to go missing. People will paw around and fling it who knows where, never knowing they had their hand on it.

Number 13 is probably the single most common type of gadget cache out there. They're fun, especially if it's the first one you've ever found, but it's not as devious as it sounds-- simply because it's been done quite a few times, and if you've spent time browsing forums or FB groups you've probably heard of them. But how about one that LOOKS like a fill-it-with-water... but the cache, or waypoint tag more likely, is metal and won't float. Instead, you need to draw it up with a magnet.

I found one that was a magnet, with a couple of reflective numbers on it, stuck on a guardrail. It was the sort of thing that looks like it belongs there, don't know what the number means but I'm sure it's significant to someone... wait, it moved when I touched it! There was a little bitty hollow on the back, just big enough for a micro log.

Okay first couple of pics... looks like this may take a while, because I've used cement exactly twice before-- for a post hole, and a simple base for some front steps. Both of those times it was the premixed stuff that just needs water. Here's what I started with, a big kitty litter bucket and some styrofoam junk. And the first attempt at the cement. The batch was much too small, and also too much water. Bit of a learning curve here!

One reason some caches are made PMO is that the CO hopes to make it a regular stop for TB's. If you've spent the money on a premium membership, you're more likely to have spent some time looking all over the Groundspeak website, and hopefully understand what travel bugs are and how to log/move them properly. It's no guarantee of course, but more likely.

Woah, cool! Never occurred to me that real live moss might be available somewhere! The local moss coverage looks like the carpet moss they offer. I just came back from that patch of woods after getting a good close look at the rocks there, and I'm ready to get cracking on Project DUANE. The cement will need to cure for a month before it gets its coat of sealer, so I'll have time to decide whether to order the real stuff, or fake it with glue, sawdust, and green paint. The area is an extension of the Niagara Escarpment, but here it's only about 30 feet high. Some of the rocks that have tumbled farther away get some sun and have only a light covering of moss, so sawdust glued on and painted should look pretty convincing. I'll take pics as I go, I should have some this evening.

I first signed up with my real first name and last initial, and then once I browsed a bit and saw most people have something a bit more colorful. About a week later I changed it to Blue_Ranger, inspired by my geomobile.

By the way, the aim for this cache is to make it pretty hard to find. I'm hoping to make a dead-on match for the surrounding rocks, with a 5-gallon bucket incorporated into the "rock." Imagine getting to GZ for a cache listed as "large" and there's NOWHERE-- apparently-- to hide something that big, and who would even try to flip that rock, it must weigh 500 pounds... wait, it moved when I kicked it in frustration!

Yes, good point. Sounds like I really should look for a spot where a non-mossy rock would look normal. Getting it to grow in the first place will be time consuming, and the durability issue was one I hadn't thought of. Hopefully I'll find a specific spot where you would only go here because there's supposed to be a cache, and not really any reason to linger and poke around if you aren't a cacher.

Around me, Buffalo NY area, you usually only see the "Not Winter Accessible" attribute-- trails close for the season, or would be treacherous going if there was any snow, or located on the ground. There's some in Letchworth State Park that are actually disabled every winter to make sure no one goes after them. Those are accessed by trails along the edge of the gorge and any snow on the trail would make the hike terribly dangerous. Even those located on the ground usually don't have the attribute, just a note in the description that snow might bury it.

Reindeer "moss" is not a moss. It is a lichen. Will it still match where you want to hide this? Not really. The moss in that area is pretty consistent, a rich green with a sort of velvet texture. I've used reindeer moss before, in scale model scenery- makes great trees and bushes. D'oh! I knew I was forgetting something this weekend... hitting Home Depot for the cement ingredients! I also meant to hit that patch of woods to get closeup pictures of the rocks so I could get the color right.

Thanks for the suggestions. Part of the fake rock making process involves using a waterproofing ingredient in the mix. I'll check out what the craft stores have; I know they have actual reindeer moss, but that stuff doesn't grow here.

So I found a really cool video on youtube about making fake rocks, and now I'm thinking about a Hide-a-Key on steroids. In the woods where it will likely end up, all the rocks are quite mossy-- it's in the shade of a ridge. I'm wondering if anyone has any idea how long it takes for moss to grow on a rock, and what can be done to encourage the process? The outside surface of the rock will be cement. Hopefully it won't be too much of a bear to carry out there!

A lot of the time it involves the cache itself. At the moment I only own one. If you didn't actually go for an easy, .16 mile walk in the woods, find the ammo can tucked into the ruins of some sort of very old concrete building, and sign the log-- you're only cheating yourself. But if I put out a hide that was really challenging to get to/find, I think I'd be more diligent in enforcing "no signie no smiley."

TB hotels aren't a special type of cache or anything, it's just a cache large enough to fit TB's in it and the owner calls it that. So, no exception for them, they are subject to all the usual rules.

I'm from WNY and not familiar with any of those names, at least not as CO's! Cayuga Crew seems to be FTF on a good 50% of the caches I look at though. There's a group near Letchworth State Park that do some really awesome caches, the specific names I can remember are paleoman52, snowman257, and KillerB. You see one of those names, you know it's not going to be easy, but it IS going to be good.

The "Intro" app now does everything the paid app does, and a lot of things the paid app doesn't do. Now its limitations are because of free membership status versus paid membership-- free membership apparently triggers a "beginner mode." So there's really no incentive to buy the paid app anymore. If you have an Android, try c:geo.

Yeah most of the kayaking caches around me are ziptied to overhanging branches, I'm just concerned with this particular creek's drastic changes in water level-- what was a good height to grab while sitting in the boat on a "happy medium" day might well be in a prime place to get torn off by floating debris in the spring. This water trail is still purely hypothetical right now anyway, as it depends on whether the local kayakers persuade whatever government(s) to clear the creek. The name of the creek should make for some interesting cache names though, Murder Creek. It's in western New York, the section in question is from Akron Falls Park to the end at Ledge Creek.