Forest Guy

Sorry guys, my bad - I took down the server logging all my challenges. I'm done now.

Somebody recently backlogged a find on one of my caches, I'm sure they put in the wrong date because their log date precedes the cache published date! Obviously I could remove the log and contact them to let them know why but I think it's kind of funny, so I left it.

I've had this happen twice - The first one (about 3 years ago) was the cache that got me into geocaching, just happened to stumble upon it while hiking in the woods near my house. Once I researched what geocaching was about, I was hooked! Interestingly enough, it happened again, only a few days ago. Same patch of woods near my house. I was scouting out some locations for a future cache placement when I found a good spot...on closer inspection, I spied a regular sized cache there that I was unfamiliar with (I have several caches placed already in these woods)...no intact log book but the cache lid had the name of the cache and coordinates. I had to look at old logs from the oldest cache nearby, figuring someone probably logged them both on the same day. Sure enough, I found it was an old (circa 2002 - GCAC97) cache that had been archived in early 2005...apparently it was never picked up by CO, so I was the first to find in 5 1/2 years...pretty cool!

What about AutoJoey, almost 3000 in a day! http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=80...3f-7935310c712d Hope they get rid of this account soon...

I recently picked up a travel bug (an old key) originally from the Czech Republic, released June 2007 and has 25,622 miles recorded...the most by far of any that I've found. I bet a lot of you can beat that, though...what is the farthest distance traveled by a trackable that you've picked up?

I like the website meetup.com, you can search for groups by interest, try searching for "geocaching" If there's no group in your local area, start one! Before long you will have a few members, and then you can plan a geocaching trip somewhere to grab a few caches as a group.

That's funny, I just happened to do that same cache today!

Probably not all that unusual but a bit tricky, as the coordinates were off about 20 feet -

GREAT visual! I already started my own anti-micro thread so I won't reiterate. Your idea got me thinking though, I would like try to make the biggest cache, maybe hollow out a 30 ft. tree and put some big swag in there like soccer balls, tricycles and computer monitors. Now THAT'S a cache! The logbook can be rolled up posterboard and you can sign it with a can of spray paint.

Uh? How about the ranger tries emailing the cache owner threw the owner link on the gc.com cache page? If you had removed the damaged cache completey you would have better grounds for getting the cache listing archived. Getting the listing taken care of would be part of the maintance IMO. Newbs are welcome. Stubborn people that think their idea is the best ever and can't see anyone else's point on anything are welcome also. (though they will probably spend a lot of time butting heads ) I happen to agree to Prime Suspect, if you have no chance of ever getting control of the cache page, then work on getting the old one archived and start over with your own. There doesn't have to be something as severe as the location being changed to need to make some changes that you need page control to do. There are many things the owner is expected to do, that involve control you won't ever have . What if something written in the descrption needs change?(what the container was, or its color size shape) What if the hint/clue needs to be changed? What if someone can't find the cache and emails the owner asking for help? How about adding some new features to the page like attributes or waypoints? What happens if the area has a rock fall, or forest fire, or some other thing happens that you want people to stay away for a while? Do you plan on removing obvisous fake logs from really bored germans? How long will logs with porn/spam/obscene langage sit there till you can get a friendly reviewer to remove them? Your hypotheticals don't apply to the cache I'm talking about. Boy, now I really feel like I opened up a can of worms. Tell you what - go into my profile, look at my notes for the cache. You want to initiate an archive, go ahead. Whatever makes you feel better. Next time I won't waste my time and money helping my fellow local cachers who enjoy this cache, which happens to be one of the oldest in the immediate area. I thought that was important, but whatever I'm a newb. I'll just stick to caching rather than wasting time here, it's not worth it.

I know this because the cache in question is located in a state forest. The cache is still hit up on a regular basis, so in this case I stand by my decision to replace the cache container. The original container was a 5 gallon glass pickle jar and had lots of swag inside. When I found it, the jar was split in two. Once I returned home I noted the last finder mentioned he accidentally dropped the jar, and I couldn't get ahold of the cache owner to replace the jar. So I replaced it. The cache has had other finders post-maintenance, so everything appears to be back to normal. If I don't hear back from the original cache placer in six months, I'll let the reviewer know. You know the cache owner hasn't been getting email about the cache because... it's in a state forest??? Because of where it is, you somehow become imbued with mystical knowledge of someone else's email? That it's in a state forest just underlines the problem. Should a social trail start to form, and the Ranger involved wants it relocated, his emails to the absent owner are ending up in the bit bucket. Which makes the owner appear to be a bad steward of his cache, and makes geocachers as a group look bad. You know, I've been posting to these forums for all of a week and you're the second 'old timer' who seems afwully jaded and cynical to someone taking an interest in the hobby. What gives, Mr. wet blanket? How would the 'ranger' email the cache owner without an email address anyway? There was no indication in the cache that it was a geocache other than signatures in the logbook. I printed out the geocache form from this website and included it when i repaired the cache. Somehow this gets interpreted as actions which would make geocachers look bad. I don't get it, I really don't. It would have been better for me to remove the cache completely, since by all indications it was abandoned, and I volunteer my time and effort for trash removal in the forest 3 seasons each year, as well as work with several groups including the local mountain biking and native american groups which utilize and maintain the forest. Then when people who already have the cache set up in their GPS and find NOTHING instead of a nice clean cache where they would expect one, this is somehow making the geocachers group look bad? Just my opinion here, I may be wrong, but I think your bad experience with someone completely changing a cache and moving it is tainting your view of the scenario I'm presenting. Maybe it's a bad idea to try to integrate into this community, as i'm beginning to get a vibe that geocaching newbs are not particularly welcome and somehow we are tainting your hobby. I'd like to be snide and say 'well next time i'll just take a garbage bag and clean out the broken glass, wet log book and trinkets littering my local forest' but realistically, I plan to continue to maintain this cache in a good condition whether or not I have approval of someone on this message board. When I first found this cache, I was a 'muggle' who never knew what geocaching was and it piqued my interest in the hobby, and for that reason I have a special interest in keeping this cache from falling into the memory hole.

Well I think that's a much different scenario. I didn't change my cache from an ammo box to a micro and move it somewhere different! LOL that's way out of line. I would never move someone else's cache, in my case the cache container was destroyed so I simply changed the container to an equivalent size and put it in the exact same location with all the contents of the previous container. Pretty straightforward. I think a little common sense needs to come into play when 'adopting' a cache. Again, I could've done an archive request and then gone through the process to reset the cache under my ownership but this cache has been active since 2002 and has a pretty good find history going, so why not enable it to 'live on'? And how do you know the land owner didn't email the cache owner that he wanted the cache removed, who then decided to just abandon it? You replaced a cache, just as if you were the owner, but you don't get the owner's email. If you want to put out a cache there, it's real simple. Let it get archived, and then you can DO IT THE RIGHT WAY. I know this because the cache in question is located in a state forest. The cache is still hit up on a regular basis, so in this case I stand by my decision to replace the cache container. The original container was a 5 gallon glass pickle jar and had lots of swag inside. When I found it, the jar was split in two. Once I returned home I noted the last finder mentioned he accidentally dropped the jar, and I couldn't get ahold of the cache owner to replace the jar. So I replaced it. The cache has had other finders post-maintenance, so everything appears to be back to normal. If I don't hear back from the original cache placer in six months, I'll let the reviewer know.

Well I think that's a much different scenario. I didn't change my cache from an ammo box to a micro and move it somewhere different! LOL that's way out of line. I would never move someone else's cache, in my case the cache container was destroyed so I simply changed the container to an equivalent size and put it in the exact same location with all the contents of the previous container. Pretty straightforward. I think a little common sense needs to come into play when 'adopting' a cache. Again, I could've done an archive request and then gone through the process to reset the cache under my ownership but this cache has been active since 2002 and has a pretty good find history going, so why not enable it to 'live on'?

I don't think parking lot caches would fly in my area, there has been a historic problem with break-ins in the garages, and they are patrolled regularly by security personnel riding golf carts. I think someone hanging around looking for something might arouse too much suspicion!

I looked into that one, but noticed the data cable to connect to a PC was a serial port, which my laptop didn't have. I went for the Garmin Legend CX which has a USB data cable, not to mention a color screen which is nice. I also didn't want something 'too fancy' and figured I could trade up later if I wanted more features. I really love this little unit, it's doing everything I need it to for a reasonable price. There's a more powerful model, Legend HCX but I didn't opt to spend the extra money.

[img=http://a222.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/71/l_331df46526be05bda4ad7b3e21142ffd.jpg]

You almost have it...but you have to put the img tag with brackets before and after your picture. I'll put them on three different lines so you can see: The example URL you used is not an image link, it just takes you to the myspace page that has the picture. What you need to do, is right-click the picture and select properties. The picture URL is: http://a222.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/image...b3e21142ffd.jpg Now, put that together on one line and you get this:

Usually the format looks like this: <img>http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif</img> In the above example, change the < > brackets into [ ] brackets and it should work. The result is what you see below:

More than 10% of my humble waymarks have been visited. I don't even live in a populated area of Florida, like Tampa or Miami. How many of my waymarks have 0 views? None. My waymarks show up in searches for people seeking information. How many times have you become friends with a local historian so you could hide a geocache? Probably none. Yet, doing this for several of my waymarks brings some satisfaction. Geocaching didn't get me into the Mayor's office, nor have him personally introduce me to the county's Historical Society so I could gather as much information as possible. This is all Waymarking. Virtuals would've never provided a platform for such an opportunity. And I value these opportunities and experiences. This is a hobby for me. It's something that I don't have to do, but just doing it and enjoying it has opened a lot doors and gained me a lot of contacts that I wouldn't have otherwise had. I'm just a photographer. I don't have a history degree or a journalism degree. They've welcomed in this lowly photographer based on what I've done and continue to do... in Waymarking. They couldn't care less about the regular-size container behind the old fire tower. Only Geocachers like the tupperware behind the old fire tower. Don't get me wrong, that's awesome. I like making fellow Geocachers happy. But I recognise that my waymarks can interest more than fellow Waymarkers. It works for me and many others. Regardless of whether someone logs a visit on the waymark page, people are visiting the waymarks every day. They're visiting physically and they're visiting virtually. There are better waymarkers than me who have posted much better waymarks than I have. If people are viewing my waymarks and it's creating these opportunities for me, imagine what it's doing for someone with actual talent. There are some people who toss out cheap fast food waymarks to get an icon on their grid and increase their numbers for that silly ribbon... but there are also people who put a lot of work and creativity into their waymarks. Thus concludes my Waymarking Cheerleading for this week. Ra-Ra! - Elle I just checked out the Waymarking website and searched my area code. There's proably about 50-60 waymarks within about 1/10 mile from my house, and I probably already have pictures of about 30 of them in my computer...most of the ones I clicked on have 1 or 2 visits at most. It doesn't seem very popular to me. I like the 'hidden' aspect of geocaching, sightseeing is OK and all, but there's not much payoff IMO.

I have that exact scenario going on now, cache was the first I ever found, before I knew what geocaching is. It was placed in 2002, and is really a great cache in a great location. But the container was a clear glass jar, and a previous visitor dropped the jar cracking it in half. I found it, and took it upon myself to replace the container. I emailed the owner for approval but no reply, his last activity on the site was 2006. The cache has a 'needs maintenance' flag but other than that it is now in good shape, I just check on it every now and then.

I see snakes often, thought I don't think they're of the venomous variety. Just saw one today while placing a TB. He is in the first picture below: One I encountered last week: And one the week before that:

HA way to go! Careful it does get addicting! Good find, looks almost identical to one I found earlier today.

The good news is that these are remarkably easy to avoid completely if you want to. Set the filters on your PQs and you'll never have to see another one. Excellent advice! You can even go one step farther, and hand select any micros that come across your inbox which might appeal to you. This way you get the best of both worlds. All the micros which you don't happen to like instantly disappear from your radar, and those few that meet your personal caching aesthetics are on your GPSr. It works. I wasn't even aware of this site feature so I set that up and I'm pretty happy now. Unfortunately, I can't ignore the micros I've already attempted so I may just have to keep trying those...I'm stubborn like that! And don't give up on them either. You may not like them now, but may find yourself liking then sometime in the future. I don't really pay attention to my stats and was surprised when I finally checked on them that over 50% of my finds were micros. I think you're right, a lot of it is more exposure and experience, I think you sharpen your skills the more caches you find, you start to think like a cache placer. I have a ways to go, right now the micros are too much work with my limited caching time.

Wow, that's too bad, I always try not to break branches and step on bushes when I'm on the hunt. I'd love to do some caching out by the Quabbin, maybe next spring/summer. Gotta work my way out west!

After waiting about a year I just picked up a Garmin Legend CX from amazon.com, I love the thing, USB connection, color screen and all sorts of features I'll probably learn to use someday LOL. Pretty easy to get going right out of the box. I see them listed $129-139 with free shipping so it's a pretty good deal. I would definately go with the "H" series though as it has the new updated chip for better satellite signal.. Yeah, I'd say if you have the money go for it. I opted to go for the lower cost one as it is my first GPS and it's been fine for my needs so far, but as always don't skimp on the GPS if you can afford the better model. I was originally shopping for the Garmin Legend which is even lower cost than mine, but the non-USB interface would've made it hard to interface with my laptop.