Gan Dalf
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Posts posted by Gan Dalf
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According to the open street map Hatton does not have any caches. "Old Bones" is close. Is it a valid cache for Hatton?
Wow Dick, you're really keeping me honest!
Unlike the other two cities which had caches that were archived or have gone missing within their city limits, I drew the lines around Hatton specificlly to include the Old Bones cache, yes it is eligible and gets good reviews. Hope you enjoy it. -
All, I have added the note below to the cache page.
Hello Everyone
I have had to make some updates to a couple of the places in teh challenge. As of right now, Bucoda, WA in thurston County and Yacolt, WA in Clark county are no longer part of the challenge. Both of those places had only one eligible cache in them which have either gone missing or been archived. I know of only one person that is currently working ont he challenge that this affects but if you found a cache in either Bucoda or Yacolt I apologize for declairing those places ineligible.
I have picked two new cities with many options for caches in the same counties. The new cities are Washoougal, WA in Clark County and Yelm, WA in Thurston Couty. I have updated the chart to include these two new cities.
Also, please see below for all of the changes that have been made to the text file that is to be used with mapping programs. I have updated the link on th efilter instructions to direct you to the most up to date maps. Please contact me directly or post in the forums if you have any questions regarding this. Thanks to all that have provided feedback.
# Polygon File for Washington State
# Cities and Towns Challenge
# version 2.0 changes from version 1.3: Removed Bucoda, WA
# version 2.0 changes from version 1.3: Removed Yacolt, WA
# version 2.0 changes from version 1.3: Added Yelm, WA
# version 2.0 changes from version 1.3: Added Washogal, WA
# version 2.0 changes from version 1.3: Redrew Wilkeson, WA
# version 1.3 changes from version 1.2: Redrew Stevenson, WA again
# to include a wider strip of the Columbia River
# version 1.3 changes from version 1.2: Redrew Bellevue, WA so that it does not
# completely enclose Beaux Arts Village
# version 1.3 changes from version 1.2: Redrew Beaux Arts Village, WA
# version 1.2 changes from version 1.1: Redrew Coupville, WA to include finger pier
# version 1.2 changes from Version 1.1: Redrew Stevenson, WA to include more of Columbia River
# version 1.1 changes from version 1.0 Moun10Bike fixed spokane, WA and Longview WA mapping errors.
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I have a question about the location you will pick to take the place of cacheless Yacolt. Will it be in the same area and how soon will you be able to pick the location. I hope the owner of Bucoda cache will check and replace the cache soon. He sounds like a cacher that will check soon. We are working our way down I5 picking up needed caches on either side. We will be doing the Black Diamond run this next weekend if the wx is good. Thank you. Dick and Arlene
Hi Dick,
The next city I will add to the challenge is Yelm, which is close to Bucoda. There are no acceptable choices near Yacolt. I considered Battle Ground but that is basicly just an extension of Vancouver. I will most likely be replacing both Bucoda and Yacolt. The location that the Bucoda cache is in is too public, the cache will contniue to be a problem. I won't be picking anymore one cache towns for the challenge should it be necessary to replace cities in the future.
If you are caching near Yelm I would plan on getting one there, if you haven't already found one near there. The other replacement will probably be in Eastern Washington. The owner of the Bucoda cache sent me a note that he would check this weekend but if I don't hear from him by midweek then I will be updating the challenge with two new cities, one of which will be Yelm.
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I was wondering if you found the cache in Bucoda. Also still doing a little route planing and I notice Cathlamet Cache is in
Cathlamet but Work & More Work is in East Cathlamet. I assume they are seperate towns. According to the open street map 'The Haunted Valley is not in the city limits of Yacolt. Is it a valid cache for Yacolt? Thanks Dick
I looked for the Bucoda cache yesterday and couldn't find it. I sent a note to the CO asking for him to check on it but given the high number of DNF's on the Bucoda Cache and if the CO does not get back to me I might have to wave Bucoda from the challenge for now and remove it from the challenge entirely and replace Bucoda with another city in the long term.
For the purposes of the challenge consider Cathlamet and East Cathlamet to be the same city, that is how it appears on the map and as far as I know they are the same city.
Yacolt had another cache in it when I drew the map. The one you are asking about i soutside the city limits. For now Yacolt is waved fromthe challenge until I pick a new one.
I guess this is the draw back of trying to include the very small cities. With only one cache in this as well as several other cities the challenge might change over time. In hindsight I probably should have set a criteria of a minmium number of caches per city when I was selcting them for the challenge but a lot of people seemed interested in including the very smallest cities inthe state, places you would never visit otherwise, in the challenge. I will change that moving forward.
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That does sound like an Awesome trip! Your dedication to the Challenge is very much appriciated. I saw that you logged my cache at the senior cneter in Snohomish and it made me smile when I saw your name on the log.
I am going to be updating some of the maps, including Bellevue and Beaux Arts Village because of the overlap issues that some have reported and I will look into the one you mention is Skykomish as well.
First we had a great trip to places we have never been in before. Most were about the size of the little town (Bible Grove, Illinois) where I was born 86 years ago.
I have been using open street maps that show the boundries for each town. Woodinville sure is a messed up boundry.
according to the boundries shown for Beaux Arts Village "Up UP and Away" is the only valid cache showing. However, I will be also looking for "HA take that" as you said it would count. As the Cache Owner you can judge the placement of the cache as you see it. dick
Yes, I am aware. Another group of experienced cachers DNF'd it as well. As luck would have it, I am driving to Portland tomorrow and I will be stopping by this cache to see if I can find it. If I don't I will write to the cache owner and depending on their response (or lack there of) I might end up removing Bucoda from the list and adding another one.
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Dick that sounds like a great road trip. Was the cache you looked for in Duvall GC2BBP2 Book Cache 1: Bridge to Terabithia?
Yes, our GPSs never did settle down. I would have guessed it would be near the bridge. Any way we only needed one and we found it at the Post Office. dick
so yo found hte caches, did you get the chance to expereince the places that you found them in?
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That does sound like an Awesome trip! Your dedication to the Challenge is very much appriciated. I saw that you logged my cache at the senior cneter in Snohomish and it made me smile when I saw your name on the log.
I am going to be updating some of the maps, including Bellevue and Beaux Arts Village because of the overlap issues that some have reported and I will look into the one you mention is Skykomish as well.
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Even in the circumstances that you outlined, granting exceptions to the proximity guidelines seems to be an extremely rare thing. Rare as in, almost never heard of.
I completely disagree.
I have a puzzle cache that is three miles from the listed coords. I explained to the reviewer in a reviewers note why I wanted it that way when I relaeased the cache and was granted the exception wiht no questions asked.
There was recently a traditional cache published within the 528ft minimum of another mystery that I own. When I wrote to the releasing reviewr to complain that they had released a cache within the proximity restirctions of one of my cahces they (politelty) reminded me that they had alos relaeased another one of my caches (a multi this time) whose final waypont was also witin the minimum...
So I have 3 personal expereiences with reviewers ignoring proximity guidelines which represent about 7% of my hides. Not a terribly high percentage but not "almost never heard of" either...
I think if you explain to reviewer why, and are patient in recieving a response, then I think they are for the most part willing to work with you as long as it is an exception and not the norm...
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If they are hiding caches like those that they enjoyed finding, then how can it be called 'crappy cache proliferation'? They are hiding caches that pretty certainly will be enjoyed by others.This is a slight tangent but this post illustrates a point that I have tried to make for quite a while. When you first start caching, you look for caches that are closest to the places that you drive by everyday. Excpet for the very earliest cachers, no one buys a GPS and then drives 100 miles to get a cache the day that bought it, you find the things that are close to where you live. Typically, those are in Urban areas of strip malls, gaurd rails, rck walls and park benches.So after you find the two or three dozen that are within a couple of miles from your house and/or work you think you have a pretty good idea how these things are supposed to be hidden, which of course is in lamp posts, gaurd rails and rock walls. So the newbie cacher goes out and hides the type of caches that they have "enjoyed" finding. Consequently what happens? They hide more LPC's, gaurdrails and rock wall nides hear where they live or work, and the problem of crappy cache proiliferation continues.
It isn't until you've really found an awesome hide that you "discover" how incredible some hides can be but becasue there have been such an exploding number of new entries (starting about the time that I took up the sport) into the sport in the last few years, you are going to continue to see a higher percentage of not very well thought out hides as new cachers continue to place the types of caches they have found...
Because much like a two year old that thinks macaroni and cheese and hotdogs is the greatest meal in the world they don't realize that there are far better ways to nourish themselves then eating starch covered with powdered cheese and ground up pig guts.
I think this log sums up my thoughts on this. I'm not saying they didn't enjoy looking for the caches they found or hiding ones that were similar, I'm saying they don't realize that there are much better ways to hide a cache in a way that will be an even better experience for old as well as new cachers.
BTW, I still like to eat macaroni and cheese and hot dogs once in a while, especially when I need a quick meal to keep me going and there is nothing else in the house to eat. I just prefer a broader choice and more variety most of the time...
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Hello,
we have some troubles with irresponsive reviewer too
1. 2011-04-29: New cache was enabled for review.
2. 2011-04-29: Reviewer posted a note, that Mystery cache does not comply guideline about distance between bogus coords and final coords (should be 2 miles max). Reviewer also asked for reply in form of reviewer note, NOT direct spam to his mailbox.
3. 2011-04-29: Owner posted a reviewer note with exception request (distance is 2.6 miles in this case) with reasoning (low-saturated mountainous location, bogus coords are very thematical and not randomly chosen).
4. 2011-05-10: As of today, cache is still without reviewer reaction.
Cache is active, enabled.
What's your suggestion? To wait? How long? Do we have any escalation options?
My caches were published by 6 different reviewers in the past, but reactions of this local reviewer are sometimes strange and unpredictable. Anyway, I value volunteer work very much and from obvious reasons I don't wish to appear on his "blacklist".
What to do?
Thank you.
I think reviewers have some discression about whether to grant an exception bu tanother option is to appeal it to Groundspeak Directly. Write to appeals@groundsepak.com or contact@Groundspeak.com to ask for a guideline variation.
Thsi will not necessarily result in a faster resolution and publication of your cache however. I know from expereince that asking for an appeal can be a lengthy process...
It hasn't been two weeks yet, wait until then and then e-mail the reviewer directly. You could also ask another local reviewer, one that you have gotten quick rpelies from before, to take a look at your cache and see if they know of any issues. There are also reviewers that frequent these boards and will sometimes go and look at stagnant listing and post what they see or give opinions on the listing here...
Good luck.
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When I was brand new to this game, I hunted for the caches closest to my home. A guardrail cache. Several lamppost caches. Altoids tin in the bushes. One ammo can chained to a bush outside the fire station. I was eyeballing a nearby guardrail to hide a cache of my own, but then I discovered an awesome multi/puzzle as my searches kept taking me farther from home.
This is a slight tangent but this post illustrates a point that I have tried to make for quite a while. When you first start caching, you look for caches that are closest to the places that you drive by everyday. Excpet for the very earliest cachers, no one buys a GPS and then drives 100 miles to get a cache the day that bought it, you find the things that are close to where you live. Typically, those are in Urban areas of strip malls, gaurd rails, rck walls and park benches.
So after you find the two or three dozen that are within a couple of miles from your house and/or work you think you have a pretty good idea how these things are supposed to be hidden, which of course is in lamp posts, gaurd rails and rock walls. So the newbie cacher goes out and hides the type of caches that they have "enjoyed" finding. Consequently what happens? They hide more LPC's, gaurdrails and rock wall nides hear where they live or work, and the problem of crappy cache proiliferation continues.
It isn't until you've really found an awesome hide that you "discover" how incredible some hides can be but becasue there have been such an exploding number of new entries (starting about the time that I took up the sport) into the sport in the last few years, you are going to continue to see a higher percentage of not very well thought out hides as new cachers continue to place the types of caches they have found...
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Are you saying that these three qualify for
beaux Arts Village?
The three caches in question are
GCYY96 up up and away
GC1BXKF Ha take that
GCRN3A Chesterfield beach.
dick
Yes, all 3 fall inside the boundries I have drawn for Beaux Arts Village
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I really want to know what this means:
26958: Terms of Use Agreement Modification
Hotfixed the TOU to add language prohibiting the publication of spoilers for any geocache without consent of the cache owner
Does this mean that it gives CO's the right to delete your log if you talk about the cache or hide in any manner that they deem is revealing ho wtheir cache is hid?
If so, it seems to me that this new policy encourages the short non-descrpit logs that everyone is complaining about...
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Is anyone else having problems with the GSAK filter not returning results for Beaux Arts Village?
I have three qualifying caches there and when I run the file none of them show up. I have filtered for the appropriate type, (ones in Bellevue show up fine) and the arc poly tab is a direct import from the downloaded file.
I have also tried just cutting and pasting the BAV portion and running a seperate filter on it. When I do this it returns the three caches. Could there be a problem with overlap or because BAV is inside Bellevue?
Just wondering if anyone else is having/noticed this, or if it is just me.
The three caches in question are
GCYY96 up up and away
GC1BXKF Ha take that
GCRN3A Chesterfield beach.
Hi Andrew!
Don't know what to tell you about the problems that you are having but rest assured that all of those caches qualify so go ahead and include them. It must be working for others because Kiersolvd noted in this same thread that several caches might actually be in Bellevue and I know for certain that one cacher went to log a cache in BAV because they knew it qualified so the filter must be working for them.
Thanks for pointing out that BAV is enclosed completely within Bellevue, that was not my intent. I have a couple of other cities that need adjusting as pointed out by a couple of other challengers and so I will fix that in my next update.
Hope you are having fun!
Keep Caching!
FM
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Things are looking up. The new maps show the city limits very well. We have gone thru all of our past finds that we had listed
on the bookmark. Found two that I have deleted that were out of the city limits. One being Mesa and Esquatzel Coulee that is not in the city limits. I want to be sure what I have is OK and don't have to make any repeat trips. Had my staples removed yesterday from my hernias operation and blood drawn out from a pouch that developed above one of the stitches. So Monday we will drive to Forks to find a cache. I am sure we have found caches there but haven't come up with any. Will just pick up a few caches in Port Angeles if we feel OK. I have all of my caches, found and need to find on a map. Our next trip will be to drive up to Blaine and work our way back down. Arlene had a mild stroke that affected her vision and is still in therapy for that, so we will slowly work our way through the caches we need. Thanks for the challenge. Gives us something to look forward to. Dick and Arlene
Hi Dick,
glad to hear that things are looing up and that you and Arlene are going to be able to get out to find some more cache fo rth echallenge over the next couple of weks.
I was going to send you a personal not ebut though tposting here might be better since in studying your Bookmark List I have discovered some problems. first let me say thanks for labelling all of your towns in the title, it makes my job much easier.
I've got a couple of tools now to help me determine if all of the cities in a bookmark list qualify for the challenge. I used the one provided by TeamIDFC to analyze your bookmark list and then checked discrepancies on my maps using Mapsource. In doing so I discovered that three of the caches on your list are outside of the city limits for the towns you have submitted them for and that two caches although apparently inside the city limits are outside of the maps I had drawn. In all cases except one, the caches in question are very close to the border. I will addres the caches you have submittd that are outside the city limits first:
GCQ2KM-Woodinville: This cache is close but outside of the city limits of Woodinveille. Lots of other choices in Woodinville so hopefully you will just be able to pick another one.
GCZQXF-Rock Island: This one is even closer than Woodinville but again outside of the limits
GCHMWV- Yakima: This one has been archived and although that is OK it was outside of the city limits. This cache was in the Yakima Sportsman State Park on the East side of the Yakima River. The River itself is the border of the Yakima City limits and the city lies on the west bank of the river at that point. You'll have to choose another cache for Yakima.
Two other places on your list did not show up when I ran the TeamIDFC Macro. They were caches inside of Coupville and Stevenson. When I examined this I discovered that they too are very close to the edges of the city limits.
In the case of Coupville, the cache is apparently at the end of a dock that sticks out into the Water. It looks to me using MapSource that I purposely tried to include this dock but apparently did not go out far enough.
For Stevenson, the cache in question is close but also clearly inside the city limits on several maps. Looks like I cut the corner a little tight on that one and clipped off a piece of land that sticks out into the river.
I will adjust the maps for these two places and update text file and ask Moun10Bike to update his files as well.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you have several choices for a particualr place, try to pick ones that are close to the center of that city or town. I wnat the maps to include as much as possible but caches that are clearly outside of city limits willnot qualify.
I am sure that in the beginning things like this will come up and so I will make adjustments to borders as much as I can if I have missed something as was the case for Coupville and Stevenson. Please check the cache page for updates and I will try to remember to post any update notices here as well.
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My Number one caching companion is my Dog, Kona. He's also a Travel Bug. Here he is with my kids on a caching outing:
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OpinionNate has already noted that there are issues/concerns about the fixed width aspect of the new layout. Well, I'd like to add my voice in saying that this singular change has ruined the look, feel, and solvability of many of my cache pages and, in particular, puzzle caches. Here are four examples. Perhaps the worst of all is this cache, where the images have been removed from the page and are only viewable by clicking on a magnifying glass ... where did that come from?! I have already spent crazy amounts of time devising and establishing an attractive layout for these caches and I have no desire to go and attempt to recreate (80+ of) them in this new environment, that may well change once again. I urge the coders to reconsider this one change .. many of the other changes seem helpful, as opposed to the morass created by the fixed width change.
Issues with puzzle caches that utilize background images was the first thing I thought of when I learned that they were going to redesign how the cache pages are rendering, and I'm **know enough to get myself in trouble** type of HTML writer.
I can't believe this didn't come up when they were discussing the changes internally. Or perhaps the lackeys, with one or two known exceptions, are just a bunch of web developers and don't really understand how we as mystery cache writers utilize the web pages.
This needs to be fixed on the site end instead of requiring the cache writers to fix all of their puzzle caches to conform to the new site design. Seriously, did you guys even think of this?
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Checking the background image issue I looked at the cache pages I have that use them. I noticed that some of the pages that used background images were not showing up on the page. I then went to edit the listing so that I could check the url for the background image and discovered that there is a limit to the number of characters that can be pasted into the window Background image URL. this limit was not in place when I originally wrote the page and so I am assuming that it was instituted duirng the site update. Please change it back as it will hamper the ability of page writers to include a background image in the future.
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In my opinion, for the bolded bit to work, you would have to presume that the vast majority of single adults are predators (or that even a reasonably large minority are). A better rule would be to forbid children from using the playground without their parents/guardian/caregiver present.It is hard to imagine that in this day and age, you could convince someone that keeping a single adult out of a playground for children does not have a rational basis
Mulvaney also expressed a widely-believed myth: that predators are more common today than they were in the past. In fact, the opposite is true, but media hype has convinced everyone that their kids are in constant danger of stranger abduction.
P.S. Notice how trimming quotes can preserve context without making everyone read through a page of irrelevant material?
I'm surprised to see a statistician making an unsupported statement like that. Got a citation? I would expect that to be a very difficult statement to support, since it would depend on current societal mores and record keeping, and probably many more variables that I'm not bright enough to spot.
I believe the same thing, and there are statistics to support it, I just don't know the sources.
I remember learning in my sociology class (210 I believe) in college over 15 years ago that if you look at one set of statistics that crime rates are going up (assuming here that child abuse/abduction/molestation rates follow the same trend) but another set of statistics show that crime rates year over year remain farely constant. The difference is that one set of statistics follows reported crimes and another follows all crime, including those that don't get reported. How they predict that (statistics probably) I am not sure but what it shows is that crimes (again, assuming here that child abuse/abduction/molestation rates follow the same trend) are being reported with much more frequency and consequently it appears that rates are going up when in fact they are remaining the same or even going down.
Thats what I learned in my Sociology class anyway, but don't ask me, I'm a microbiologist...
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Ok, well I contacted groudspeaks at contact@geocaching.com. And after that, someone answered my question and asked me for more info by replying to that page. How do I reply? Do I just provide additional updates and type I the info? Or is there a way I should specially contact her?
Thanks
There should be a number in the subject line of the e-mail that you got from Groundspeak. That is your ticket number. If you just reply to the message that she sent you and don't change the subject line, that ticket number will direct it to the correct person.
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Agreed.Wow! This is a rarity!
A thread with a question, asked, opinions and advice given, and. . . (Drum Roll Please!) . . .a satisfying conclusion!
Well done! Well done indeed!
As I started to read the OP, I thought that we were going to have double forum angstiness.
The ones that responded in the other forum were very helpful, thought it was great I was trying to amicably resolve it and agreed that the Letterboxer should move his box. They all thought that since I was there first, I should get the spot.
In reponse to an earlier post about taking the high road and moving my cache, that really wasn't an option for me, I would have had to archive it without replacing it. The hide requires a certain feature in order to hide and there were proximity issues to other nearby caches where if I moved my cache to a comperable location it would have been too close to others to be allowed. I thought it was great that the letterboxer responded so quickly and was willing to move his without argument.
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Wow! This is a rarity!
A thread with a question, asked, opinions and advice given, and. . . (Drum Roll Please!) . . .a satisfying conclusion!
Well done! Well done indeed!
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All fixed. The following is from the "clue" on the letterbox page:
Standing looking at the Gazebo facing the steps into it, look to your Left, there is a green hedge bush. I placed it in there. It is a 7cup size Lock top with woodland camo tape on it. I had to move it from its original location at the request of a Geo-Casher who has the cutest matchbox size ammo can geo-cache near by, and the geo-cashers were logging into my box thinking it was the geo-cashe. I re-planted when it was rainy, but it can be busy on a good day, so just take your time, enjoy the view, and when things are mostly clear do a fast grab, and take it to the gazebo to stamp
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a muggler is a non geocaching player who could see you finding a cache.
This muggler may destroy the cache. --> he could "muggle" the cache.
There's no such thing as a "muggler"
Thank you!!!!
I find the term "muggler" very annoying as well. I wonder if the people that use it are ones that have never read or are not familiar with Harry Potter...
Unlike the other two cities which had caches that were archived or have gone missing within their city limits, I drew the lines around Hatton specificlly to include the Old Bones cache, yes it is eligible and gets good reviews. Hope you enjoy it.
Washington State Cities And Towns Challenge
in Northwest
Posted · Edited by FobesMan
The Highway 2 cooridor is one of my favorite drives in the state. Ranks right up there with North Cascades, White Pass and Chukanut Drive. My West side bias is shwoing of course. I think that there are equally incredible spots on the east side of the state...