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Zor

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Everything posted by Zor

  1. I've put on an event in my area for the last three years that more or less resembles the TV show The Amazing Race. Cachers start at a single location where they get a clue that takes them to another cache or location. If it's a cache, they open it up and get their clue and keep going. If it's a location, then they perform a task at that location. They've had to eat a particular food, drink a drink, find a comic, find a CD, find a poster, count windows on a building, find a movie, count lamposts on a street, and many others. When they cross the "finish" line, every team gets scored and the team with the highest score "wins" a little trophy. We have a big BBQ at the finish line for everyone to mingle. Goes over pretty well.
  2. I have all the icons except two: The GPS Exhibit and Locationless. The GPSE icon I might get if it comes close to where I love but the other one, it'll never happen since they are now locked. It's crappy cuz I'd like to have it but I don't think I'd say it's unfair. It's just the nature of the game.
  3. I've done 130 caches in a single day where it wasn't a powertrail, just good planning. I've also done 135 caches in a day which included the Tribute series in Maine. At the peak of that raid, I averaged a find every 3 minutes. I also have a series of 100 caches hidden which can be done in a day but they are not on a powertrail. All depends on where you are and what kind of plan (if needed) you have.
  4. I have a trackable tag on my car so if I go to events I like to be able to "dip" my car into the event so that it can gain mileage.
  5. I looked at a couple of maps and I could see the elevation change so I have a better idea of what you're referring to now anyway. That's why I asked folks who I figured knew the area. Thanks for the help folks.
  6. Was just wondering since it seemed so close to get to the other trail. But if the elevation diff is enough that it's bad, I'd stay clear anyway. Plus, I do imagine the hike will fun with all the folks from the APE event. Thanks for the feedback.
  7. I'm looking for some information from anyone here who might know the trails and terrain around the APE cache area well. I see there's several trails and in my research I'm wondering if a shortcut is possible. I am not from that area and have absolutely no knowledge of the terrain and woods of those trails so I am hoping someone here who has done the APE cache before can answer this for me. In looking at some maps of the APE cache area, I see there's a trail called the Curtis Nature trail which looks to be a loop with a cache in the loop. Using the "Northwest Trails" Garmin map, I also see that the distance from the most eastern portion of this trail, to the John Wayne Pioneer trail is only about 250-300M long. Based on the recommended hike, they have you going all the way south to the intersection, and then coming back in a northern direction to eventually heading east towards the APE cache. My question is, is it possible to cut through the woods from the tip of the Curtis trail and head directly to the JWP trail, bypassing the southern hike? Is the terrain really hard or even accessible? From a pure distance perspective, going from the tip of Curtis directly to the JWP is a MUCH shorter hike than going all the way around (cutting the hike by more than half I think) so that's why I am wondering if it's possible or even safe. Just wondering if anyone knows. Any info is appreciated.
  8. Pardon this silly question, but how do I uninstall the old maps? I don't see an uninstaller in Add/Remove programs
  9. No one else is experiencing this problem?
  10. I bought a 550 a few months ago to replace my eTrex Legend HCx and I LOVE it. Best GPS ever (for me anyway)
  11. A couple weeks ago I posted an opinion piece on Cache Up NB about "types" of cachers. I thought I'd repost it here to see what folks on here see themselves as. -- Recently I went out to Dieppe to do Tiger Tracker’s Dieppe trail series. In the process of hiking about 8.5K, I started thinking about the different kinds of cachers that are out there. When you really sit back and look at the sport of geocaching, there are many different kinds of cachers who play this game for far different reasons. So in pondering the many different ways in which this game gets played, I came up with what I think covers most players. Keep in mind that these are general categories. Many cachers would fall under more than one of these. Here’s what I came up with: The Traditional Cacher Traditional cachers are generally the kinds of cachers who have been in the game for a long time and tend to stick to the original premise of geocaching. Back when the game first started, there were far fewer caches out there so cachers then would go on long hikes and place/find caches that were in really spectacular locations. The point of caching at that time was to show off some great locations to people who might not otherwise know about them. Traditional cachers are big fans of hiking, the outdoors, and nature in general. They see geocaching as an opportunity to go out and explore wooded and other non-urban areas. They’re not fans of micros, and try to do trades whenever possible. They usually avoid most city or urban based hides and many of them are part of other outdoor organizations and hobbies. The Competitive Cacher Competitive cachers are geocachers who see their find count as a score, and to them, the idea is to get the best possible score they can. They typically do cache runs that involve obtaining as many caches as possible in the shortest amount of time. To them, it’s a game of “How many can we get this time?” or “I need my find count to be X”. They typically “compete” with other cachers who have a find count similar or higher than their own and use power-caching as a means to increase their numbers so that they can match or exceed someone else’s score. Friendly competition between cachers results in one competitive cacher having a find count that another cacher feels the need to beat. Competitive cachers can sometimes be a bit reckless in the way they sign logs, and sometimes do not take the proper time to replace caches in the same place they were found. Some competitive cachers have been known to use unethical tactics (such as logging finds for caches they were not present at) in order to inflate their numbers. Traditional cachers typically are not big fans of competitive cachers. The Social Cacher Social cachers are geocachers who have really no preference for the type of container they find/hide, nor do they care where the find caches, as long as they are with someone else when they cache. For these cachers, geocaching is all about the social interaction with other geocachers. They attend every event that they possible can simply because they are very interested in interacting with other cachers, and meeting new people. They typically are not very shy and very friendly and open to other geocachers. They rarely go caching by themselves and prefer to have at least one person with them when out caching. They thrive in small to medium group cache outings. Social cachers might also be active in geocoin trading and discovering of coins and bugs as this also gives them a means to meet other geocachers. The Casual Cacher Casual cachers are geocachers who enjoy the sport of geocaching, but do not make it a regular hobby of theirs. They typically learn about the sport from someone they know or something they have read and decide to try it out. They usually find interest in it but typically do not pursue it as an active hobby. They will typically not go out on large geocache hunts, but instead might go find a cache or two when there is a low-point in some other activity. They may for example go on a camping trip and bring their GPS with them and then realize there are caches nearby and grab one or two. Another example could be an urban activity where they need to kill some time so they grab a few park and grabs for something to do. Casual cachers typically do not participate in power-caching or large groups of cachers going out together. They see the sport as something interesting, but they only seek out caches when they are convenient or when they have nothing else to do. Casual cachers typically are not seen at many caching events. Casual cachers do not typically have high find counts but they may have been active in the sport for a very long time. The Urban Cacher Urban cachers are geocachers who do not like to go on long hikes. They are not big fans of the woods and prefer to stay within the city limits. They do not have preferences on container type, but because they are restricted to the city limits, they typically find a lot of micros. Urban cachers typically do not want to veer too far from their car when caching. They typically park the car near the cache location and then walk no more than 50M to a cache. Any cache that requires any amount of exercise or real legwork is not a cache they are interested in finding. Terrain levels above two are likely off limits to an urban cacher. Urban cachers may on occasion travel to another city to obtain caches but stay off trails and wooded areas. Urban cachers might also be known as the “Park and Grabber” Cacher. The Abandoned Newbie Cacher Abandoned newbie cachers are geocachers who learn of the game and become very interested for a short period of time. These cachers typically get very excited about finding geocaches and start off very strong. They initially go out and find a bunch of different caches in their area and get very excited about the sport but the interest typically dies off within a few months. After a few months or so of finding many caches, they tend to slow down in their finds until eventually they stop finding caches entirely and abandon the game for something else. Many of these same cachers get so excited in their first month that they decide to hide a few caches of their own. Many times these caches are hidden in poorly chosen locations, with questionable containers. Since they typically quit the game within a few months, their hides typically remain un-maintained and eventually turn into geo-trash. The Camo’d Cacher Camo’d cachers are typically cachers who seek out and hide caches that are extremely hard to find due to their unique camo. In many cases, the caches they seek are found in urban settings but have higher difficulty ratings because the caches have been camo’d in a very clever fashion. Whether it be in the form of bolts, fake trees, or other types of unique camo, these caches are very unique and thusly an attractive hide/find to the camo’d cacher. Camo’d cachers find regular park and grab micros a waste of time and very unoriginal. To them, the idea of hiding a cache is all about making the cache visible to everyone around them, but still hidden well. Finding extremely well camo’d caches gives them a great sense of accomplishment. They also get a bit of a thrill receiving DNF logs on caches they have hidden knowing full well the cache has stumped another finder. Camo’d cachers may enlist the use of urban camo clothing when looking for some of these unique hides. Hardhats, orange vests, and other “official” looking apparel is sometimes used to thwart muggles. The Hybrid Cacher This is the most common form of geocacher. A hybrid cacher is someone who takes on the personality of two or more of the previously mentioned cacher types. They may enjoy caching along a nice trail in the middle of the woods, but also enjoy going to events and doing some park and grabs. They might hate micros but love finding well camo’d caches. The hybrid cacher might also change their combination of hiding/finding styles depending on their personality and various other situations. Some cachers will spend a great deal of time in the woods getting caches and doing long hikes and avoid urban settings but then turn around and decide to snag a pile of micros within the city. Hybrid cachers usually have one or two “major” categories they fall under and the rest they might do from time to time. They also tend to either be competitive or non-competitive but rarely both. The original article can be read here
  12. Ok, I have tried this with three different browsers and I'm starting to think I'm going crazy (maybe I am) but whenever I do a search for a public route using the caches along a route, I am only able to view the first page. All subsequent pages just bring me back to the main CAAR page again. For example, I go to http://www.geocaching.com/my/userroutes.aspx and under "Search for location" I enter in "summerside" and click "Find Public Route". It then shows me a list on the bottom where it says 35 records on 4 pages and it is displaying page #1. If I click on any other page #, next, or prev, it simply brings me back to the main CAAR where I am supposed to enter my search criteria. I don't seem to be able to see any more of the hits on that search. Is there something I'm missing?
  13. Here's my thing, I would love to get a group of cachers out to go do that series over a few days, but after what happened with the Trail of the Gods, I'd be scared to book any travel arrangements knowing that the whole series could get archived like the last one.
  14. Yes, that's fair. We're talking about NEW icons--that most people will never have a ghost of a chance of obtaining. That's what's not fair... I guess it's just me then. To me, I see it no different than something like the APE cache icons which at the time were "new" but only a handful of people would be able to get them. Same thing with the Wherigo icons which are limited to only people with a WIG device and access to a cache with that icon that they can get to.
  15. I can tell you that I found the solution (as a developer) on how to fix the issues I was seeing on my own cartridge. I have a Wherigo geocache (GC1MJP0) that is quite complex and during all of my testing, the Oregon froze on pretty much anything I did. I could not even open up a single dialog. It crashed the unit over and over again. Repeated firmware updates and other tweaks never fixed anything. Then today I heard about some of the 3rd party builders so I loaded my LUA file into Urwigo and a warning came up telling me that because I had more than 7 zones active, the cartridge may not be compatible on all devices. My cartridge has 21 zones and all were active. I changed the logic of how those zones work so that I never had more than four active at a time. I went out on my lunch hour and tried the cartridge and it worked flawlessly. No freezes and was quite quick in response to my commands. If you experience freezes, maybe contact the author of the cart and ask them if they too have too many active zones. It's a possibility at least.
  16. The closest cache that I have not found (that I will get eventually) from my home is about 3.1KM. I don't do puzzle caches so there are a few closer. When I click on the show caches near my home coords, I have to go to the 4th page before I hit any regulars that I have not found.
  17. My take on it is that there is a new icon for the L&F event and a new icon for HQ. I don't know whether or not the new icon for HQ would be available after the GW8 weekend. Since it's sort of a 10 year icon look, it may only be available for that weekend, but GSP may keep it permanently. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. As for it being "fair", well is it fair that a lot of my cacher friends of icons for locationless caches and I can't log one? Is it fair that some people don't have the Wherigo icon because they don't have the right hardware to do one of those caches? Is it fair that there's only one Project APE cache left in North America and only folks who get to the west coast (or to another country that has one) can get it? It's all subjective. My opinion is that GSP has made it quite clear that the 10 year anniversary of geocaching is a big deal to them so they are doing some very special things for it, and these two new icons (along with the 10 year icon) are part of that. Ya, it sucks if you can't be there to get the icon, but it also sucks for people who can't get Wherigo's or the APE cache. I happen to be going to GW8 so I'll be in attendance to obtain the icons. Do I think it's unfair to others? Not really. I am sure there will be plenty of other opportunities to get other kinds of icons in the future. Mind you, it does irk me that I can't get the locationless icon but I'm not too upset about it.
  18. Well, I'm on Twitter http://twitter.com/Zor_ Plus I also run a geocaching news site for New Brunswick which is also on Twitter http://twitter.com/cacheupnb
  19. I am planning my trip to Geowoodstock and I am going to have several large GPX files for Washington & Oregon state. I've been perusing the cache areas and am making note of certain cache areas that I want to hit on certain days. I'm marking down a lot of cache codes that are grouped together so that I can optimize my time in the car and on the trail. My question is this, is it possible to tell the Garmin Oregon which GPX PQ file I want to use instead of it simply using all GPX files at once? I would like to create a filtered PQ with GSAK that has only the caches I have marked for my route, but also have a large PQ that contains ALL of the caches for the area. I would like to be able to toggle between them so that when I finish an area, I can flip the other one on and see if there are other caches I want to hit that weren't in my original plan. I'm thinking kind of like how POI's work on the Legend. I can create several POI files, and when I tell it to "find" a custom POI, I have the option of picking which POI file I want. Anyone know if you can do something like this on the Oregon? Or even if you have a suggestion on how I could do this better I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
  20. I know that a pitstop/dip option would be great. I see a lot of bugs come through our area and one of our local cachers usually "dips" the bugs into this cache. They get a ton of emails and replies from bug owners thanking them for dipping them in so they could see something from our area. I totally support this idea!
  21. Two years ago the power trail guideline was alive and well. He could place that same set of caches now and probably get it approved. (assuming no specific restrictions by that particular land manager) Absolutely correct, which is why I made my prior statement. To deny a cache 529 feet from another, I'd need to see a land manager policy that would dictate that result. There are a few of those. I have heard of similar restrictions for one of the parks in our city. But with this particular trail, the owners/folks who run the trail actually told several of the local geocachers that they wanted a lot of caches on their trail because it would bring more people out there. If you go to http://tinyurl.com/22wt5bf you'll see what we now famously call "The Albert County X". That main trail (north to south) goes from Riverview, NB all the way to one of our national parks, Fundy. It's a 58K hiking trail which is only accessible on foot (not even by bike) and as you can see, it's covered in caches. I can't speak for the reviewers, but I think their intention was to try and limit the amount of caches on that trail since they saw a pattern coming. It didn't really stop people from filling the trail up since we have a lot of hikers in this area. So even though they restricted it to every .2mi, it still filled up anyway so why did they find it necessary to change the guidelines for that one trail in the first place?
  22. This was over two years ago and I barely knew of the situation. My understanding was that an appeal was tried and denied. There were actually two reviewers for our area and both set this "new" guideline. GSP apparently (and yes this is just from what I was told since then so I don't know how reliable it is) backed the reviewers saying it was up to them and their discretion. I get that reviewers are supposed to have discretion based on their experience and knowledge of the area, but is it really feasible to just arbitrarily decide that the GSP guidelines are not sufficient so we're going to double them? Regardless, to the OP concern, I do think that natural barricades can be taken into consideration but I think it vastly depends on the specifics. What some people consider big others consider meager.
  23. I'm going to throw my opinion into the mix as well. I started caching over 2 years ago and I actually forced myself to not hide a single cache til I had found 100 caches. I found all kinds of containers in all kinds of places and had a somewhat decent idea of what was good and what was bad. I think it made me a better cacher. I wrote an article for new cachers about their first hide for Cache Up NB here in Canada, and in the article, I included this tidbit which basically sums up my opinion: Although there is no rule about when you should hide your first cache, many seasoned geocachers agree that you should not hide a cache until you have found a certain amount of caches. For myself, I believe that no new geocacher should hide a cache until they have found 100 caches. There are really two very distinct reasons why I believe this is a good rule to follow: 1. Many people learn about geocaching and get excited about the sport and start caching but don’t stay with the sport for very long. They might get really excited about it at first but as time passes, they become less and less interested and move on to something else. In those cases, if the cacher hid a cache shortly after starting geocaching and then became bored of it quickly, the cache they hid might remain and not be maintained properly. Although it might seem trivial, all geocaches require maintenance from time to time and if you are not willing to maintain a cache, then you shouldn’t be hiding. Those who quit the sport quickly after hiding a few typically don’t maintain their caches and they become trash, not cache. Someone who finds 100 caches is likely a bit more committed to the sport than someone who just wants to know what it’s like. 2. Once you have found 100 caches, the odds are in favor that you have seen a good variety of containers, and hiding places. You will have likely seen both good and bad places to hide caches and have a bit of experience in knowing what containers are more suited to hides, and what makes a lousy container. Many “newbies” get so excited that they go out and hide a cache right away but because they don’t have much experience, they make very poor choices about the container or the location. Things like hiding containers in dumpsters, using glass containers that will break easy, placing the cache on private property without permission, placing the cache in plain view without any camo (making it easy to be picked up by non-cachers), hiding caches in places that would put the cacher in un-needed danger, and many other “newbie” mistakes are very common. In some cases, a friendly email to the cacher letting them know about what they have done will help the situation but not everyone takes criticism well. Taken from "Your Very First Hide" on Cache Up NB http://www.cacheupnb.com/?page_id=455 I also tend to agree that the 100 finds is subjective depending on area because yes someone could get them all in a single day depending on where they are and how saturated the area is. Hence why I think this is a good "guideline" not a rule. If GSP were to mandate a find count requirement for hiding, I would say that perhaps part of that requirement should be that you have to find X amount of micros, X amount of smalls, X amount of regulars, etc. That would help in knowing that the cacher had seen different sizes/types. All of that however is subjective depending on area which is why I think it's not a rule or guideline we're going to see anytime soon.
  24. Unfortunately this is not always the case. A few years ago a local cacher hid a bunch of caches that were 165 meters apart which is well within the saturation guidelines. He hid quite a few along a very nice trail and had to do some serious hiking to get to the end. When he submitted his caches, the reviewer came back and told him that they had (the two local reviewers) decided that for that specific trail, you had to hide caches 330 meters apart, not 165. Exactly double the distance. This new guideline would not apply anywhere else in our city but only for that one trail. The hider was VERY upset because now he had to go back and take out half of the caches he had hidden that were well within the standard guidelines. He refused to hide caches for over a year because he no longer trusted the local reviewers to go by GSP's guidelines. I know it's subjective per reviewer, but how is something like that permissable?
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