T-storm

When ClayJar (rightly) redirected the discussion from defense of Ron as a cacher to back to the discussion of the merits of a cache with the requirements of FAC_PAC, the key point on which my opinion turns was lost. I don't care for the &quothide a cache to log an existing one&quot concept. But not because the cache hider asks finders to complete a task in addition to finding the box. I don't like the concept of making the task that of hiding a new cache, particularly in so narrow a range and in so sort a timeframe. It has been stated that there are 1000 caches within a zipcode search of this area (which I will assume means within 100 miles). No one has logged this cache yet but there are already 5 additional caches in the specified range. I just have to wonder what will happen not only with this cache, but other similar caches which will certainly crop up. My concern is that what develops over time is a concentration of poorly conceived caches near the fac-pac type cache. You may get a couple of neat ones, but probably also a fair bit of geo-trash. I won't go so far as to say there should be a rule against such caches just yet, but only that I think it's a bad idea. My understanding of the &quotbreeder&quot caches makes me think that is a better execution of the wish to encourage cache setting. Just my lil' ol' $0.02. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching [This message was edited by T-storm on October 18, 2002 at 09:28 AM.]

Well it purposely does NOT give the actual contact info, but you might read the thread http://forums.Groundspeak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001580.html for a message I posted including a letter requesting permission to place a cache on Army Corps of Engineers managed land here in Texas. There are at least 3 caches in Dallas/Fort Worth that are placed on ACE lands by permission. I was issued a paper permit for the one for which the above referenced letter was produced (at no cost) and received written permission but no permit for another. I could find some names and phone numbers, but I would rather send them in e-mail rather than posting them on the forum. If having contacts like these would help anyone else they can e-mail me for more info. Other successes I can think of in Texas include VentureForth's placement in Tawakoni State Park, these two in Mission Tejas State Park http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=2751 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=12038 and this one in the Davy Crockett National Forest http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=5825 Also, contact geocacher TroutLily. She works with the Fort Worth Parks and Community Services department. She specifically works at the Fort Worth Nature Center, where several caches have been placed over time. She was instrumental in seeing that a cache friendly policy was adopted. And here is one more thread with some permission request letters for reference. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/001471.html Somewhere back about that same time there were several threads mentioning a park in Ohio that was actively working with cachers. Hopefully that is still going well. I hope some of the info here will be helpful to you. If you would like me to e-mail you the specific contacts for the local Army Corps of Engineers projects that have worked with cachers just let me know. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by ikayak:Can't fit lots of goodies of worth in them, unless people would like to exchange gems! I was actually with a friend that found a polished and cut danburite in a micro. It was really nice! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by DougsBrat:IT? we called it DP when I started Well yes, but then you also provided input on punch cards, had huge removable platters (like giant pancakes in a great big cake carrier) in your disk drives, and loaded printer controls onto impact printers via paper tapes! Oh, wait, I'm showing my age.... DON'T TOUCH THAT INTERRUPT BUTTON!!! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Sorry, VF, I have to say it's just getting started for us too! We don't go caching very often on weeknights anyway, and when we do, we are, of course, closer to unfound caches than you are. And given the choice between freezing my butt off and wilting with heat exhaustion while being consumed by thousands more mosquitos than during cooler months, I'll freeze, thanks! For mostly other reasons than heat (school, family illnesses and deaths, other obligations) we didn't cache at all for 4 months. I can't believe it even now that I'm saying it! But last weekend we found 6 in one day and it was glorious! Caching season is OPEN in our household! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Interesting. We have FRS radios, but I never even considered trying to scare up an unknown cacher who might just happen to be in the area. We got them because we cache as a family-- mom, dad, and 3-yr-old. Both of us adults really enjoy the find, so we generally get close and then take turns searching. Sometimes to give the necessary space for searching due to lack of screening cover or because the Geoferret spotted P-L-A-Y-G-R-O-U-N-D or other terribly interesting feature we are out of earshot as well as out of view. It can be important to be able to stay in contact without calling huge amounts of attention to ourselves (as say, with bellowing for one another). If the kiddo gets tired and is just done or if she gets hurt and we need to leave immediately. If others folks are heading into the search area. If the searcher gets hurt or realizes they need an item or piece of info ... you get the idea. We're just using them for the family to stay in contact, and as long as we remember to turn the volume up loud enough they've worked fine for this purpose. Hmmm... now I may have to visit channel 2 once in a while! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

What I have done in the specific situation suggested (approaching land mgr. for permission with stats in hand) was to manually review a few caches in the greater area I was targeting and/or caches in similar locations and hopefully with similar difficulties. I could then offer stats on average number of visits to the cache site and even sometimes differentiate between an initial search surge for the new cache versus a more settled pattern beyond 3 months from placement. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Brazos River Adventure was placed 8/4/2001. It has yet to be found. So far only one attempt has been logged, and it would seem from the listing versus their log they were in the right general area. However, they only have 4 finds, their not found log was in May and they haven't logged in since July. The cache owner has apparently dropped out. No new hides since this one, no finds this year, and last login in June. Hmmm... a challenge.... Oh, and did I mention that it's a hydrocache, reportedly boat (canoe or kayak type) required? http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Try searching for topics like "hydrocache" particularly by user ClayJar. He is fond of caches where a boat of some sort is possible or required for access. Caches he lists are likely to be in LA, MS, or eastern TX. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Once worked at a company with servers and other devices named: Bugs1 Bugs2 Wiley Taz Wilma Fred Pebbles and so forth... T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Hey, now! I resemble that! See avatar... T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I've said it before in other threads, but I'll say it again. Nothing says a hider even has to enter a hint. Difficulty ratings exist for a reason. A find is NOT guaranteed for every cache, nor should it be. It is a HINT not a SOLUTION. There are caches I can't find because I'm not physically able, why shouldn't there be caches I can't find because I couldn't puzzle out the hiding spot? T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I've said it before in other threads, but I'll say it again. Nothing says a hider even has to enter a hint. Difficulty ratings exist for a reason. A find is NOT guaranteed for every cache, nor should it be. It is a HINT not a SOLUTION. There are caches I can't find because I'm not physically able, why shouldn't there be caches I can't find because I couldn't puzzle out the hiding spot? T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

We haul trash out of 75-80% of cache sites we visit, I'd say. Out of those, we fill at least one kitchen trash bag probably 2/3 of the time. Sometimes we've done 2 or 3 bags full. Ick. Even if we don't pull out a bunch, we usually pick up 1 or 2 pieces of stuff. I was posting pics a lot to try to encourage others and forwarded them to the CITO e-mail, but I've kind of left off taking the pics and posting so much. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I see he was picked up this evening. Really any cache in the Flower Mound / Lewisville area could be a target for us next weekend, and after that the closer it comes to us in caches that aren't particularly long or difficult will be fine. MIL will arrive 6/5 and we'll likely take her caching that weekend or the next. She's not used to the heat, though, so I don't know how long a caching trip she'll be up for! Pretty much as long as he's in a cache as of about June 1st and doesn't get held for a long time by any takers, we ought to be able to grab him and send him westward. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I see he was picked up this evening. Really any cache in the Flower Mound / Lewisville area could be a target for us next weekend, and after that the closer it comes to us in caches that aren't particularly long or difficult will be fine. MIL will arrive 6/5 and we'll likely take her caching that weekend or the next. She's not used to the heat, though, so I don't know how long a caching trip she'll be up for! Pretty much as long as he's in a cache as of about June 1st and doesn't get held for a long time by any takers, we ought to be able to grab him and send him westward. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by alchemist2000: We actually have two other travel bugs heading to Santa Barbara, Unfortunately, they have not made much progress to date. Hmmm... didn't notice a specification in the bug listings... is flight allowed or not? If the one still local is still in the area in about a month, I'm expecting a visitor from Santa Barbara County. We're planning to do some caching! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by alchemist2000: We actually have two other travel bugs heading to Santa Barbara, Unfortunately, they have not made much progress to date. Hmmm... didn't notice a specification in the bug listings... is flight allowed or not? If the one still local is still in the area in about a month, I'm expecting a visitor from Santa Barbara County. We're planning to do some caching! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I see what you mean, Web-ling. A real virtual tear! About 2/3 of their over 100 finds are virtuals, and half of their physical caches were found in the first month of their 6 months worth of finds. To each their own, I guess, but I'd get really bored with doing all my searches from a chair in front of my computer. Maybe if I was on bedrest? I notice that one D/FW virtual they have NOT logged is Smack the Ground. Maybe because I specifically tried to select verification questions that would require one to visit the spot? I couldn't find the answers online. Cache owners create the caches and lay out the guidelines. They decide what makes an acceptable find or not. If NOT, they are free to delete them. If I disagreed with a cache owner's treatment of my logs and couldn't change their mind, I'd log notes or not log at all. And if the quality of the cache hunts/sites weren't worth that, I'd just pass on them in the future. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I hunt with at least one person along all the time. However, much of what we notice along the way is quite different, we actually search separately once we get to the general vicinity of the cache so our experiences may be rather different, and what we each think is worth saying is often different. So each logging under our separate IDs works great for us. What would be really cool is to associate more than one ID with OWNERSHIP of caches. We plot our caches together, coming up with placement ideas, themes, camo methods, locations, as a team. Since we work together, we can't exactly hunt the caches listed under the other's ID, but these caches show up with the other "unfound" in the nearest caches list. I'd rather see it as my own and get notifications without watching it. So that's where I wish there was room for team ownership. But then I'd be even more happy with functions that allow me to be more selective in choosing which caches show up in my nearest caches list... ignore feature (like the watch feature), toggles to avoid seeing my own caches or those I've already found, and so forth. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

I set up an extra pop-box on my personal web domain to use just for Geocaching. Not a single spam message has come across it. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Both you and the original owner should E-mail contact@geocaching.com with the waypoint ID and name of the cache stating that you are to adopt it and ownership should be transferred to you. Once that happens, you will be able to edit the cache listing and when some clicks on the option to see the cache owner's profile they'll see yours. However the text that says who owns the cache will still be whatever it reads at the time the cache is switched. You can edit it. On the cache I adopted, I left the handle of the original hider and added the names of our team members. Most of the original concept was good and was kept, so I wanted to honor that cacher by retaining credit to him. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Dave Ulmer does occasionally put in an appearance in the chat room. I've seen him in there several times late at night (his IP became recognizeable pretty quickly). I haven't had time lately to visit it myself, so I don't know how recently he has appeared there. He usually made himself quickly unwelcome by demeaning others in the room and our interests in geocaching and using increasingly personal insults even to those who did not address him. He has used handles such as Creator of Geocaching, Father of Geocaching, etc. He seemed to appear less frequently after someone else registered his favored handles and would switch to them whenever Dave showed up and made a jerk of himself. Strikes me as a quirky and embittered person. At least the cache idea has grown up nicely for those of us who wish to participate! T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

Alchemist has already mentioned the cache that I would have told you about, Pick It Up, Pack it Out, Cache in, Trash Out Cache. I don't have any correspondance since the placement, but I do have a printed and signed permit form for the cache. Note that the permit says that I may place a geocache anywhere in the named park that I desire... a pretty friendly attitude! As you've likely seen, it's a 2-stage multi-cache. First stage contains only trash bags and coords for the next part. Second stage is cache box in a great little spot with some great views but also tons of old trash right there as well. It's an old inlet to the lake which has been mostly dry for years as the water levels have been low. So every imaginable chunk of old cans, bottles, and even appliances are nearby. The park itself is undeveloped... nothing but a few poorly marked trails for hiking, biking, and equestrians. There are not even any trash barrels at the trailheads. What they get is low impact use of their park, primarily upon established trails, and some of this garbage toted out that would otherwise have undoubtedly stayed another 20 years or until the next flood! And they don't even have to provide disposal of the collected trash. Pics with several logs show participation and other logs note the trash out activity even if the photo was forgotten. So maybe there's a bit of documentation on that one. The other cache, Rock Road Adventure, is a great cache that I adopted and fixed up when it became unsolvable and the owner couldn't be contacted. It was also on Army Corps of Engineers project land, so I asked (and received) permission after the fact on it. I got a contact name from the ranger/naturalist at the project where the first cache is located. On the page I encourage folks to take care for things like wildflowers growing and seeding in the area of the cache and to consider trash out activities. Without the bags, though, this hasn't been as widely done. That is also likely due in part to the fact that figuring out this and completing it may take a while and is more physical effort than many in the standard city parks that are open to us around here. It's a mostly abandoned park. There are still some operated tent camping spots and a tiny &quotmarina&quot boat launch area, but the picnic areas, additional boat launches, and roads and parking for these have been abandoned and long in decay. The remains of the paved road are occasionally mowed, but the surroundings are returning more and more to their natural state. So I don't think they're really waving a fee for us. The fee, I think, is to use the fishing spits or camping areas. Nearby residents of an adjacent retirement community (used to be a Franciscan monastary) use the abandoned section for walking exercise and enjoying nature. I have written permission, though not a permit form, for this cache. The e-mails we exchanged indicated that this ranger was willing to give rather broad permissions here as well. Anyway, not so much documentation of the sort you seek. But if you like wildflowers, see the pictures attached to a note dated 4/25/02 anyway! Hope that helps a little. Contact me through my profile if you want copies of documentation I sent to obtain permission, the permit, etc. T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

quote:Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup: Wow, I'm surprised that, out of over 180 views, only three people have asked permission to place a cache, or had one of their caches discovered. I would have thought there would be a higher percentage than that. Four people, five now that Alchemist chimed in. But there's nowhere to vote in the poll if one asked and received permission without a hassle, so remember that votes may not equal requests. I also know of others who have asked locally, one of whom is currently active on the boards and who received permission when asking ahead, but I don't see his response. I am also aware of some caches that were removed/required to be removed in Austin, TX. The parks department there discovered the caches and didn't want them in preserve type parks. Last I heard the parks department there was having a dialog with cachers and trying to decide what their policy on caches would be. There is also one in a state park in central Texas where someone foolishly posted directions for entering the park without paying the fee, clearly KNOWING what he was doing. The ranger there is very aware of it and watches it to see who's jumping fences, so to speak. Those amount to more than half a dozen more. Your results might also be skewed by the fact that there is another poll with similar title in the forums, so folks may not really read yours closely before popping back to the list? Just a thought... T-storm http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching