ecanderson

That's because most of them are 27 miles from any known trailhead, on nearly non-existent paths, uphill both ways! Wish you were still here...

Any time I am unable to do any sort of proper search, I'll post a log note rather than DNFing it. It could be because of muggles, or it could be that there was something else impeding my arrival on site. One time, it was a slide on a mountain road. Wrote the note to let other cachers know that until the slide was cleared, this one was going to be a problem. No sense DNF when it's a DNL (did not look), but sometimes there's information worth reporting regardless.

Sure do like that photo above. Yes, now that I know where you are, I'd agree that you've got three terrain types to deal with - wet areas, wetter areas, and under water. Good to hear that you're on city park grounds and that they're already aware of the game and amenable to it. Sounds like the area is big enough that you should be able to place your cache where it will never be found by accident. There are a couple of things you might do to help keep your Otter hidden and a little out of the weather. One example is to hollow out an old log and insert it, and hide the log. Then again, if you're miles away, that could get a little heavy getting it on site!

I think you'll find that in most areas, things tend to go missing due to misadventures with non-cachers a lot more than with cachers. A cache reasonably well placed in the areas you describe aren't likely to be stumbled across by accident. Your Otter should stay out there for a good, long while. We've got ammo cans out here in Colorado that must be nearly as old as the mountains themselves! When you've got your container complete, post a pic for us! That said -- geez, watch out in your placement in any kind of area that has water on it most of the time. You'll unquestionably discover SOMEBODY who needs to drive home the point that it's some sort of protected wetland and that either 1) no humans are allowed, or 2) if they are, they have to levitate so they don't touch anything on the way through . Seriously, issues of this nature can come back to bite you, and it could be a long way to go to pull it out, so be sure of your ground (literally and figuratively) when deciding where to place your cache. Placing it in an area that invites "bushwhacking" (and we all have our own ideas of what that really means) may cause some grief as well. Whose turf do you think it is, and why?

And for the railroad nuts out here, can you or your landlord identify which railroad used to pass through there? Out here, almost all of the cool old narrow gauge stuff was pulled up long ago for the steel and the timber, so much of the history is just the patch of ground over which the iron once rolled. A few of them still function as road beds (of a sort!) for vehicle traffic through all of the old mining areas. Sadly, many of these are slowing being closed off one by one as well, legally or otherwise. We're still hoping to see one old Denver, Northwestern and Pacific track bed sorted out for travel again. The railroad bed / road had been reopened at the tunnel, but because the rock anchors were incorrectly installed and caused an accident, they shut it down again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollins_Pass

All depends upon the cache. I saved one 4* by Mondou for my #1000. Spent about an hour looking for that bad boy. Unlike about 75%+ of the prior finders, snagged it without resorting to a "lifeline". Wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if I had -- which is why I don't. Again, if you get into a legitimate 4* creative hide, and once you've cached in an area long enough to know who places them, they can be a real kick. I doubt anyone here gets too much of a thrill out of a 4* rockpile cache. The only reason I'll occasionally touch one of those is to just get the bleeping icon off my map. There's one unapologetic 4* rockpile in the area that I still have to get out of the way, but it will have to wait for cooler weather and a few of us may do it as a group grope with each of us responsible for a small section. It was a local cacher's answer to all of the rockpiles he has searched in his day, I guess. It's called "Rockpile Revenge". He||, half the time even he can't find it! He certainly blames no one for not dropping by, and it isn't in an area where it would likely ever interfere with another decent cache placement. Like I said, an unapologetic 4* rockpile cache.

There's certainly a great place in geocaching for caches like this IF the hide isn't a "needle/haystack" but is difficult due to the creativity of the cache owner. Most experienced cachers who place these will accompany them with an appropriately high number of stars in the difficulty rating, and do expect quite a few DNFs. Beats the heck out of "YALCs" (yet another lampskirt cache). As a cacher, I take these on as I find the time available to devote to them, understanding from the listings what it is I'm getting into. They're just a "special challenge" -- your wits against those of the owner. And when I say "wits", it's my attempt to differentiate a silly 4* cache (a nano buried under 5 tons of rocks - I don't usually even bother with these) from a cleverly concealed 4* cache. The absolute worst (best) are those that are staring you right in the face in a relatively public place but where the camo is so incredibly good that you don't even realize what you're looking at until ... then you want to kick yourself for missing it! I've had fun finding them, and have placed one of these myself. I've been at ground zero with a couple of local finders who were about to give up after a 4th trip. I had them stand in a certain place with me and pointed to a clearly artificial bit of container deliberately sticking out of the "camo" and said "See that?" There's no emoticon for the sound of a "dope slap", but ... It can be annoying when the ratings (either difficulty or terrain) don't match up to local norms. If I find myself in a situation where I believe the cache is a FULL star out of whack, I'll usually make note of that in my online log. There are examples of this found by others above. If it is necessary to climb 8' up on a rock wall to reach the keyholder stuck to the back of the lamp on the wall ... don't call it a 1.5, even if you CAN walk right up to the wall. My log would include something on the order of "Not a 1.5 terrain", or "Terrain rating could use a bump". Hides are the same way. Sometimes new owners forget that just because they know where the cache is, that doesn't mean that they haven't picked a real bugger of a spot for someone trying to find it! This is especially true in "high clutter" areas -- especially those that are perennial CITO projects (or should be). Like someone above said, you get used to the posting habits of your fellow cachers after a while and you learn to add your own 'windage' to their ratings if need be.

If it is an RLDS operated facility (a fair jump of an assumption on my part, but possible given your state and the nature of the facility), you may eventually run into problems with that with your reviewer, even though the cache has already been posted by your reviewer. If not, I'd guess there's a good chance things will go well. I've seen a number of "indoor" caches before that muddled GPS reception, but didn't require the GPS once indoors. Haven't seen a reviewer bounce one of those yet, so this one ought to 'stick' if nothing else becomes an issue.

Apart from the geocaching aspect, this is turning into a fascinating story, and it will be fun to see how the history of the area and this specific property plays out. However, as you've discovered from doing the research, ownership isn't always obvious, especially to a cacher, and sometimes even to the owner who is more familiar with the immediate area. As cachers, we tend to get out into the nooks and crannies and unmapped areas far more often than the average person, and are often surprised by what we find. In certain places around the country, it's not at all unusual to have what ought to be understood as a public access to be "converted" to private use. Heck, I've even seen an (ahem) local county gate a county road and it turn over to a couple of local landowners when they complained about the "outsiders" using it. As someone posted earlier, many of us have run across landowners whose claim to ownership (real or imagined) tends to run right into and across public access-ways or even public land! We've had a couple of threads about such areas here before. We do try to avoid problems, and your cache owner will unquestionably be surprised to hear that there's an issue on this "old" cache. The railway issue certainly raises some legitimate questions, but it turns out that the cache doesn't belong there, odds are very good that a chagrined cache owner will gladly remove it for you. OTOH -- good luck with the fishermen. If that patch of water is good for fishing, it's going to be really hard to keep them away. If they can access that stretch from a public easement without getting onto what appears to be your landlord's property and stay down off the bank, there's not much you can do about that. But it sounds like they prefer the spot just because of the "convenient" parking. I like the "No Parking" sign idea, myself.

I use the 3000 series for some other stuff (at $20+ a pop, WAY too expensive for caches!) and have not noted that the latches are particularly difficult to deal with - Solid, but not tighter than the materials with which they're constructed. Never broke one.

Give the reviewer at least as much time as it usually takes to get a cache published in the first place. The queue and the lookup work will be the same as normal business. In the interim, unless you've disabled the cache (I didn't recheck the thread to see) a log note would be appreciated by any who might be looking until the numbers get fixed.

Biggest thing I've ever seen as a bug hotel was a suitcase chained to a REALLY large tree between an interstate and a frontage road near a busy truck stop. GC1186D

A bit over 900', actually. You'll need to ask to have this one tweaked on your behalf.

FWIW: The "clayjar" rating method would likely put this into a 4.0 terrain. That encompasses all of the following conditions: Experienced outdoor enthusiasts only. (Terrain is probably off-trail. Will have one or more of the following: very heavy overgrowth, very steep elevation (requiring use of hands), or more than a 10 mile hike. May require an overnight stay.) Note the "requiring use of hands". That could include rock scrambles or trees. It's surely not one that you'll "walk to". If you find that shorter finders are going to have special trouble, I certainly wouldn't go for a lesser number.

??? You're thinking low power when you want to be thinking LOW power! Those LPFM systems used along highways are quite a bit more than the 100mW allowed for licence-free use, and cover quite a bit more territory. A cheap 100mW (or more accurately, 250uV/m at 3 meters) FM transmitter with one of those cheap "reminder" messaging gadgets could be put together for less than $60 including batteries. Ramsey makes all kinds of toys of this sort. A cheap AM is http://www.shopramseyelectronics.com/am1c-...-kit-p-792.html and their cheap FM is http://www.shopramseyelectronics.com/fm10c...kit-p-1232.html (stereo, no less). There are others out there cheaper yet. AceAudio certainly isn't one of them ... geez, talk about expensive. For $299, you can go "first class" without Ace's price and use one of the commercially available gadgets that some realtors employ: http://www.radiohousetour.com/ although it's not clear how long these are expected to run on any given 12V source of juice. They don't specify the current draw.

duplicate..

See my comment above about the Académie. How the folks in Quebec can get so wrapped around the axle as to make those back in "the old country" look liberal in their outlook... and don't even ask the French what they think about Canadian French (about the same as the Brits feel about our abuse of their language in America!). There are ancient tapestries hanging in great halls in France that are not all that difficult to read for someone with a wide English vocabulary and no real exposure to French at all. What does that say? Time to appreciate that drift happens and get over it. Quel est Français?

Leaving aside the many reasons that explain why English has become so prevalent across the world, and leaving aside the fact that this becomes a convenience for native English speakers (chose any one language, and somebody gets a break by default) ... I understand that some in foreign countries are a bit miffed that as English speakers, we don't happen to speak their language, while they DO speak ours. What many fail to understand, however, is that our respective educational systems differ in the need, and can't possibly satisfy non-English speakers. Perhaps apart from the former Soviet Block countries where Russian was the "default" 2nd language taught in school, education across the rest of the world favors, and often requires, English as the student's 2nd language. In the U.S., at least for a time, a 2nd language was a requirement for high school graduation. However, there was no obvious "default" choice with English gaining as the predominant world language of business. As a result, while we all had exposure to at least one other language in school, the choice of German, French, Spanish, Latin, Russian ... well, whether we just happened to pick the language of the resident of a country we visit is as much a matter of chance as good planning. They, on the other hand, are often not offered a choice in their first foreign language - it's English - period. It's not that we do not have multi-lingual speakers here in the U.S., but the odds of our 2nd language matching the language of another country are fairly slim. I've spent a fair bit of time in Japan where younger employees who are taking post-graduate English through their companies are often coached by their employers to take advantage of the time spent with a native English speaker to improve their proficiency. That's true in other countries as well. As it happens, my "first" 2nd language is Russian. Won't do me a lick of good in Paris (don't even get me started on the Académie Française and their evident confusion about "pure" French -- Norman French would seem to have more in common with English than anything they speak there today) and yet it will be held against me. Sorry -- five choices, and I didn't happen to pick theirs. So off the soapbox and on to the point: I have visited foreign caches, and am always appreciative (not expectant) when I run across a cache listing that is not just in the local language but also in English. Apart from a choice of another language of a nearby region, it would seem that English as the least common denominator is a practical choice for a secondary cache posting. Yes, easy for me to say as a native English speaker - but also practical. It IS, afterall, the most commonly required 2nd language on the planet. For the majority of foreign caches outside of the more obvious tourist areas, a translated cache into ANY secondary language is rare, and for those, I'll leave my best guesses and Babelfish to do the work before I head out. If I get too hung up, I can nearly always find a local who speaks enough English to help with the original cache page. Once explained, most of them are fascinated by the whole thing anyway.

Yes, and a little tough to "seal" without muffling them substantially. Some of them are already relatively water resistant, but most aren't. The trick is not to worry about restricting air flow, but to avoid restricting air movement. A bit of thin polyethylene (cheap sandwich bag material?) RTVd to the top where the piezo's vent is should get it. Just make a "bubble" and keep the glue to the outside edge - don't run it tight across the top. Heck, the rest of the rig isn't exactly potted for mil spec use in the dampness of the jungle, either. Smartest move might be to mount the whole thing in a plastic box with the piezo right up against a hole in the case, and put the polyethylene over the hole in the case. Guess I need to get me one of these things to play with.

Actually, a pair of D cells. This gadget takes 3V. Hmmm... do I need one of these? The only gotcha I'd see is cold weather operation. Serious cold will drop the cell voltage a good bit. Wonder how cold these would go on 3V? A cricket chirping in the snow might keep the muggles wondering, too!

Ah, the "lifeline" / "phone-a-friend" approach to caching takes a new jump from voice to data. Great. Sorry. See the sig line.

It varies with your latitude. In Colorado, I can always assume 0.001 = 4' E/W and 6' N/S. The closer to the equator you get, the closer the E/W comes to also being 6'. The further towards the poles you get -- well, eventually, it technically goes to zero! If you're anywhere in that range, fudging 10' E/W would require a bump of 0.002 or 0.003 (8 or 12'), and 10' N/S would require a bump of 0.001 or 0.002 (6 or 12').

The *.wpts.gpx files include other information from a cache page that relate to coordinates. For example, if the owner leaves you a waypoint for parking that is convenient to the cache location, those will appear in the wpts.gpx file associated with the main gpx file.

Give it up -- go the geek approach like I finally did: Hang 'em on your belt with pride. They have some that use loops instead of clips, too.

Happens to everybody at times, but your specifics ARE rather unusual. Is this a known problem in the area in which you are distributing your coins and bugs? It's uncommon that so many would disappear immediately after they are first placed, never to be heard from again. I see three situations here: 1) I am assuming that you do see them being picked up --- or do you not? If they are just disappearing without notification of a "grab", you've got a local problem that needs to be addressed --- or you've annoyed somebody! 2) They are still in the caches where you left them. Have you checked? Could be the area just isn't very much into the TB/coin thing for some reason. 3) If you do see the "grab", you can always contact the "grabber" to see what the status is. If you do see the "grab", are many being grabbed by the same person?