kimgh

For me it's about the "treasure hunt," the thrill of finding "buried" treasure. Finding a cleverly hidden cache is most satisfying, but I don't worry if it's "buried" under a lamp post skirt. Having placed a couple of puzzle caches myself, I know how hard it is to find a good hiding spot in an area saturated with caches, so I prefer to cut my fellow cacher/hiders some slack. I think it's silly to fret about how caching is "going downhill" just because there are more urban parking lot hides. It's not, it's getting better and more diversified. For me, it's not about the number of caches I've found (you have only to check my count to see that!), it's about getting outdoors and doing something interesting. Some people like wilderness hikes to find caches. I don't particularly, but I'm happy those folks have the opportunity. I happen to like urban caches, and especially puzzles. Those of you who prefer wilderness hides could at least allow me my fun without carping about how caching is changing. Yes, it's changing, and for the better, say I!

Some might say I'm still new, but I've been caching off and on for 6 years. Only about 200+ finds, though. I'm frustrated by: Ivy (and other plant) hides. Ivy's the worst. Caches that have been apparently abandoned by their owner (judging from the lack of response to emails asking for help). Along similar lines: caches that need maintenance and never get it in spite of numerous mentions in logs (abandoned?) CO's who think they shouldn't give hints at all, ever. I admit there are certain caches for which this might be an appropriate attitude, but they are fewer than many CO's seem to think. Lack of time to go caching (how do some of you spend all that time caching? I have a day job, folks!) Lack of efficiency in finding. My best day out resulted in 5 finds, 1 DNF. How do people find 25, 50 or more in a day? As others have said: lack of parking/trailhead info. There are a number of caches on a trail close to work that would require me to drive 2 miles to an accessible trailhead and hike the 2 miles to the cache and back. Can't do that on a lunch hour! (I need to get a bike, I guess!) I don't mind cleverly hidden urban caches, as long as there is a useful hint or the CO is willing to provide help. Those are what occur to me at the moment. Oh, one more: my often annoying blindness when it comes to finding a cache that is right in front of me.

Probably an error on the part of the reviewer. Where I live, there is a puzzle cache final within 20 feet of a traditional that was published later. The puzzle is an old one and may have been published before additional waypoints were required (I actually don't know when that change was made, but the puzzle was published in 2003, so I think it likely predates that change).

Consider yourself fortunate.

They also make good finals for puzzle caches. If the puzzle is difficult, the find should be relatively easy, I think. LPCs fit the bill.

I think this is exactly the kind of newbie thinking that needs some correcting. First of all - Our handhld units are only capable of somewhere around 15 to 25 foot accuracy under most conditions. Add that to the hiders unknown error and that is why you often find caches a bit off. So finding caches up to 40 and even 50 foot off should be considered normal - not lousy coordinates. Second, all cachers should strive to privide the most accurate coordinates that we reasonably can. Wait for the EPE on your unit to get low, take multiple readings on several different days, do a reality check on the coordinates you come up with. Use more than 1 unit. But the hider's coordinates can be improved immensely by using Google Earth to get a much more exact set of coordinates, assuming the landmarks can be identified from the sat photos.

I've met with this attitude before, and I guess I don't understand it. At least people are LOOKING for and FINDING your caches. I've placed two puzzle caches (difficult, but no more so than many around here) and each has been looked for and found by only a few people. No activity on either for several months now. So count your blessings, folks! I'd put up with migrating caches if people were just interested enough to go looking!

But I think there are exceptions. Here in California, there are several schools where the play yard doubles as a public park during non school hours. It's perfectly fine to place a cache in the park, but the caution is that cachers confine their searches to evening and weekend hours when the play yard is in fact a park. Even that restriction is not completely set in stone. I recently found a cache that is on a hiking trail that runs right past a school yard/public park. There is no posting that says the trail cannot be used during school hours, but it sure ran quite close to playing children.

Err, perhaps you mean 10,000? Anyway, congratulations on starting into this fascinating hobby! Before you know it you'll be solving puzzles and placing your own caches as well. It's all fun!

I suppose, as a relatively new cacher (only about 70 finds so far), I would say I thought micros and nanos were the norm. I've found a few large ones (even within city limits) but micros and nanos are fun for me, and some of the camo jobs I've seen are beautifully done. I hate bushwhacking and prefer urban caches. There seems to be a lot of snobbery in this thread around this topic. I think the hobby has room for everyone's interests, and if you can't stand micros, don't go looking for them. I'm about to start hiding my own caches. I have some ideas for puzzles and thematic hides, but they probably will all be urban caches and will be micros or nanos. And believe me, a lot of thought is going into them! BTW: I also don't mind LPC's that much. Sure, they are not so challenging, but I still get satisfaction from finding them.

I'm thinking in terms of protective coloration. An orange vest and hardhat might help muggle onlookers to explain to themselves what you are about and probably would not bother you. Another dodge might be a plain baseball cap, coveralls and a clipboard. This might work nicely for grabbing urban caches. These won't work in all situations, of course. Sometimes you just have to brazen it out. But I'm considering getting "kitted out" with such gear for situations it might help with.

I use both: I have a Garmin GPSmap 60CS and an iPhone with the Groundspeak app. Here's my take: the Garmin is definitely more accurate, but the iPhone is helpful because it has a real compass that can point you directly to the coords. You have to be moving for the Garmin to point accurately. So they both have their place. I always have the iPhone with me, but I don't always have the GPSr, so if I'm somewhere with a few minutes to look for a cache, having a way to find a nearby one (with all the details) is very nice!

I'm a Mac purist, I suppose, and won't even use Boot Camp to load any version of Windows at home. I get enough Windows grief at work, thank you! I have almost no problem uploading PQ's to my Garmin 60CS. I use GPSBabel+. It can be a bit fussy about downloading from the GPSr (USB issues), though I can fix that by choosing a different USB port on my laptop (the "front" one seems to be the best choice). But little problem uploading; it works beautifully. There are other similar programs for the Mac; they all seem to be built on the original GPSBabel, which I guess is a Unix command line driven program. Anyway, it works fine for me. And I DON'T take the laptop with me caching, but I do take my iPhone with the Groundspeak software, which works fine for casual caching and for the "paperless" caching part.

Or you could do it the easy way with Mapsource, since it runs on Macs (so I hear). Open it up and download all waypoints from your GPS. Use the selection tool to drag a box around each group of waypoints. Select cut, then open another iteration of Mapsource, and paste the waypoints there. Save the second file with an appropriate name (Tacoma, Home, etc). Repeat until you have everything saved into appropriate files. Then you can erase all from your GPS and load those you need at the time. Also, once you have everything in its own file, saved as GPX, you can run POI Loader as suggested and the waypoints will be in their own database. BTW, the 60 should hold 1,000 waypoints. Are you sure yours is only holding 524?? It currently has 800 in it, so I stand corrected on the limit. I must have misapprehended the results of my testing! I love the POI hack! I think MapSource is now available for Macs (Garmin told me it was coming 3 years ago at MacWorld; the fact they were exhibiting there at all was encouraging...). But trying to find it on the Garmin website seems difficult if not futile. At least last time I looked.. I should try again. That POI hack might be pretty useful...

Or you could do it the easy way with Mapsource, since it runs on Macs (so I hear). Open it up and download all waypoints from your GPS. Use the selection tool to drag a box around each group of waypoints. Select cut, then open another iteration of Mapsource, and paste the waypoints there. Save the second file with an appropriate name (Tacoma, Home, etc). Repeat until you have everything saved into appropriate files. Then you can erase all from your GPS and load those you need at the time. Also, once you have everything in its own file, saved as GPX, you can run POI Loader as suggested and the waypoints will be in their own database. BTW, the 60 should hold 1,000 waypoints. Are you sure yours is only holding 524?? It currently has 800 in it, so I stand corrected on the limit. I must have misapprehended the results of my testing! I love the POI hack! I think MapSource is now available for Macs (Garmin told me it was coming 3 years ago at MacWorld; the fact they were exhibiting there at all was encouraging...). But trying to find it on the Garmin website seems difficult if not futile. At least last time I looked.. I should try again. That POI hack might be pretty useful...

I'm using a Garmin GPSmap 60CS as my primary GPSr. I use MacIntosh computers at home, and I have GPSBabel+ and a few other relevant utilities. I've found by experimentation that the 60CS will hold about 524 waypoints. There is nothing in the manual that says what this max number actually is, and, as far as I can tell, no way to get the GPSr to tell me how many I have directly; I have to download the whole set and use some Unix tools to "count" them. All that is preparatory but incidental. The problem is this: I currently have my waypoint memory filled with waypoints from three different geographical areas: my home area in San Jose, the Kirkland and Tacoma area of WA (which I visit 2 or 3 times a year), and the Nampa, Idaho region, which I visit about once a year. It's clear that I need to clear out the non-home areas for most of the time and only upload them when I'm going to be there. However, the problem is: how to do that efficiently? I usually maintain waypoint files in GPX format, which is great for holding all the data, including even descriptions of the caches. But it's really difficult to edit and (in particular) to sort by latitude. So: is there a better format for that purpose (that preserves the names and all the data that the 60CS will hold. It doesn't need the description info, since the 60CS won't store that data). I'm sure some of you have solved a similar problem before, so I'm looking to get ideas from all of you. I'm not unable to write Perl scripts to manage things, but I hope there is a simpler way and a simpler format to use than GPX for this purpose. Or even a utility I haven't encountered yet! Hmmm, on reflection, it occurs to me that judicious use of Pocket Queries would probably make this problem go away altogether. Is that what you all do? Thanks for your suggestions...

The answer I got from my local parks department was that geocaches could be left in the parks, but that parks personnel (including landscaping crews) would not be responsible for anything that happened to them. I checked the website for the county park system (Santa Clara County), and they have a pretty well-thought-out policy for geocaching. Basically, they allow and even encourage it, and don't particularly want to be contacted for permission (which is assumed) but want to be able to contact the owner of a cache if there are problems with it. The City park system website does not mention geocaching. The state system I haven't checked yet (but given it's CA, I expect it'll be allowed but taxed (only partly a smilie here; many state parks may end up being closed altogether to "balance the (unbalanceable) budget").

Well, there are different kinds of historical sites, and the one I have in mind might be considered such; it's a building of a (to remain nameless) well-known tech company in the area that is (probably) about to vanish. But perhaps I can pick a different one of that company's buildings, and I (upon reflection) just happen to know the current director of worldwide security for that company, so perhaps getting permission would not be the problem I first thought it would be... Thanks for all the thoughts, though! There are a LOT of caches I've sought for which it's hard to believe that permission was sought or granted. For example: today I went after one that appears to be on the grounds of a middle school. Apparently the yard doubles as a park during off-school hours. Since it was school hours when I went, I did not attempt to enter the school grounds. But I wonder what would have happened if I went to the school office to sign in for the purpose of seeking the cache in the play yard? "Cache, what cache?" Seems it could get ugly, and I didn't have the chutzpah (let along the time) to go that route.

I'm working up to placing my first cache, and I have a great place. But it's in the parking lot of a company building neighboring the one I work in, So here's the thing: is it considered gauche to place a lamp skirt cache near a commercial building without getting permission? If there is no clear way to contact anyone able to give permission, is it just better to find a different location? Put another way: have the planters of all the lamp skirt caches I've found gotten permission for the placement?

Where do people get/find/buy: 1. those little paper strip logs for mini, micro and nano caches? 2. Camo tape? I see that you can get larger logbooks from the Groundspeak site. But the smaller stuff seems to be missing. I'm getting ready to place a few caches of my own, and I guess I can improvise logs and do without camo coverings for now, I but I expect I'll want to get some of the "official" stuff eventually.

What's the trick to convince GE (or Groundspeak) that I'm a premium member eligible for more than 25 map views per session/day? I'm logged into the site as a premium member and even after re-starting from the KML file, I still seem to get only 25 views. This mechanism is seriously broken, I think. Oh, and sorry if this is not the right forum for this question, but I didn't find one that looked more appropriate. Thanks, KIMGH