Stump

Thanks for posting this nwseeker. I've been igoring the Forest Park caches thinking I've gotten a number of them. Turns out I haven't gotten most of the ones that are currently active. Sheesh, what was I thinking. I'm going to have to get back there soon.

Deego is correct.

Okay but it won't be an official trademarked TravisL brand cache machine. Thanks for the list M10Bike. Another Canal and Solo Line must be just across the line. They'll both be on the route though most people will skip solo line (it's named after it's location on MT. Solo).

The cache machine after Longview (assuming San Francisco isn't going to happen) is Grays Harbor. That should happen in September. You can get your Olympic pages then when the weather's nice. If you can wait you might want to think about the Hwy 14 pages instead (Columbia River). (and I84 pages for Oregon)

You'd better try to make it M10Bike! Relooking at the DeLorme map it looks like page 31 may be covered in the route. Can someone tell me does the Willow Grove cache make it onto map 31? Or do I need to have someone hide a cache a little further west?

I've checked with Mrs. Stump and April 29th it is. The Trojan nuclear power plant tower is being imploded in May and the route goes right by it so best to stay out of May. And it's nice to have it after Daylight Savings Time so we can start an hour later. My apologies to Robinego. But we can give you a personal tour of the area another time if you like. I'll get the event page started closer to the event. Thaks for the input.

I'm counting on you guys being there! The southern route it is then. If people are interested we can do an informal Astoria run on Sunday. If for no other reason than to have breakfast at The Berry Patch in Clatskanie.

Are you talking about the coffee place on the Bellingham Cache Machine? It was one of the stops in the section we did Friday night. So we never made it there for coffee.

That doesn't actually answer iBrew's question. According to Jeremy's answer the search function would be working a week ago. They must have hit a snag or it got lost in the holidays.

Yes, that was my thought as well. BUT both routes are basically drive an hour from Longview and then drive back. The south route does let you take a little different route getting back to pick up 4 or 5 caches but basically it's a drive south getting caches and then drive an hour back. The Astoria one has the advantage of allowing people to drive an hour out of Longview and then do a bunch of caches in Astoria. So if you're slower you could just do one or two if you're faster you can do a bunch of them. And then have dinner in Astoria. I agree it would suck to drive an hour back after caching though. Though you could skip all the caches on the way from Longview to Astoria and then grab them all as night caches on the way back. I think all of them can be done at night pretty easily. The south drive is gorgeous when the sky is clear and you can see all four mountains. The west drive goes to the ocean and Astoria is a great little town. Another advantage for the south route is for those who only want to do part of the route and have never cached Longview they could just hang around town doing the 20-30 we have in the immediate area. I'm not pushing either one. It depends on what people like and as you point out the south one would be easier.

There's a reason that our two kids are in 2nd and 3rd grade. You're right GrnXnham. Mostly I just want to make sure there isn't something big, such as the CITO events I was reminded about, that conflicted with it.

The next cache machine on TravisL's list was Longview. Since TravisL has understandably stepped back from cache machine planning as promised before I will plan the event. I had considered doing it in April or May but since CITO and the Spring Fling are in April I will plan it for May on a date not yet determined. Feel free to post here if you have requests for a certain date. My original plan was to from Longview down Hwy 30 (west side of Columbia River) almost to Portland and then back up along non-highway (but paved) roads. This does seem like a feasible idea. But in looking at the map another possibility is to do a non-circular route and start in Longview and then end in Astoria, OR. If you wanted to drive back afterwards it's an hour back to Longview. Or you could stay in Astoria and head our and grab some caches along the Oregon or up and do Long Beach. Unfortunately, it's not really feasible to do Longview, Astoria, and Long Beach all in the same day. At least not if you want to get a lot of caches. But if the machine ended in Astoria on Saturday then Sunday could be spent caching in Long Beach. Any thoughts on these ideas? Both routes seem to be about the same amount of driving and same number of caches though Astoria would have more. Below are images of two very rough routes. Longview to Astoria Longview to Portland to Longview (remember these are very rough drafts) For those particpating in the DeLorme Challenge, Page 31 can be added easily whatever route. Theres a cache a little too far west from Longview for a machine but easily gettable. Page 30 would be in the Astoria route and then 58 A would be Long Beach. And of course 32 would be included in any route.

You missed the good weather EGH. Hope you at least got some caching in before the skies let loose with a downpour.

My kids were 5 and 6 on our first cache machine. The SNOWlympia machine. It was snowing and cold but they did just fine. We didn't try to stay up with the group. Just went at our own pace and saw people when we saw people. The kids had a great time. If you want to stay with people just skip caches once in a while. It's not hard to do. And make sure you plan for a long lunch break.

Way too far in the future for me to give a firm "I'll be there" but I should be able to do this. I'll put it on the calendar and find out if it conflict's with my wife's calendar. (hers is bigger, tougher, and a real bully so it always wins conflicts )

Ka-boom!

Didn't you just contradict yourself? If you rarely cache near your home then looking at finders near your home wouldn't point to you as living there. Of course, there is another way to find out where you live. I found it a few months ago. But I agree, it's not a good idea. Listing cachers sy region might be nice though, it would be helpful to have a list of newby and occasional cachers to invite when you host an event. Last year I hosted an event specifically to get occasional cachers more interested in caching this region. Took a bit of work to get their names to send them personal e-vites and I'm sure I missed a few.

That's awesome Jeremy. I'd heard rumors but didn't hear it was in the works.

More precise? They were archived on October 4th. Assuming they were taken care of immediately, 2 months ago would put it at August 4th. Which would mean if the "more than" was 4 or more days that it would be July. Assuming "more than" as at least 4 days seems like a good assumption to me. But my response wasn't meant to attack your response. It was simply my attempt at being more precise. I did not realize there was a problem in August and that allowing a possibilty of 3 days would cause a problem. Am I using some kind of font that makes you guys put negative feelings on my statements? Is there a mad or antagnostic font that I'm not aware of? I do have a new keyboard perhaps I hit a wrong button on it and turned the font on by mistake. **Keystone, I see your added post and it makes sense. But like I said, I was just giving more information not putting down your response. Your response about August was a good one.

So we're all supposed to cache like you do? Past logs often have too many hints in them. And I was on vacation without access to GSAK. And I'm not upset. I didn't mistakenly use the mad font did I? Just wanting clarification on how the system works and wondering why it wasn't working as I thought it did in So Cal. Though I'll admit I'm a bit upset now with people telling me how I'm supposed to cache and that Needs Archived logs are being handled one way when it's quite clear, at least in the three examples I gave, that they're not.

My intention wasn't to start an argument or point fingers at approvers as being bad. I understand So Cal must be extremely busy and it would be hard to keep up. The two caches that I originally posted links to were not disabled. They were obviously missing. And the owner was obviously long gone and not coming back. I'm only trying to point out that what you say is being done is not being done. Or at least it wasn't for a few of the caches I've seen.

Cool page, thanks for the link.

But a less enjoyable experience for geocachers who hunt these things that are missing. I guess I'm just not used to having to read previous logs to find out if a cache is actually there are not before I go out hunting. I understand waiting for 2 or 3 months. But one of these was missing for 10 months.

I don't want it archived. Disabled is fine and if it's still that way in a couple of weeks I'll offer to replace the container for the owner. The archived log was simply to get the attention of the owner and I thought the approver. The cache was obviously missing for 10 months before the owner finally disabled it and had a needs archived log for over 2 months with no action from an approver.

Not immediately archived? One was missing for seven months and had a Needs Archived log by a previous finder for 4 months before an approver outside the area finally stepped in at my prodding to take care of it. The owner for these caches had been MIA for over a year. As far as them being taken care of promptly that is incorrect. This cache had a Needs Archived log posted in August to get something fixed that had been mentioned as a problem since May. If the cache had even been looked at it would have been fixed easily. I asked another approver to fix it and it was done immediately. Keystone, these archive logs were made in June and July not August. Hemlock. as I mentioned all of my Needs Archived logs have been taken care of. An approver up here took care of the remaining ones. But that meant they sat for at least 3 months without you(?) checking in on them.