Mr.Yuck

All they needed was a rope and harness, but sent out a massive rescue effort anyhow. It's a good thing he wasn't injured. Without any signage, I don't know how he trespassing charge will be handled. It's entirely likely that someone said it was fine to go there before it happened, and the incident caused them to evaluate the area more closely. Likely the area will have signage by next year and the pending charges will be dropped, but they stand in the meantime to prevent any more visitors from going. Yeah, I think the authorities are just ticked off at their massive rescue effort, which didn't have to be a massive rescue effort. Dude is all like "send one Thorold volunteer fireman with a rope, and I'm good". I predict the charges will be dropped. And my best wishes for the 100+ caches along the Welland Canal. I doubt that the caches *along* the canal pose the same issues as a cache that required people to unlawfully enter the canal. The cache (and dozens of others) are located near what they refer to as pondage areas along the canal. All that water has to go somewhere when they open or close locks. The canal is drained in the winter, making these areas accessible to Geocachers, hikers and dog walkers. I will say again, I've never observed a no trespassing sign anywhere on Seaway lands.

All they needed was a rope and harness, but sent out a massive rescue effort anyhow. It's a good thing he wasn't injured. Without any signage, I don't know how he trespassing charge will be handled. It's entirely likely that someone said it was fine to go there before it happened, and the incident caused them to evaluate the area more closely. Likely the area will have signage by next year and the pending charges will be dropped, but they stand in the meantime to prevent any more visitors from going. Yeah, I think the authorities are just ticked off at their massive rescue effort, which didn't have to be a massive rescue effort. Dude is all like "send one Thorold volunteer fireman with a rope, and I'm good". I predict the charges will be dropped. And my best wishes for the 100+ caches along the Welland Canal.

Are the others in areas that are normally not accessible or that require you to go outside of the standard public access areas? Have the others gotten permission? Perhaps it is one of those areas where things are fine until they are not. Or like private property caches that are routinely published without incident until the owner complains or the bomb squad is called. At least one visitors site I saw on the web distinguished between the canal itself (closed Dec. to March) and the parkway (open all year), so there may be a distinction that applies here. In any event, if I were a land manager I would be very hesitant to give permission to a cache that brought visitors to a place where there are large holes. This does not mean that the cacher was properly charged with trespassing or whether the officials might be "pricks" if he is charged. It might depend on the signage at the ordinary point of access to the general canal area - are there any restrictions or large red dots? The kind of sign about staying on walkways or not entering the actual canal that is easy to not think about? If so it is your burden under the Trespass to Property Act to show you have express permission. In any case, they likely were upset at the rescue and might have warned in other circumstances. From my reading of the article it might still be just a threat - he was told he would be facing charges but perhaps that statement was more to deter future visitors than a final decision. Has he actually been charged? Has he actually been charged? I don't know, I'll keep an eye on it. The cache sits only 19.5 miles from my home coordinates, but it's a different Country, and I don't normally follow their media. Why would I? Oh gosh, there are no "no trespassing" signs ANYWHERE on Seaway authority property that I've ever seen. And it's far from the only cache in what I would describe as being in "remote areas" on Seaway property. Hikers do go into these areas, it's not just Geocachers. Yeah, it's not a bike path along the main Welland Canal, but people do use these lands for recreational purposes.

The absence of explicit restriction is not the same thing as permission. I don't know, man. Why would the cache owner or the publishing reviewer think this one would be any different than any Welland Canal cache? I'll bet there are over 100 of them. And the Welland Canal is only like 30 miles long.

OK, I've found the other cache on the "island" (which is actually a lock from the abandoned 3rd Welland Canal), and I kid you not, I found it with a Groundspeak volunteer reviewer! He doesn't hide his identity, obviously. There are no restrictions that I or anyone else know about for Geocaching on Seaway lands. If you don't believe me, look at the cache map available from archived cache page. I think they just charged him with trespass to be pricks.

I actually know the guy, you want me to ask? I believe I may have found a previous incarnation of this cache; he pretty much archived every cache he ever owned, and it sounds like he brought this one back because it was his most favorite hide ever.

Would that be any worse than the road worker who built a road and someone died on that road? No one forces us to do dangerous caches, it is our choice to take the risk. I've left a few caches deeming them too dangerous. Actually, it would be worse since leaving a container for someone to get is not the same as building a road. If someone designed a road that was inherently dangerous in a way that should have been foreseen . . . . but I suppose there is no need to carry that analogy further since I know nothing about the cache or the hypothetical road. I agree with that, and I too would feel absolutely horrible if someone died at one of my caches. I almost forgot about this one. This guy, txoilgas was found dead in his car while out Geocaching, most likely from a heart attack. That one was pretty well known too, and there was a long forum thread with many condolences.

I'm not saying that you have to like it, but if it eats away at your soul like cancer, robbing geocaching of all pleasure, when you wince and your blood pressure spikes when a "new log notification" email arrives in your inbox before you even open it up, might be time to consider an alternate hobby that's less stressful, like rattlesnake wrangling. As for that bar code game, I'm so tempted to customize my auto logging with "that's one more cap for me! thank you for deploying this sticker." WTF is a cache log? I have 30 inches of snow on the ground, and the temperature hasn't risen above 32 degrees in 5 weeks. I haven't seen one of these "cache logs" you speak of in two months. I actually see very few lame logs on my caches. Generally, they're all "in the woods" and a good .25 miles one way from parking, all while being in a suburban setting. That's actually a rather effective intro app deterrent. And I haven't even taken it to the next level, that being all PMO.

We're not hearing too much here in the English speaking parts of the world. Personally, I've NEVER observed anyone from Sweden posting to these forums. Denmark, yes, but Sweden, no. There was a rather high profile geocaching related death in Germany a few years ago, and that too involved someone falling off of a bridge. (A missing piece of grating on a catwalk) But many Germans fluent in English posted here. I think it's the 3rd or 4th Geocaching related death I've seen in these forums over the years, all related to "falls", be it a cliff or a bridge.

Who's going to be the first to bring it up? Technically, you know, I didn't

Definitely started in '02. I have seen a few, but not many, '03 joining charter members. But early in that year, and don't look at me, I went about 6 months, and didn't pull the trigger until February 2004. I'm sure Moun10Bike has this information, but who knows if he'll post on a weekend.

You know, that would be a cool username... He also knows Marvin The Paranoid Android. "A brain the size of a planet, and I have to deal with lame logging". Eh, I'll never rethink it. For example, I'm in the process of writing up a webcam cache on an alternative site at the location of a 2002 placed virtual cache. Although I was there last year, I just discovered this webcam a couple of days ago, so I just went to the virtual cache page to grab the coordinates. Recently, a 10 find newbie, logged the cache with a period: (.) They did post a pic, but they logged this 2002 virt with 16 favorite points with a period. Geocaching deserves better. Let the bar code sticker game with optional logging that almost no one uses that started out as, and always will be a smartphone game, have it.

OMG. I'm dying here. You people do know they only did this to stop The Dirtbag Geocaching Society from stacking events, right? Just kidding, I'm sure they didn't. But *I* thought it was funny.

You call that a Blizzard?? I still see grass. Not even enough to hide a geocache in. Blizzard: 1 to 2 feet of snow with strong wind. Unable to see 10 feet in front of you. I have driven in that, that is nothing here I'm sure he was just goofing around. And I don't have any percentages, but so many people who live in "the South" are Northern transplants, and think nothing of going the speed limit in 3" of snow, like some of us.

If you're so bitter about the whole log thing, why do you still play this game? It's not good for your blood pressure or ulcers. Wow, where'd that one come from? I understand the desire to rant when one receives what they perceive as an undeservedly lame log on their cache - I don't like it, but I can understand. But this goes beyond that. The whole doom and gloom, "it doesn't matter, it'll all suck in the end" even when someone is trying to share a nice story, just rubs me the wrong way. I don't know if you knew this, but in addition to knowing Chad, knowschad also knows Eeyore. I'll jump on the pessimist bandwagon too, what the heck. We can infer from Toz's post that he emailed that new account creator, and welcomed them to Geocaching. Lets say Toz told them "you know, if you have a smartphone, you can download an app to find these things". It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they had a smartphone and downloaded the app, if they went out and started logging caches with "Nice one", "Found it", or "Tftc". Due to the apparently overwhelming urge of new smartphone loggers to log all their finds from the cache site with the phone.

Nice. I've seen a few like that as well over the years. You can bet they won't be writing nice logs like that for long, once they see how most other cachers log their finds. If you're so bitter about the whole log thing, why do you still play this game? It's not good for your blood pressure or ulcers. Wow, where'd that one come from? As one of the longest tenured anti lame log ranters around here, I would have expected that to be dropped on me. I'll pretend it was. I would say the lame logging will NEVER have an effect on the way I log, so I'd never leave the game on the find side. If lame logging ever becomes totally dominant, to the point where 90%+ of logs on every cache (no matter a P&G, a 2 mile hike to an ammo box, or an Earthcache), it would probably result in me never hiding another cache, and probably archiving all but my 2 or 3 favorites. But it'll never happen. I've seen the writing on the wall for a few years now... 95% of smartphone noobs log a few caches, perhaps as many as 100, and are never heard from again. Out of the 5% that go on to become regular Geocachers, probably 4% eventually get a clue that most of their fellow "regular geocachers" that have been doing it longer than them don't drop lame logs.

In Falun, Sweden, apparently.

The "Scandanavian and Baltic Countries" sub forum hasn't been posted to in 2015, so I don't think this has been discussed anywhere in these forums. A man has apparently died while Geocaching falling off a bridge in an urban setting. News Story (in English)

I hope that image is large enough for everyone to see. Will you rebuild? Tomorrow makes the 9th consecutive school day that has been cancelled here in Knoxville, TN. And for the most part it hasn't looked any different than the picture you posted above. As someone who grew up in the Northeast and lived in Quebec for some time, this is pretty laughable, But we're all good and safe at home for each of these dustings. The kids and I have been doing a lot of playing, but not too much geocaching. I was not trying to offend, believe me. Someone from Raleigh/Durham sent me a meme that said "North Carolina Blizzard 2015: We will rebuild" a few days ago. Last year I had a conversation at the gym with an Army Command Sergeant Major from Boston who's been stationed in the Virginia Beach area for about 5 years. He told me when Virginia Beach gets their average of two dustings a year, the whole City shuts down, including the military posts.

I hope that image is large enough for everyone to see. Will you rebuild?

Since when does size dictate the quality of a cache? Yep, it's true. Point? We are SO going to get pimp slapped for turning Drsolly's thread into a micro bashing thread. I will discuss this with you in the next one that comes up. Here's on Topic. I found out from reading his blog he's the guy who originally wrote Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus!! But it's long since been sold to McAfee, and I don't even think the name Dr. Solomon is out there any more.

There's nothing wrong with micros. Of course not. Your 6,000 finds would be less than 3,000 without them. No one thinks that. That's just what you think we think. Or have been told we think. Well when he isn't caching he's blogging (I expect he does other things too), so he tends to write up a blog for his day's adventure, e.g. http://blog.drsolly.com/2015/02/forty-thousand.html Pretty nice, and lot of other thoughts besides Geocaching. I've followed it.

Giggity. Gas is cheap. Get a VW bus, and drive across the country, man. I have to admit, the only two I've been to/am going to have been 100 miles from home, and this one, 320 miles.

Agreed... Yup. As this cache is conceived of in the OP, this wifi hotspot that is hosting a web page would be quite suitable for other Geocaching sites that allow codewords for log verification. This code could be put on that web page, and only people who connect to this wifi hotspot (and you have to be in close proximity to it to see it) could "find" the cache. Of course idiots could share this codeword, but there really isn't an issue with that on those websites. Here, people would cheat like crazy. This is not to say there is not a way to implement the idea on Geocaching.com; coords on that webpage for the final with a logbook for example.

Would you be impressed if I broke 3,000 with under 25% micros? Only 200 away. Hmm. drsolly #1 in the UK, and with less than 10 years of Geocaching (joined August 2006). I'd say they've done a fair amount of caching.