Prying Pandora

I believe that's a disco ball.

No panic whatsoever, Travis. We're all just glad you are back to organizing these cache machines because you do it so well. Many of us make them into 2-day events on our own anyway - we just pick up on Sunday where we left off.

Closing them all up probably couldn't even be done, and a partial job won't hold back anyone determined to cheat. If you're aiming the rules at legit cachers (the vast majority) why worry about a few loopholes in a very big sieve? It holds back some legit cachers (like GrnXnham) and cheaters will get through anyway. You'll save yourself a lot of grief. You can always keep a safety net by reserving the right to delete any finds that you discover were not honestly earned. I'm no longer boycotting the county challenge but don't feel comfortable doing it because I may have been partially responsible for it being unwillingly changed. Lifting the date restriction will be a boon to many others though!

I agree with you there - but it does happen. It's a shame legit cachers can't go to Moun10bike & just state they've found one cache on each page & have him take their word for it, to get the final coordinates. Some verification has to take place or a challenge loses value. Unless you're going to request that the owners of each cache found for the challenge verify the physical logs of every cache claimed by everyone that completes the challenge, an archived cache is no more suspect than any other find claimed. Even then someone could still get around it by logging a find on an active cache that had been muggled and replaced, and backdating it to when the older container was in place. Seems better to me to have faith in the fact that most cachers are honorable and reserve the right to delete finds of those cachers that are ever discovered to have cheated. Even if a cheater is never discovered, they're the real loser in the end, aren't they?

There are reasons behind each & every rule. In order to prevent some cachers from claiming finds on un-maintained caches just to log caches in counties they've never set foot in, I do not allow archived cache finds. Anyone who would log a bogus find on an archived cache is the big loser in that case by cheating themselves out of the experience and making their list of cache finds meaningless. Seems a shame to deny honest cachers credit for legit finds, though.

We all start out with a level playing field when we begin caching with zero finds. What you do after that is up to you. There are cachers who began after I did that have more finds than I do, and many more that have cleaned out a lot more of King County than I have. Those people worked harder at it than I did and good for them. I'm not going to cry foul and say they have an advantage over me on a challenge, when I could have worked harder but chose not to.

There are quite a few elements of the park plan that would support responsibly placed geocaches: (edited to correct spelling errors by the City of Seattle) (edited to remove irrelevant plans for parking and road access)

That was the key point of my contrarian view. Someone with 5000 finds may not have to do any work, whereas someone with 5 finds certainly will. Vast different in effort required to complete the challenge. I am one of those who would be at a definite advantage with 'all previous finds count, no date restrictions,' but I'd rather see an even playing field for everyone, even though I will have to do more work and traveling. I don't understand the perceived difference in effort. Cacher A takes the time and effort to visit page X today. Cacher B took the time and effort to visit page X two months ago. Cacher C will take the time and effort to visit page X three months from now. The work and traveling are all equal.

If you build any cache, they will come. If you do it, I hope that you will choose to keep it simple. It seems like challenge caches are being published one right after another and the increasing and varied arbitrary restrictions placed on each one makes me lose patience with keeping track of them. An arbitrary date restriction makes me lose patience very quickly. It's true that "super cachers" will have an advantage without one, but at the end either you've done the work to have been there/done that or you haven't. I have no desire to revisit a long list of places I've already cached in for another challenge cache - they're not going to look any different after an arbitrary date than they did a month prior. Another problem with a date restriction is that many people will have quite a few of the pages cleaned out and would have to wait for new caches to be placed in each one before they could complete the challenge.

Looks like you've decided on Cougar, but I just wanted to say all 3 mountains are very nice to hike on. Squak is a personal favorite because it gets less traffic than Cougar and you feel like you're "getting away from it all" a little bit more. Plus there are some neat caches and terrific views of Mt. Rainier to be had (though you will be lucky to see it this time of year) Have fun on your hike!

It could have been a brand Y cache or a geocache that hadn't been submitted for publication yet.

It is now published Edit to note that I have received the published note, but I can't access the cache page yet. Soon. That has to be the fastest approval I've ever seen! Maybe a whole 30 seconds. Don't we have great approvers?

The cache page is in the review queue published! Fixed!

Actually, My Backyard 2 had been out for several weeks before I found it so I assumed all those logs prior to mine in the book were new. Never thought to check! I didn't say it would stop me, just that it would feel funny - and it does, now that I know. But it would bug me more to leave it unfound and then have to keep driving by the unfound new listing. Besides, who am I to complain when the accepted and sanctified etiquette gets me more smilies?

Not clear on how you have helped with Big L's caches but whatever....... I believe she was thanking you for maintaining Lahontan's caches, not taking credit herself.

Very bad advice! Please scroll up to the Team Misguided post and read it carefully. There are lots of legal finds I didn't log because I am not comfortable "finding" them (event, virtual, earthcache). Don't change the stats on the types I did feel comfortable logging. edited: to remove embedded quote from another quote, and then expanded my comment Sorry, I was too busy reading the OP about multis being changed into traditional caches. I doubt you'd feel more comfortable logging a new find on the exact same cache you already found because it has a new GC**** #, than having one of your multi stats change into a traditional stat.

Can't you simply have an admin change the cache type for you? I'd feel funny logging a new find on the exact same container in exactly the same location in a logbook my stamp was already in.

I'm hoping the price will drop after the initial frenzy dies down. More frigid legumes: An 8-page review on the Colorado from GPS Magazine with lots of photos.

Cool Beans! Garmin put a of the Colorado on YouTube!

I'll see if I can book something for Tuesday. That way you can either toast your APE success or drown your sorrows if the conditions make it unsafe/impossible to get to. The avalanche danger up there is very high right now - hopefully it will be better in February!

I dislike micros in the woods too. I hope we don't eliminate caches from the previous machine. Most of the people that will attend were not caching yet when Yakima I was held and the few old timers that were there can just skip 'em.

And they did it in less than 4 hours! Those Alaskans are made of tough stuff!

A lot of us pick up where we left off on Sunday so a longer route isn't a bad thing.

The cache owner seems to think this one is snowshoe appropriate in the winter. Nobody has done it that way yet, though!

I'm good for 5.