Keith Watson

Congratulations on a well placed series by a great bunch of cachers. We made the geocaching blog. Full Article Project Page

Thanks for the chuckle. I imagine if you were Ten Second Tom you'd never get tired of finding your own geocaches. However, remembering to log them might be a challenge.

I can think of a few situations. You found a cache and then you adopted it. Thanks just a timing thing so I don't think that counts. Some people log an attended on their own events. I don't but I understand the thinking that it is not a found so I don't see anything wrong with that. And interesting twist is the throw down. A cacher goes to find a cache which isn't there and places a replacement cache. That could be a debate on its own. As for posting a find on a cache you placed yourself which I believe is the question then my view is that is bad form. I agree with others that you can't find something you his because you already know what and where it is. I have a cache that took me about 40 minutes to find. I would not consider that a find. I would consider that a good hid or just sad on my part. The is no prize for the most finds and more finds does not make you a better cacher than anyone else. I have set personal goals for my self and have even gonna a little cache crazy this year like finding over 450 caches in a day, over 550, inappropriate week, and over 700 in a month. When people tell me how impressive that is I remember that friends of mine made that look minor shortly after that. With the exception of owning a major power trail claiming finds on your own caches won't amount to much so why bother. Another view could be that if it doesn't amount to much then why is it a problem. It comes down to how you want to play the game and do you care what others think of you. Personally I don't claim finds on caches I placed.

While down in Nevada and Arizona recently I organized four events. Three meet and greats and one a 1,000 foot hike up Cathedral Rock starting at 7,600 feet and ending at 8,600 feet. It was nice meeting local, out of state, and cachers from around the world all with one thing in common. We all like to find caches. It was fun combining finding caches while getting together as we during the test in Ontario.

It almost looks like a drug stash.

That is sharp looking.

Been there, done that, got the T shirt. Well maybe not the T shirt part. I had a very successful cache just like that. Originally it was strapped to an abandoned telephone pole but the city came and too the pole away after two weeks. So I made a new one and strapped it to the side of a pole beside a bus stop at a major intersection.

Natural Bridge on the Kicking Horse River Natural Bridge by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr Burgess Shale Emerald Lake by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr Great Divide Sulphur Mountain Banff by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr Dino in Drum Willow Creek Hoodoos Visiting The Hoodoos by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr

Miles Away Butchart Gardens Sunken Garden by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr One Second Falls Kay Falls - Long Exposure by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr My linkMt. Revelstoke Summit Trail by Keith Watson aka Keith Watson, on Flickr

What is your planned route?

The police tape is down.

I saw that on the news last night and thought about that cache.

See above. They won't. They denied to my face that they took my trails project data. Then when I pointed out that they had somehow included errors from my GPS in their product they changed their tune to indicate it was ok because "everyone copies map data", when I mentioned the word "copyright" I was told that "you can't copyright map information". So far I am still waiting for them to upload their map product to a torrent site since it's all public domain information. At the end of the day they are not the kind of company I think anyone should do business with. Every person that purchases one of their map products is telling them it's ok to steal other people's work and sell it at profit. I suspect they are referring to compilations of factual data. Compilations of factual data may be protected but there are restrictions. Unless you are willing to spend the time and money to take them to court there is not much you can do. Perhaps take the data offline if you believe they are taking it but that doesn't do much for the people like me who enjoy using the free trail maps. I would also suggest you be very careful about any statements you make publicly. They could be used against you should you become too much of an irritation to them.

Congratulations on your find. When I visited the oldest active cache in Ontario I had no idea there anything special about it. It was just another cache in the area we were caching. We stopped at Canada's first geocache on the way to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and last year I visited GC39 with res2100, the first cache placed East of the Mississippi. I didn't know about it until a few years ago a cacher in New York state told me about it when I was looking into another cache. Very nice area and a cool feeling finding such an old cache and it was in great shape.

I agree that challenge caches are nothing more than physical caches with ALR's on them. I accept that the ALR is required but only as far as the purpose of the cache. If it is to find 100 caches in a day or find all 81 difficulty terrain combinations then that should be required and nothing more. Adding extra qualifications such as date found or only allowing caches place before a date should be excluded from the ALR exemption. I believe these extra qualifiers push challenge caches down the road that caused the ALR's from other caches to be removed. This allows cache owners to force caches to perform as the cache owner wishes behind the basic purpose of the challenge cache. Trimming some of the ALR's was a start. I think they could go further. I don't think a new cache type is needed for filtering purposes. Perhaps a new attribute can be created and that can be used to filter pocket queries. This would allow people to exclude challenge caches if they wish or look for only challenge caches.

If some one logs a find on a challenge cache they should believe they have completed the challenge. That should involve knowing what caches they have found that qualify. All they have to do is provide a list of GC codes. It would then be up to the cache owner to verify the list however way they wish. Some times figuring out if you qualify for a challenge can be just as much of a challenge as the finding the caches to qualify.

Not sure what you mean. Can you explain? I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this one, since I know you're intelligent enough to figure it out. Though if you want to have a big debate about whether or not a Challenge Cache parameter is equal to or not equal to an ALR, with all due respect (I mean that), start up another thread or e-mail CacheDrone directly. 81 Proof was reviewed, published and logged by people. Your ALR language above is more general than this one cache and it should be it's own free standing topic. Please, before dragging this thread off topic by discussing what is off topic, you may want to look at the original post. You may also want to make you posts a little easier to understand. I was confused because you seemed to indicate this thread was being hijaked. The ALR topic was restarted by CacheDrone, a reviewer, so I assumed by his post and the original post is was a fair discussion. It looks like perhaps you hijacked the thread by accusing someone else of hijacking the thread. Very interesting concept. Hmmmmm... I will sit on the sidelines for a while and try not to distract.

Not sure what you mean. Can you explain?

Virtual and earth caches also have ALR's and that as well has been grandfathered by Groundspeak. A personal choice to not see the additional logging requirements does not mean they are not still additional logging requirements to the basic requirement of sign the log and get your smiley.

Restricting caches by the date they were published creates a challenge that changes the effort to complete over time. I wouldn't say it becomes any more or less difficult. It will require more traveling as time goes by though. This is caused by qualifying caches being archived over time. This favors caches that start on the challenge over caches who start later or have no choice in when they start the challenge because that could be based on when they started caching. The challenge becomes less about getting the required caches and more about who is willing to travel farther to get a cache that qualifies for the publish before restriction.

That is fantastic. Sometimes there is nothing more rewarding than experiencing things through the eyes of your children. Over the years we have enjoyed including our children in things we have done. What a great start to hopefully many fun years of geocaching and many other adventures you will go on together.

Now that is an interesting question. Theoretically premium members may have a broader selection of caches to choose from to complete a challenge. And challenges that have an ALR that excludes caches published after the challenge has been published, non premium members would have to potentially log more miles to complete the requirements. This can become worse as qualifying caches are archived.

I have also seen how the lest fortunate live. I was a little put pack by it with such a drastic change in class and life style only separated by a few hundred meters. It does give one a true respect for what we have and what others don't. I agree with your gg and you have put it so well. As per CacheDrone's post about this cache not containing any ALR's. If I understand stand correctly that ALR stands for additional logging requirement the this cache definitely has them. The minimum required to log a find on almost any cache is to sign the log book. Some cache types have been given an exemption so that they mast ask for additional requirements to be met before logging a find is permitted. That would be additional logging requirements. Just because it is permitted to have additional logging requirements on a cache does not mean an ALR does not exists. They are just accepted forms of additional logging requirements.

Can I have another amen brothers and sisters. This looks so much like a love fest I am expecting a rendition of kumbaya to break out. I didn't realize I could cause such a volume of emotion and rage over one log. For a lot personal quests, it amazes me how much actions of one individual can cause such grief. I have decided it is not worth all the hassle, though the attention I seem to be getting is reassuring I am still very popular, and deleted the possibly offending log. I have almost 5,000 finds and will be celebrating my 5,000th with fiends so one smiley doesn't mean anything to me. You may return to paying homage to your alter. By the way, along the line of the recent posts. My advice to you is to remember that life is the ultimate personal journey. If you are getting bogged down with what other people do or think, you are wasting part of that journey. You are entitled to your path just as much as others are entitled to theirs. Keep that in mind before condemning others.

Sigh. Read two posts above yours. Did that and found nothing to answer my question. Apparently there is nothing in the guidelines about it and only local reviewers take on the guidelines.