Ichabod

My daughters, 7 and soon to be 5, both like to go, however, the youngest is far more interested in the hunt. She and I were out on our own today, and I let her search ahead of me. She spotted the caches right off.

That's not as easy as you might think. Long story short; Last July, we had an experienced hiker get turned around and hiked north instead of south as intended to find his way out, and stayed lost on the trails for 4 days until he found a road. He only went out for a day hike with just a little water and some beef jerky, shorts and a windbreaker and was on well marked trails on the way in. He was "found" very dehydrated and hungry and had no clue where he was even on the paved road. The point is he underestimated how easy it is to get turned around even with his level of experience and oh yah, by my reckoning, he over estimated his experience even though he was able to fall back on survival skills. He didn't take a map or a compass. And in the PNW, you can't always depend on seeing the sun. It sounds to me that he was very inexperienced. While I am in favor of travelling light, I don't advocate being unprepared, and preparedness is different for everyone. If I am by myself (and there are a lot of people tha say that in and of itself is asking for trouble) I will go with much less, because I know my own limits, but if ANYONE is going with me, I will take far more, because I don't know what their limits are and pack for them as well as me. A few years ago, I took my wife on a four day trek on Mt. Hood. As we descended on the fourth day, to a trail that was near a road, we came up on several groups of people, hiking in from the road. One woman looked at us, in 50 pound packs, and said, "You brought your house!" I guess she thought we brought all that for the same mile and a half hike she had just made

When I am out searching for a regular cache container (usually an ammo can,) I often see the cache from a distance because of the dreaded "pile o' cache." You know what I'm talking about, a cache container that is "concealed" by a pile of sticks, bark, moss, tree bow, etc. It often makes the cache more obvious, not less. What creative ways do all of you have to help these poor caches, short of moving the cache?

That's not a mountain... but since you "own" it... I suppose you can call it whatever you like

If he just found it...where's his trade swag?

Agree here. In my opinion lots of geocachers go way over prepared. I do have a large fanny pack in the car but 99% of the stuff stays there unless I am out for the whole afternoon. I carry a pen, a trinket or two for trade, a map, a compass, and a print out of the page. I may add a mini mag light once in awhile if I suspect I will be searching for a micro slipped into a dark spot. In the summer a pint of water is good, in the winter a pair of gloves. Guess my backpacking days in the 70s taught me to go light and move fast. Now I am old enough that the fast part is long gone but carrying a bunch of extra stuff just doesn't appeal to me. Just a few weeks ago my wife and I were out for a decent hike (about 6 miles) to place a cache. The day started beautiful. Sunny and 50's so we took our time and enjoyed the great weather. Then about halfway through the hike the wind really picked up. Soon the temps dropped drastically and it started to rain, then sleet. We had been wearing nothing but lightweight fleece tops and thin hiking pants throughout the hike so my wife started to shiver. At that point we simply reached into our packs and each of us grabbed a thick fleece pullover and our packable rain parkas and my wife also added a vest she had along. We finished our hike just as sun set, comfortable and reasonably warm. I remarked to my wife at the time that I could see how easily someone who wasn't as prepared as we were could have had a much different result. I guess I should mention that I almost always wear a gortex parka, a hat, and a sweat shirt, all of which I can shed if I get too warm, but oh how they are good to have if things turn too cold. As others have pointed out, my two main concerns on any hike are: 1. Do I have water, or is water available? 2. Will I be warm enough if I have to spend the night?

Partly I think this comes down to how comfortable one is out in the bush. I'm an avid hiker and spent much of my childhood tromping through the woods on my own. I therby tend to get rid of anything that I think is needless weight. Most geocaches I've gone for have been within a mile or two, so nothing more is needed than my GPSr and a writing utensil. I have a large fanny pack in which I have a some swag, a notepad, writing utensils, spare batteries, a compass, a head lamp, and my leatherman. This is all I really need for anything within five miles. On a recent trek, I deliberately took the long way into a cache for a hard 8 mile hike and took nothing more than this fanny pack with a bottle of water stuffed inside. Less is more in my book.

Or you can make a chandelier, like this one in my living room!

How very true If I'm on foot and see something is within one kilometer, I think, "Hey, it's only a kilometer." I think I may also prefer metric because when I run, I think in terms of 5k, 10k, etc. and when it comes to shorter distances, if I'm within a meter of a cache....well, how much closer do you need to be?

I have a Garmin 60cs and I just noticed recently that when importing coordinates from GSAK or Mapsource, that the last digit is always off by one, usually one less, than what was being imported. Has anyone else noticed this? My firmware is up to date.

I'm a relative newbie. I found my first cache a couple years ago, but didn't have my own GPSr until just a few months ago. Anyhoo... I find that I prefer meters to statute settings on my GPSr and was wondering if other in the U.S. do the same? The only time it becomes a problem for me is when there are directions in the cache (usually a multi) that say, go 100 feet at 225 degrees, etc. I was doing a couple of multis today that were similar and had switched my GPSr over to statute and was totally thrown. I was glancing down at my GPSr as I approached the waypoint, thinking, okay, 400 meters... but it was 400 feet... yikes. So which do you prefer? Meters? or Feet? Feet? or Meters?

I was given this nickname many, many years ago, and it stuck. Incidentally, I tried getting just plain old Ichabod, but it was already taken (though whoever nabbed it has never registered their account ) so I tagged on the year I was born.

I am quite "aware" of how my actions may look to others, but that is part of the fun. On a recent outing, I was stumbling around a wooded trail, looking for a cache, when a young woman came running down the path. I had my dog with me, and made like she was looking for a good place to do her thing. I had been searching for a while with no luck, so decided to move on and come back to it another time. I drove on to the next location on my list, a few kilometers away, parked, got the Dog out, started off through the park, and here comes the same woman, running toward me down the trail. She had a queer little grin on her face as she came by, so she either thought I was stalking her, hitting on her, or just plain creepy.

Actually, the thread was asking for ALL methods of dealing with muggles, so any strategy (or non-strategy) seems valid enough for me.

Just wondering what strategies you all use to deal with muggles? Ichabod67