oakenwood

Congratulations and welcome. Feel free to ask questions.

Aluminum is the best wood. Except in thunderstorms.

Someday when they make the geocaching movie, there'll be a scene where the FTF hounds spring into action. Email alerts will draw them from their beds into the cold night air, pulling hats and gloves over their pajamas, jumping on snowmobiles, jet skis, ultralights, roller blades, and Segways. They'll be parachuting, hitch-hiking, and hopping freight trains. They'll all be converging on ground zero, offering fake hints and staking out search areas. Some clown will cry "I've found it!", but it's just a ruse to drive the others away in frustration. Finally, one cacher checks some place for the third time and notices something a little out of the ordinary. They furtively sign the log and head out with a look of deep satisfaction.

1. That I could download cache locations directly to my GPSr. (When I first started, I'd write the coordinates in a notepad, go to the cache area, turn the GPSr on, and move the pointer to the cache location. What a noob!) 2. It's no fun looking for caches under wet leaves. 3. To avoid wearing spiderwebs, wave a long twig in front of you while you walk. (Lots of webbage here in the east.) 4. Don't give up the search. My favorite caches are the ones that were hardest to find. 5. Use a high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPSr. The added accuracy helps. 6. Don't be so focused on the cache that you fail to enjoy your environment.

I've always pronounced it like "geoquack". Is that not correct?

It's not unusual for GPS receivers to be as many as 50 feet off. If your unit has WAAS, enable it-- it will improve the accuracy. Some caches, especially older ones, can be off as well. If the cache is off by 50 feet and you're off by 50 feet, it could be 100 feet away.

To GeoBunny, Stu, and Harvey, I'll add Frank.

I have a Utili-Key and Microlight on my keychain. Together, they weigh approximately nothing and take up the space of a couple of keys. They've often come in handy. I've had various things on my keychain; these are they two that have stuck around. I've never needed them while caching, though. Maybe someday I will.

Those directions, or something close, should work with your units. You might not be able to go all the way to the last of your steps, though. The Tides page might be as far as you can go, if the unit won't recall which station you've selected. It'll still save you a few steps. I don't have either of your units, so I can't check it. I'm describing a shortcut that works for Garmin handhelds in general.

The Groundspeak weekly newsletter is how I find out about new caches in my area. It's not the quickest way to find out, but I'm not an FTF hound. If you want an up-to-the-minute list of newly published caches, go here.

Main Menu --> Setup --> Page Sequence --> <Add Page> Then pick the page you want. After that, you can just use the Page Key to get to it.

Try here. Geocaching dot com has lots of other useful info, too. All kinds of stuff.

Routable street maps are good for using in the car, but on the trail, you'd probably prefer a topo map.

It's not big enough to climb into, but this cache is by far the biggest ammo can I've ever seen. It also has the ultimate "geobeacon"-- it's out in the open and "hidden" by an enormous pile of sticks. Check the gallery.

If you have a Garmin, it's easy. For caches, you can go here, download the Garmin Communicator Plugin and install it. Connect your GPSr to your Mac with the USB cable it came with and turn it on. Then when you find a cache you like, just click on the "Send to GPS" button and it's done.

I'm a Mac user and I find Garmin is very Mac friendly. They have a whole bunch of free apps for Mac users. I don't know about DeLorme. I'll let a DeLorme user handle that question.

What you describe is less like a phone with GPS, and more like a GPSr with a built-in phone. In that case, try the nüvifone.

Thanks for the info and the email. I was kind of joking about the cliff thing, though. Really, there aren't many geographical hazards arund here at all. The hazards are biological: skeeters, ticks, spiders, poison ivy. Someday GPS devices will give topo directions like they do with streets. It'd be like orienteering with the computer figuring out the best route instead of figuring it out yourself. That's when I'd be worried about going over a cliff. "Turn left. Walk two hundred yards." "Okay, turn left, and walk... aaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!"

I'm cheap. I didn't want to pay a hundred bucks for a map disk just to use a little bit in central Maryland. So I went online. I used a set of maps cobbled together from mapcenter, using Mapwel to put them on my Garmin. Then just recently I found gpsfiledepot, in particular this map. Much better. I installed it, picked the parts I wanted in MapSource, and clicked "send". Easy as that. Free, too. I just hope there isn't some hidden flaw that sends me walking over a cliff.

Camping, botany, bird watching, and playing with gadgets. Then there's online stuff similar to posting log entries, like Facebook. And hunting for and trying out new applications, maps, etc...

That's when it's time to flip the log over, turn it around, and pretend that's the front. Writing the name of the cache on the new "front" cover helps.

Power69 beat me to one point: a dedicated GPSr is usually more accurate than a GPS-enabled phone. They typically have high-sensitivity chipsets that allow them to see more satellites and usually also have WAAS. It's the difference between ten feet and 30-50 feet. You can get geocaching apps for a phone, but it's often a built-in feature for a GPSr. Many times, the phone apps aren't free. For instance, the geocaching app for my Motorola phone costs $6.99/month. Using a phone also requires connecting while you use the app. You need an unlimited plan, or you'll pay a lot of money. Speaking of money, not everybody can afford both gadgets. If they've paid $400 for a phone, they may not want to shell out another $150 for a GPSr that they consider redundant.

Caching through the snow... I wouldn't even try. I know it's an antidote to cabin fever, but I can't think of a better way for mother nature to increase the difficulty than to put a heap snow on everything. I'd bring a metal detector and maybe a flame thrower. Right now we're expecting twenty to twenty-four inches by Sunday morning. That's just a light dusting for yoopers, but here it's the apocalypse. Best of luck. I'm staying inside and watching the ski races on Universal Sports.

One. In my haste, I poked around in the weeds with a stick and got a great case of poison ivy. I guess that got it out of my system.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: Twelve pocket queries Eleven multi-caches Ten lamp post micros Nine miles of hiking Eight spiders webbing Seven skeeters biting Six muddy sneakers FIVE BISON TUBES! Four poison ivy's Three sudden rainstorms Two DNF's and a WAAS-enabled Garmin eTrex