mtbikernate

I've logged ONE cache find since sometime around 2012 or so (a few days ago, to log that old trackable I have). my participation occurred in spurts prior to that, even. and even then, I was focused on quality over quantity for quite some time. I don't have an issue with the availability of the caches. Just that the only way for a basic member to find interesting ones is to click on individual caches on the map until you find ones you're interested in hunting. it winds up resulting in WAY more time spent on the website trying to identify stuff worth looking for than is worthwhile. you can use favorite points only as a basic member, and my experience with those (they were a thing a fair bit over 10 or 11yrs ago) is that they don't really reflect anything relevant to me. plenty of caches I like have very few favorite points (usually because they're found very infrequently). maybe. I haven't really messed with the "search" because I don't know what I'm searching for necessarily. I've always looked on the map, because "place" has always been criteria number one for me. and then after that, I want to filter what displays there based on things like the cache size (will it be able to fit a trackable I have? or does it contain any trackables?) or maybe terrain difficulty or something like that. with the map icons, it's easy enough to visually distinguish general cache type (multi, traditional, puzzle, earthcache, etc), but I do think you have been able to hide caches from the map with certain attributes for a long time. because in especially cache-dense places like cities, it's still helpful to reduce the amount of visual clutter. I've had gsak for a long time, and it's what I've long used to transfer caches to my GPS. but afaict, the only way for a basic member to get caches into it is to click on each one individually, download it individually, and load it into gsak. I can zip a batch together so I only need to do the load operation once. but it doesn't do much to streamline things as a basic member if I can't batch download via a pocket query. I'm okay with individual downloading, though, with the way I wish to participate in geocaching if I could apply filters to the map. I'd even still be okay with a less-than-everything number of filters. Cache size being a big one that I would want. As I said before, favorite points is a useless attribute for me. I can usually infer something about a cache's terrain difficulty based on its location on the map.

I was pretty clear about that. would like to be able to filter through caches based on their attributes. but that's a premium-only feature now even though I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the past. clicking on each individual cache in the map to read its description to find out if it's a micro in the woods is frustrating enough that it's discouraging me from participating in geocaching outside of this trip where I'll be dropping off this trackable (and, for that matter, maybe all of the ones I own so maybe someone else can get some enjoyment out of them).

yeah, if my time spent digging through cache listings to find a cache I want to look for begins to approach my time spent hunting for a that single cache, why would I bother continuing to cache? if I want to stare at maps (which I actually do enjoy doing), there are much more interesting places to do that than on geocaching.com.

thanks, but still doesn't do what I'm after.

I was a premium member once. if the basic membership made searching and filtering for potentially interesting caches less drudgery, they might have been able to rope me into a premium membership again. I am not and never have been the sort of person to find all the caches in an area, so the simple ability to filter through caches in my area based on basic criteria is pretty important. and if I have to pay for that so I can do it for a couple cache hunts a year? meh. EVERYBODY wants a subscription nowadays. I pay subscriptions for plenty of stuff because I enjoy doing many different things. so I'm going to be very choosy about additional subscriptions.

maybe someone who failed marketing 101. they're gonna lose me again.

I didn't even own a smartphone 10yrs ago. So I didn't use an app at all, but I remember talk about phone apps back then. I don't care about the premium caches right now and yeah, I know they've been around since I was last a premium member. What irritates me the most is the inability to filter caches on the website and I'm pretty sure that functionality was available to basic members in the past. Just to be able to display caches on the map that were harder, or larger containers (so I could filter out all the lamppost micros, or micros-in-the-woods that I don't like searching for) so I could download the .gpx for them to transfer to my garmin. but without paying, I have to just click on stuff until I find something that meets my criteria. that sort of thing is going to get old really fast.

Have had a geocaching account for awhile, but got inactive about a decade ago due to some life changes. I realized recently that I still had someone's trackable in my possession and figured I'd log it and drop it off on an upcoming vacation. Am I incorrect in feeling like more features have been put behind the premium membership in the past 10yrs? I mean, I was a premium subscriber awhile ago. I don't see myself getting involved enough to want the premium membership anytime soon, but I can't even filter caches on the web interface without a premium membership? I feel like at least that was still a basic feature back then, and I paid for premium so I could get pocket queries. a big part of the reason I became less active was the proliferation of lame hides and it doesn't look like it's any easier to avoid those. the app was pretty new when I was less active and I didn't even have a smartphone to take advantage of it, but it also seems new-ish (at least since I was last a member) that limits what caches you can access via the app. can't even simply use the app to log stuff (even if I use my trusty Garmin for the actual find). navigating these irritations doesn't even really make me want to bother with picking it up again at a very casual, occasional level.

my previous tree released TB's have not had such a fortunate fate. one was in a cache and turned up missing. another was in a cache that got bulldozed. The third was last logged roughly 6mo ago by a guy who was taking it around to visit other caches in IL, AR, and MO. He was moving it a lot for awhile. I have several unreleased trackables that I hesitate to let go in the town where I live. Trackables don't do well here. I usually release them when I go on a trip to some other state.

My travel bug, Stupid Cancer just turned up after being held hostage for 2 1/2 years. I have sent some friendly reminders to the cachers holding on to it on a couple of occasions, and got nothing in response (no apology, nada). Today I got the e-mail to my geocaches folder that the TB has been put back into the wild! Makes me happy, this one has a great deal of sentimental meaning to me because I had spent the previous 9mo receiving chemotherapy and unable to go into public and this was my first hike that happened to be on my 29th birthday on the 29th of November.

Not a lot of high-difficulty caches in my area. Hence my diff rating puts me in the 1156 range. But I do tend towards more higher terrain caches, so terrain has me at 469. Avg log is 377 characters, not bad.

because you couldn't do that before? I'm glad that as long as I don't "link" my account, I don't even see the option and I don't need to worry about it being checked or unchecked. However, I do have a few friends who cache, and I really hope they don't wind up being the type to publish EVERY LOG to FB.

*Meh* (and not going to use it, either) +2 +3

you're going to have to think hard about those logging tasks. there are so many pics of the sphinx on the internet that you might wind up with a problem with armchair logging.

thanks for the reminder. a couple folks logged one of my Earthcaches on their way to geowoodstock and I was going to give them some time considering they were on a road trip. well I forgot about it and they still have not sent an e-mail. so I just sent them a reminder about it. hope they wrote everything down! lol

I went on a hike earlier this year and was forced to use my common sense. I had lent the Nuvi to the wife for a road trip, so I had paper maps as my only street map source for the weekend. My planned approach to the trailhead turned out to be blocked by a gate that wasn't shown on my topo map. Seems the area changed ownership at some point and the new owner somehow got the county to allow him to build a gate across the road. I had to backtrack and circle around navigating with my map in order to reach the trailhead.

I am on it. So far, I like it better than Facebook and would stop using FB altogether if it wasn't for the fact that few people I know use G+.

If 16 is a chunk of road gravel, then 6 must be a grain of sand in my backyard.

I can't recall ever going to a university library that required an ID just for access. The private university I attended as an undergrad didn't, and neither does the public one I attend for my master's right now. You do need an ID to check out anything, but that's to be expected. I went to the University of Pittsburgh library once just so I could use their electronic scholarly journal access. No trouble getting in there.

1. There are a handful of land management agencies in the United States. Of primary concern would be the United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Parks Service, and the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (from a federal standpoint). There are often multiple state and local agencies to deal with, too, depending on where you are. 2. The USFS (sounds like that's primarily what you're asking about) is divided into regions, and each region might contain multiple forests and/or grasslands and those might each have multiple districts. Many management decisions are made at the region level. The caching policy for several forests and grasslands in my area is set at the region (Region 8) level, but some places have such policies (or lack thereof) at the individual forest level. 3. You say Wilderness, but are you talking about specific federally-designated Wilderness Areas. Those are "capital-W" Wildernesses, and again, each one may have a different policy in place for caching. But also note that Wilderness areas are not exclusive to USFS lands. They may also be managed by other land management agencies. wilderness (lower case) is what you'd use when referring to any old expanse of undeveloped land...of which there really is very little. I would even argue that many federally-designated Wilderness areas really aren't wilderness at all. I went hiking in one (found a geocache while I was there, even) recently and found a busted up 8-track tape on the trail (which is labeled on my topo map as a county road). The only water source that had any water was a little pond...an obvious remnant from when ranchers ran cattle there prior to designation of the area as Wilderness. 4. The way you're supposed to do it is this: A. Decide you would like to place a cache in a particular area. B. Find out who owns/manages the land and find out whether it is permissible to place a cache there. Obtain necessary permission (through either an open policy of permitting caching, verbal permission, or written permission/permit). Ask if the type of cache you would like to place is permissible. C. Find the specific place you'd like to put the cache. Some permits require specific coordinates of the cache, so you'd have to do this step before getting your permit. D. Talk to your reviewer to make sure the type of cache you'd like to place is permissible under the gc.com listing guidelines if there is a question. E. Place your cache and list it on gc.com. Since you have obtained permission from the landowner/manager and you have spoken to your reviewer about the cache you'd like to place, you should have no problem getting your cache published.

I think you could just remove the bolded text and you'd find agreement with most people on the forum regardless of what subpopulation they belong to. Geocaching is and will always be a fringe activity. As to your original question, I have not heard of such. Sounds like you can try to start one if you like.

I'm a little bit of a confrontational SOB, so I'd be apt to track these people down at a local event and ask them directly what their problem is. Another option (for the less confrontational sort) would be to ask other locals who may know the people you've got problems with, but are not part of their "clique". I learned a lot about some local absentee cachers by asking around at a local event. But I'm not really big on socializing with other cachers at events. It's really just something I do when I'm out with my wife. I have met a few cachers that I keep in touch with, though. It's still useful sometimes to get some of the local gossip about a certain CO's.

According to Wikipedia: at my university, that was called the "Baby Book" because it only included freshmen.

To be honest, I've always wondered why they bothered developing an app at all. Why not focus on the the database and website stuff, figure out an acceptable way to work with app developers, and then let those talented individuals create the apps? I really wonder if the $10 Groundspeak charges really covers the cost of time and resources that they've spent developing the apps. that's a good question. maybe that's one of their goals of developing an API. once the API really gets going, cease development of their own app and require a licensing fee for developers to use their API. it would still provide them a revenue stream (quite possibly a larger one) without the challenges (and costs) of supporting multiple app platforms

for as much as I use the app, it works. it could be easier to deal with trackables, though. otherwise, I don't have the problems with it that some others like to complain about. I'm always for better solutions, though. I will say that the gs app is not always intuitive.