mtbikernate

you're looking for an electronic compass as a feature in the GPS. not a magnetic one. a magnetic compass is a simple compass with a needle that spins and doesn't take batteries. an electronic compass is always a feature add-on. something like an eTrex Vista (the old b/w one) should be able to be found well below your price point. you might be able to find a new Vista HCx at $200. I saw Amazon had that price on a quick Google search.

nobody's mentioned steepandcheap.com yet? Yeesh...this guy needs to know about it. Can get very nice gear on blowout prices. I like packs. I have a handful of them for different things. I have an Osprey Atmos 50 for <1wk backpacking REI Lookout for long day hikes/possible overnights Osprey Talon 22 for most day hiking and long mountain bike rides Mountainsmith Day lumbar pack for short day hiking Camelbak MULE for most mountain bike rides You will want dry bags for your kayak trip...ones that are small enough to fit into the hatches of the kayak. Other than making sure it fits in the storage hatches, gear selection for kayak camping is not very different from backpacking.

my log reflects the apparent effort by the cache owner to develop/maintain the cache. if the CO puts out a crappy hide or does not adequately maintain the hide, that will be reflected by my log. I don't say "your cache is a POS" in so many words, but my log will only have some short phrase about my attempt to find it, and no TFTC or anything. a ho-hum hide will get the log plus a TFTC. a great hide will get a much more lengthy log from me. the logs I write on the actual logbook mostly depend on the logsheet/book. If there is just a sheet gridded out for a name and date only, then that's all the CO gets. If there's a small logbook, then they might get a sentence. If there's a larger logbook, then I'll write more, but I try to keep length on paper logs to no more than half a page to be fair to later cachers. I have a micro with a gridded sheet of paper, but everything larger than that gets a good-sized logbook for people to write in.

Very difficult to own a handheld GPS without a computer. The true functionality of the GPS shines when used with a computer because you can transfer data back and forth between them. That's the real reason I own a computer at all - peripherals. If I only wanted internet, then a smartphone would do the job. But I am a budding amateur photographer, I transfer GPS data from 3 different receivers, I have a body fat scale that communicates with my PC via ANT+, etc, etc. At any rate, if you don't need a computer for much, I'd just get an inexpensive netbook, although I'd ensure I at least bought an external dvd drive with it (if it didn't come with an internal one) because there's still a fair bit of software that comes on discs. You can use a mac with a GPS, but your software options will be different than for a PC. Some options won't exist for a Mac. For example: for Garmin GPSes that support Custom Mapping, Topofusion is the best way to get imagery loaded onto the GPS...but TF is a Windows-only program. But you can still use free maps from gpsfiledepot.com with a Mac (at least the ones with a Mac installer) and you can still do all the .gpx file transfers you want on a Mac. Though since you already use your BB for internet, you might want to look into tethering the computer to the BB for internet access so you don't have to deal with additional access costs. Make sure your model of BB even supports it. I don't think you'll be very successful trying to use a library machine. Even if you ONLY load .gpx files between the GPS and a flash drive, there still need to be drivers installed for the GPS to be recognized as a mass storage device. You will need admin access to a machine at least for the initial installs.

I posted my first NA log today. I was out in an area placing stages for my own new multi, and I had not yet found the caches in the area. One I knew was a trouble cache. It had only been placed a couple months ago, but it was a new cacher (a boy scout, it seems) who put it out there. I suspect he did so without permission, because he placed it in an area that has been in active development (for a rec trails/gardens area) for about 1.5 yrs now. Work crews have been variously shredding the underbrush getting the area ready for the university horticulture people to do their magic. This guy put a coffee container out as a cache in this active work zone (as described on the cache page). I cannot possibly imagine he was given permission to place one there considering the active work. Anyway, sure enough, the area where the cache was hidden got shredded. One cacher posted NM a few weeks ago and posted some pictures. I went out to check the place out. I am a volunteer for the trails in a different portion of this "park" and am privy to a little more info than most. I have an idea of what's planned for the area, and considering the slow pace of the work, I suspect the area will be under active work for the better part of the next year, too. I got to GZ and anything that wasn't a leg-sized tree was mulch. There was NOTHING there. The cache container was nowhere to be seen. It probably got kicked out of the shredder and tossed who-knows-where. If I had a day and a handful of helpers, I might find the remnants buried under the mulch. I posted a NA log on this, not only because of the cache's current condition, but also because the area will not be a stable site for a cache for some time.

my first hide was a puzzle. not a diabolical one, but a puzzle nonetheless. it went a couple weeks before being found. I just published a couple earthcaches. they are both a good bit harder. one involves challenging terrain and the other is more difficult for the questions you have to answer. they were found after just a couple of days...incidentally by the same two cachers that found my puzzle almost a year ago. my area does not have a lot of FTF hounds.

definitely depends on the location. sometimes, I've seen containers "doubled up" to keep the contents secure. usually it's done for camo purposes, but it works quite well to protect against the elements. The outer container isn't a waterproof one, but it's durable and it blocks most of the moisture. The inner container would have the tighter seal against the remaining moisture. polycarbonate plastic bottles don't always work, either. They seem to have a tendency to crack when it gets cold. It just depends on the environmental conditions where you are located. I think that's one big reason why folks should wait to hide them until they've found a bunch...over the course of finding others' caches, you see trends in what works and what does not work.

cool. both got published. Weches This? Down on the Bayou

might have a look at Mobile Atlas Creator Prepare online maps for your mobile device----seems to work well and its FREE Topofusion does far more than just load maps. The "Network" feature alone is worth some dough.

I noticed my area has an astounding lack of Earthcaches when I moved here. I knew I wanted to create a few but it took a couple years to decide what features I wanted to highlight and how I wanted to highlight them. I have started a series of Earthcaches by submitting a pair for review. Once those get reviewed, I'd like to highlight a couple other interesting geologic features in my area. Of course, no Earthcache I submit can be without mentioning how the geology impacts biology (though I try to de-emphasize that part so the geology stands out). One of mine is going to have a pretty high terrain rating, so I'll be interested to watch as folks attempt it.

probably not that well. Right now, I have a ~20deg down top quilt I use. Since I lack an underquilt, I use a blue foam pad from wallyworld. The foam pad insulates well enough...I've been comfortable down into the upper 30's to low 40's. But it gets clammy. The reflective blanket would get clammy, but wouldn't insulate the bottom. Why? the reflective blanket serves as a a sort of vapor barrier. It will reflect heat back towards you, but it doesn't actually insulate you from the cold outside. It will block the wind which can be a huge benefit, but the material itself will get cold and if you're touching it, you will get cold, too. Some hammocks are a two-layer system, which allows folks to slip some insulation between the layers of the fabric. Some people have used mylar for that and it will offer some improvement in warmth, but I wouldn't expect much out of it. You will get more insulative capability out of reflectix, which essentially sandwiches some bubble wrap between sheets of mylar for a little bit of insulation. But even that will probably provide less insulation than a $10 foam sleeping pad. an underquilt can be super thick and puffy for maximum insulation, cut short to save a little weight in shoulder seasons, and just loose enough to allow enough ventilation to prevent clamminess. I plan on sewing my own synthetic UQ this winter - my TQ is a homemade down quilt I made a few years ago.

It's easy enough to avoid LPC's. A quick look at satellite imagery will confirm the location in the middle of a parking lot. I don't worry about those. The ones I question are of a different nature. 1. How many "power trails" out in the country do you figure were placed on the farmer's fencerow with permission? What about the ones inside the highway right-of-way? It's still technically private property, but there's a gray area. 2. The ones placed along public trails that only exist because a private landowner granted the city/county/state some right of way through their property for the trail. Also a big gray area. Who do you ask for permission? Is there implied permission? How far off the public trail are you permitted to go? 3. I am working on a cache on University property. It was described to me as public-private land. There are already a half dozen caches in those woods, but I asked anyway. I was thanked for asking, but the impression I got was that the folks who manage the area were unaware of the existing caches (including the two placed within the past year).

NM first, NA later. I have posted a few NM logs. Where I live now, it seems hurricane/storm damage and forest fires take out a lot of caches and there are some CO's who don't pay attention to the logs (and it seems reviewers don't pay a lot of attention to my area). On of my NM's got addressed recently (archived b/c the cache was burned up), but I'm keeping an eye on a couple others. I'd like for someone else to try for them before I try again and/or post a NA log.

Throw Me A Bone Anuniaq of the North Both bugs are now missing. Throw Me A Bone traveled 6513mi before the cache it was in vanished. Anuniaq of the North has traveled 4983mi, but has spent most of that time in Germany. Both TB's were released in Pittsburgh, PA.

There are only weight savings with hammocks when it's warm, but I don't sleep in one for weight savings. I sleep in one for comfort's sake. If you're looking at a hammock that's separate from the elements (hammock, bug net, and tarp are separate items), then don't buy them all from the same place. There are better alternatives elsewhere. I have an ENO Doublenest, but I use it in combination with a Warbonnet Traveler bugnet and a giant Guide Gear tarp. I use the huge tarp right now because of a few reasons: 1. can really buckle it down for wind protection, but can also set it up to provide sheltered space in a storm. 2. it's big enough to cover two hammocks at once (I'd like it if my wife found she liked hammocks, too) 3. I bought it CHEAP I will probably wind up getting a smaller, lighter tarp for solo use eventually, but considering it'll cost 5-10x more than the one I have now, I'm not too anxious about doing that.

You could even Waymark the spots if you like Super Fund Sites I thumbed through those and unfortunately, not all of those sites are ACTUAL Superfund sites as defined by CERCLA. I will agree with your statement with a caveat...there needs to be a route of exposure. Ingestion is only one potential route of exposure. You can inhale it, and simple skin contact can be another. Inhalation is actually the most significant route of exposure. There may be plenty of toxins out there, but they're only hazardous if there's a route of exposure. This stuff's out there...but ARE people being exposed to the substances in the first place? If so...how?

Yup, and it's even a Virtual. The Leader of The Brave

I liken Groundspeak to companies like Hasbro and Milton Bradley. They're selling a game, too. Technically, you don't HAVE to spend any money with Groundspeak to play this game. Although, I think there's be fewer lame caches (of all types) if some marginal fee was charged per cache listing. Yeah, they make decisions that take the game in directions I'd not care to go sometimes, but the beauty of this game is that it's LIVE. It's going on as we speak. In situations like that, some decisions are good. Some are not. We deal with what there is.

it's an automotive receiver. it does have a battery so it technically can navigate you to a cache, but you've got limits on that functionality. 1. it's not waterproof. caching puts you outdoors where it rains sometimes. sometimes you slip and fall into creeks. water is bad news for a non-waterproof GPS 2. its battery life is limited to abysmal. If you only hunt maybe for 15min for caches, you could squeeze a few hunts in. but sometimes I'll spend an hour at one cache. from what I can tell, battery life on those things maxes at ~2hrs, so you could run out of juice fast. 3. it does not have a robust system for loading waypoints. my 205w has an SD card slot, and I can load a PQ onto it to see the caches and have the GPS navigate to them. it'll work, but they won't necessarily have a cache icon (found or otherwise). 4. as a car navigation device, its default functionality is to get you to follow roads to a cache, and so that's what it's going to do (and if you leave the road before it wants you to, it will start telling you to turn around and "recalculating" and all that business) unless you turn that feature off manually - which means you'll have to turn that back on when you get back to the car. PITA In short, I think it'd be fine to load caches on so you can see them as your approach them in your car. I'd be more likely to set a "proximity alert" for them than to have the GPS navigate to them. That way, the GPS will tell me when I'm near one, but that's all. Then I can take my handheld with me into the field. My handheld will be waterproof, it will not tell me to follow any roads (because it's not set that way. I don't have to change that setting), it will have enough battery to last for at least a whole day of cache hunting (more considering I always keep spares in my pack).

9 DNF's out of 37 finds, and most of those DNF's have been in the past few months because cache maintenance in my area is pretty poor.

I used a non-paperless GPS (76CSx) and an old PDA (Dell Axim) with cachemate to accomplish paperless caching for awhile. It worked well, except that sorting through my list of caches was a little clunky. I recently got an Oregon 450 and really like being able to be paperless on one device. it's annoying at times to have to read between HTML tags (boy, it'd be nice if the Oregon could at least ignore them and not display them) when cache owners make nice cache pages, but it sure beats flopping between devices or carrying a bunch of printouts. if you're patient, you might find a good sale on a satisfactory GPS with the holidays approaching. I snagged my Oregon 450 for $250US when REI had it on sale for a weekend.

log it as found. I always use a pencil. I just find them more reliable than pens in most cases (can sharpen with a pocket knife, they will also write - faintly - on most wet logs, don't freeze, and are cheap). the NM log was the right choice. I am a big fan of write in the rain paper and logbooks. but there's no way I'd ever donate that stuff to another cache owner. use regular paper for that.

Hi I have just checked our location (according to our address we entered) on this website and compared it to what the GPS tells us. Below are the results. Would this variance equal 500m? Geocaching.com S 37 043'488 E 174 56'919 GPS S 37 043'298 E 174 56'558 I agree you need to check your coordinate format, but I am curious about the comment I bolded. Did you possibly enter a street address and get a set of coordinates returned? If that's the case, keep in mind that the coordinates of an address are not known precisely. My house, for example, is listed by Google Maps/Earth in the wrong place entirely. Google thinks my street ends before it ever gets to my backyard. The street my driveway enters has a different name entirely. If I measure the straightline distance between my ACTUAL driveway as seen on the sat imagery and the point where Google THINKS my address is (someone else's backyard), I see that it's already 150m off. And my driveway is 18.5m long. Add that to any error introduced by using the wrong format, and you'll be in trouble every time. I suggest reading up on coordinate formats enough that you can recognize them and distinguish between them. Once you get that squared away, your GPS should get you within 10m of a given point very easily and sometimes within 2-5m given good environmental conditions.

Topofusion is WELL WORTH the $60 for unlimited map transfers. It will put scanned topos (including MyTopo), color sat images, b/w sat images, urban aerial images (where available), Landsat imagery, and open street/cycle maps. All the GPS can handle, whatever image source you want (the program even has the ability to add more WMS seamless imagery servers).

It depends on the map you're using. The data on this website assumes WGS 84 datum (there's a spheroid with the same name), but if you're working with an old paper topo, you'll switch your datum to whatever the map uses - NAD27 or NAD83. Essentially, the Spheroid is a model that represents the shape of the Earth. The planet is not perfectly spherical. It's shorter pole-to-pole than it is across the equator, and the southern hemisphere is slightly bulkier. It's kinda like a sphere, hence the term "spheroid". The model gets updated from time to time because tectonic plates shift, magnetic poles shift, and the distance from the moon changes...so the shape of things deforms. Datum is the set of measurements that determine sea level, peak elevations, and stuff like that that are a bit more local in scale than what the spheroid reflects. Both spheroid and datum have dates associated with them, because the time they were measured is quite relevant. A map can be projected (3D surface projected onto a 2D plane) using many different methods, but all with the same spheroid and datum, depending on the exact location is your area of focus and whether you want to preserve areas or shapes.