mtbikernate

Best roundup I've seen published anywhere. I added a handful more sites that were not included on the original list or in the subsequent responses. To the OP - there are literally DOZENS of these sorts of sites out there, and there are often sites that have a more regional focus, too, so there could well be hundreds if you count all the sites available in different languages. Each one is good at certain things.

Also consider: RunningFree the MapMy... family of websites MapMyRun.com, MapMyRide.com, MapMyWalk.com, MapMyHike.com, MapMyFitness.com, MapMyTri.com & MapMyMountain.com Crankfire for New England Similar, but these offerings don't provide hosting for you. If you have hosting arranged through your own web server, Google Docs, or whatnot, you can use them. GPS Visualizer GMap4 XML Google Maps Wordpress Plugin (if you have a self-hosted Wordpress.com site)

I agree with the private cache idea. I used to volunteer at a nature center that did this sort of thing. You could obtain the coordinates at the visitor's center, and it would take you on a directed tour of the facility, providing information at each stop that goes beyond what the typical geocache provides (and more like an Earthcache, except they tended to highlight biological/nature oriented features). If you approached the appropriate land management folks about this as sort of a unique twist on an interpretive trail instead of a series of geocaches and that you'd offer to install all the relevant materials and whatnot, you don't need to worry about the local geocacher who's filled the area with the maximum allowable density of ammo boxes or whatnot. You could also provide written directions and/or paper mapsto reach the next station and whatnot to serve folks who don't show up with a GPS.

yeah, I put it on mine if hunting the cache will send you into the brush at all. my latest cache is never more than 20ft off the trail, but that's enough to find ticks. the ticks are out in force right now. southern ticks don't like the heat so much, but when it gets cool the way it is now, they come out. FWIW, when I lived in PA, I'd see ticks on warm days (40+) in the dead of winter, too.

I've only met cachers out a couple of times while actually hunting. One time, I was in the process of signing the log when others showed up. Oops. Nothing you can do about that. Other times, though, someone might find it, but not grab the container right away in order to give the other hunters a chance to find it on their own. When I cache with my wife, I will let her know I've found it (especially if she's looking somewhere else entirely) to let her know generally where she needs to look. I think that way lets everyone get something out of the hunt, and it seems to be a widely agreed-upon method.

Neither of the devices you are using will help you much. Use the Tom Tom to find a place to park, then leave it be. Using an iphone, you're going to have to use a wider search radius than someone with a handheld. Find some easy ammo boxes - they are hard to miss even from a distance. Micros and other small ones can be missed even when you ARE right on top of them. There's one micro I hunted on a few occasions and turned up empty every time. It's now halfway across the country, but if I find myself in the area again, I'm going to hunt it again because it's something of my nemesis. a few of my recent cache outings have had low success rates because the locals have allowed unmaintained caches to persist in that condition for years.

So far, nobody's whining. I really only learned of the absence of a couple cachers at an event this weekend, and I went back to look at my logs and saw I had attempted to find a few caches by a particular hider....and I went back and posted NA logs on top of my DNF in cases where the last find occurred years ago. I then started to go through my list of unfound caches and identified a handful (in an urban area near a college campus) without a find in a couple of years. Gonna start checking those out and post NA's on them, too, most likely. I got the impression that most of the active locals found these questionable caches many years ago when they were findable or put the caches on their ignore list.

I'd be leery of a mandatory auto-archive rule, but I could go for a mandatory renewal process. I've started hunting caches in my area and I've noticed that there are a few folks who hid prolifically years ago, and many of those caches are entirely unmaintained. A number of them haven't been found in two years. I've moved those hides higher on my priority list and instead of simply posting a DNF, I post a NA since the cache is not only gone, but the CO has either moved away or no longer plays the game. Maybe I'll rub some people the wrong way, but if we can get these caches archived, the people who ARE active can place something that will be maintained.

There is really no need to pre-announce the hide. The FTF hounds will be all over it in a matter of minutes. Depends on where you live...hehe. None of my 4 caches have been found the same day they were published. One of them went more than a week before FTF. it seems the initial traffic on caches in my area is pretty light. At least...initial traffic on challenging caches (I don't have any 1/1 hides and I don't plan to offer them) in my area is pretty light.

+1 The only reason I hunt for geocaches is to have fun and find a new challenge. I also hope to do the same for other cachers, and my recent hides have been generating some positive local feedback.

Oh well, I like your choice in packs, I have to check out the smaller Osprey. Cowboy fan? Sadly I am, in NY Giant country, not easy this year. goodness no. I could never root for the Cowgirls. Colts fan here. That Atmos really seems to fit me well, though from what I understand, I don't think too many people with a waist over 34" or so wear it comfortably since the metal bits seem to dig in at the hips. I'm a 32" at most so it rides on my hips just right.

Take a look here The 32GB is like the hard disk on your computer. You still have to load programs into RAM to use them, and no, you cannot load all 32GB into the CPU/RAM at once. The iPhone 4 for example has 512MB of RAM which is why it can handle multitasking and iOS4 more gracefully. if you meant RAM, then say RAM.

yep, definitely seasonal here. and it depends on which season and where the cache is specifically. I have an earthcache that will be quite a challenge to do in the winter and spring when the water is up. only way to reach the site at that time is with a boat. but then again, during the heat of the summer is a good time for this one. water for cooling off, the route is hikeable, etc. but for caches in most places here, summer is most unpleasant with the heat and humidity. I placed a puzzle and it got an initial "flurry" of finders every couple of weeks, but nobody since January. I just placed a multi this week and it has yet to get a FTF, but the weather has been sour.

a trackable item when I have one to move. I don't play the trade game. I'm there for the logbook.

I like the 3d camo. I did some 3d camo to my recent container, as well. I used some of the foam crumbles used for model trains in two different textures and once adhered, I sprayed with the krylon. Since my area is almost exclusively pine woods, I glued a bunch of pine needles to the top of the container. I placed it in an area in deep shadow, and without piling any debris on top (dead giveaway when I'm hunting for a cache), it disappears. If the 3d camo gets beat up too much this winter, I may take it in for a few weeks to implement some of the camo techniques shown here.

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It has a built in GPS (3GS/4), and more memory for applications than the iPod series has - note I'm talking application memory, not storage space. The cellular radio, bluetooth profiles also. application memory? I have a 32GB iPod Touch and I can fill it with apps if I want. Right now, I have about 1GB of apps (iBird Pro is a big app). the memory can be used however you like, and now that you can group apps into folders, there's more screen real estate for app icons (used to be the limiting factor for how many apps you had). you can manage without 3G, but you do need an external GPS chip for the iPod. I'd also suggest the Toughcase for this, since it has an additional battery, as well, to handle the additional power demands of the GPS. I only wish the toughcase was compatible with my xm skydock for charging in the car.

And they're all completely useless with dead batteries, or poor reception. Don't spend the money right now on the electronic compass; he should already have a magnetic one. Likewise, don't spend the money on additional maps; he should be carrying a paper topo anyway to use with the magnetic compass. A relatively inexpensive unit like the eTrex should be plenty for Boy Scout use right now. +1 Let him get familiar with recording tracks and waypoints and saving them to the computer. It will also let him get experience plotting the coordinates from the GPS onto the paper topo which is a skill that is not easy to practice in a practical sense otherwise (sure, you can just have him plot lists of random coordinates or geocaches, but it'll mean more if he's plotting his CURRENT location on that map).

I use "track up" on my auto GPS, but on my handheld, I prefer "north up" and have the cursor rotate.

my wife and I cache together under my account. I've thought about creating a "team" account or having her get her own account to log her own finds...but meh...I don't care that much. I've done some caches (especially recently) without her, and she strongly considered hunting for a few when she has been on business trips to Seattle or Minneapolis or San Diego without me. but the timing hasn't worked out for her to split from her work trips to cache a little.

doh! I should know better than to think that a thread with almost 30 posts would appear in this board in just a couple of days.

I have been tailed in a park before by suspicious characters, but when biking, not caching. I stopped at a picnic table, pretended to write his license plate down (it was before I owned a cell phone), and when that didn't ward him off, I began to brandish my pocket knife. I was also once propositioned in the bulk foods aisle of Meijer by a dirty creepy guy.

I loaded my recently placed cache with stickers. Most are bike-friendly stickers since it's on a bike trail. I will be revisiting it every now and then to add more decent trade items as the current stock gets depleted and to clear out the junk that inevitably accumulates. Does anyone seriously ever take the dirty old golf balls that seem to wind up in every regular cache I find?

The bark piece, dead center, that looks like it's overlapping the bark to the left of it? Maybe? Yep, its a very slight overlap. It is more so in the crevice between the two pieces and it stands out a little in the picture. It is actually about 6 feet high and blends in quite nicely when you havent a clue what you are looking for. It was also fresh then and now it has aged a little more like the rest of the bark on the tree. Someone the other day had to call for a hint even though they knew exactly what they were looking for. There is a nano on the underside of the bark. That one would be more devious, I think, if it was placed on the side of the tree with less lichen. Where it is now, the surrounding bark has a good bit of lichen on it. If part of the weathering-in process has allowed lichen to grow on it, then that'd be the ticket.

the tree stump idea didn't work out how I had hoped. materials costs would have pushed it close to $100! I found a simpler way to camo it with paint and by gluing more camo onto it. GC2HF4P The first two stages also have some evil camo. I am hoping the first attempt to find it is a DNF, but I know a couple of cachers in my area who will figure it out eventually, and they've scored co-FTF's on all 3 of my other caches.