debaere

I like the caches that take me to new and interesting places, and are easy to find. Some people really like clever hides and relish making the difficult find. I am not one of those I actually don't like the searching for cache part much, which is why I filter out difficulty levels above 2.5, and no micros or nanos. My all time favourite cache was http://coord.info/GCWJNG. Its a 10 stage puzzle cache that took me on a tour of Mons Belgium. The find itself was a micro (this was before I started to filter them out), but the highlight was the adventure through a small European town. Another thing that made this particular cache memorable is that when I made the find I heard meowing... looking around I finally found the source. It was a kitten stuck in a tree, about 9ft up. It took me a good 20 minutes to get the kitten to trust me enough for him to climb down to a lower branch so I could lift him down to the ground safely. It was a cool ending to an awesome cache.

Probably explains the 40 year life expectancy back then, eh?

Personally for a rating system I would like to see a series of questions the log form Something like: Cache difficulty rating is correct: [cache was easier than rated, cache was perfectly rated, cache was harder than rated] Cache terrain rating is correct: [same as above] Given the chance I would do this cache again: [yes, no, maybe] etc. Exact questions and wording would need to be perfected, but it would give future cachers a better idea of what to expect when attempting the cache. Having the ratings on the log page make them more likely to be completed by cachers, and at a time when the cache details are foremost in their brain.

I've never seen any rules for this, however my rule of thumb would be: If the new location is within the margin of error for your GPS (say 20ft or so) from the old location, then just post the new coords. If the location is outside the margin of error then shoot your reviewer an email explaining the situation and ask for approval. I don't think you need anything official, just a positive response via email will do.

There have been a lot of good posts about the positive aspects of geocaching and I agree with all of it. I would like to emphasize that if you have to defend yourself, either in court or just correspondance with your ex's lawyers, to de-emphasize the "treasure hunting" aspects of the game. As a dad I would be concerned if I heard my kid was constantly "looking for treasure", as it could be a sign that he is being taught that one should look for the easy way through life by finding hoards of gold instead of working hard for success. Being in the know for geocaching I have absolute confidence that this is not the lesson your kids are getting, but from the 100 mile view I could see how it would be taken as a negative experience.

The easiest one I did was 3 days ago. It was a 1ft container under a 2ft sparse bush right by the sidewalk. I could see it from a block away

My guess is it has to do with server resources and bandwidth. If it was unlimited, there would be zillions more PQs being run every day. By limiting it to 5, its enough for most cachers and limits the bandwidth. Just my guess... What I find odd is that one can play with, and get the results from, PQs all day every day, its only the auto-generated ones that get packaged and sent to you that have the limits. By play with I mean you can edit a PQ and see the results immediately, and make as many edits as you choose and each time the results are ready in real time. This tells me that the limitation isn't server resources but more likely not wanting to give out too much of their database all at once.

My method is pretty simple: I normally start by saying "It like a high tech scavenger hunt using GPSs. People hide containers, often in unusual or interesting places, and post the coordinates online. Then you can download the coordinates and try and find the containers." This explanation works for 90% of the times I've had to explain it, even to muggles in the field.

Or to visit relatives for that matter? This ninja might be planning a geocaching trip that happens to end near relatives. My resistance for visiting my in-laws dropped dramatically once I saw how many caches there were around their place As for caching on vacation, I just completed a 3 week road trip where we cached some days, did touristy things on other days. I cached 13 states and 2 provinces. Not to shabby

Personally I don't think this will add little to my personal enjoyment of the game, and probably lead to more annoyances. If something like this happens I hope it will be voluntary, and completely invisible to those who don't want to participate. I cache for the enjoyment of exploration. I set some goals for myself, but normally they are more along the lines of covering geography (caching in as many states as possible, for example), and not for any seemingly arbitrary numbers. I would rather spend all day hunting a single cache in an interesting area instead of 100 caches in non-interesting areas. Most talk of numbers and find counts annoys me. What I would like to see is a better stats system based on geography. I would like to know the geographic areas I've cached in to a finer level. i.e. state and county level. There are third party sites that do this but they normally involve more work than I am willing to put into using them. Another thing may be defining quests or missions: "find 5 caches near farms", "cache in 10 new counties" etc. That may add a little spice to the game. Pure numbers don't do it for me. Having said all the above, if others find the idea worth while then by all means go for it. Just do it in a way that doesn't affect those of us that like the game the way it is. Cheers

forum blip.

I introduced a family to Geocaching who now caches regularly. I've shown it to several other friends and family but they have not got bitten by the bug yet.

On the chance that the OP is legit: Although the correct course of action would have been to contact Groundspeak directly, and despite the ridicule you've gotten by other members of this forum, some of us do appreciate your attempts to reach out to the community about this issue instead of doing something more rash and unfriendly like calling the police. So thanks for letting us know of the issue. Hopefully this will be a call for all cachers to seek permission from property owners before placing their caches (especially at the mall in question Cheers

Heh, I did this once with my wedding ring. I was out on a multi month work trip and had a rental car. One day I noticed my wedding ring was gone. I searched the car, hotel, office, grocery store I last shopped at - everywhere. I couldn't find it. A month later I was returning the rental and decided to check out the car one last time for anything I forgot. reached under the drivers seat and immediately felt the ring. Phew

The only series I have completed is The Dalles Dash, put out by the Chamber Of Commerce for The Dalles Oregon. They put out 12 caches in interesting areas of the town, each cache has its own passphrase written on the inside cover. If you bring all 12 passphrases into the Chamber Of Commerce you get a unique geocoin. That geocoin is now the prize in my geocaching collection

Doh!

While I appreciate the Canadian efforts around the world, I HIGHLY doubt your statement is even close to being true. That had to be all of them, right? Ok ok, I am just having fun at your expense. To my fellow Canadians: I don't mean to fan the flames (seriously!), however as a fiercely proud Canadian who has been living in the States for a couple years now, its not uncommon for Americans to make fun of us. However it is (almost) aways either an ironic statement about American problems that we don't have (look for those, they are the best ones!), or its just friendly chiding along the same lines as an older brother giving a younger one a hard time. Its almost always done in a friendly spirit, although sometimes it may not seem like it at first. The few times its not friendly is normally done by ignorant folks who are not worth arguing with in the first place, and those are best ignored. I highly suspect its the friendly sort of comments that is happening in this thread. I have found that the best way to deal with it is to play along, or just ignore it. My favourite response to Americans commenting on the small size of our armed forces is to say either "yeah. I've seen both our tanks, the large one AND the small one", or "yeah, thats because we have moose. Don't get a moose angry, they will mess you up" (My sense of humour lacks humour some times). Self deprecating humour is what we're known for, stereotypically at least. Anyway. Its all in fun here, so I for one take the Canadian comments with a grain of salt and in the humour and jest it was most likely intended. I don't think anyone who knows history doubts Canadian commitments and sacrifices in war, and if they do then they live up to the "ignorant american" stereotype, and thats worth a snicker in and of itself (for some reason I find those folks who live up to their respective stereotypes to be hilarious - not in a mean sense, but in more of a "hey look, its true! Thats awesome" sense). If you still chose to take offence, then just be sure to wear your poppy with pride in November, and hold your head up high. No matter what any one else says about us, we're Canadians and that is something to be proud of. Anyhoo. To the Americans: No offence on the "ignorant american" thing, k? It is all in good fun.

This is a bit offtopic, but personally I don't understand the anxiety some people seem to feel over the lack of quality in paper logs. This is a hobby that starts on the Internet (cache listings), uses space age technology (GPS satellites and receivers) to find objects, and provides an electronic method of recording the adventure (online logs). Given this, why would one expect paper logs (an ancient and rapidly becoming necessary technology) to be given much thought at all? The only thing paper logs provide is to prove I found it. I would much rather put the story of my find in an online log that persists for (theoretically) ever and is readable by everyone who chooses to view it, instead of a paper that will degrade, most likely rapidly given its environment, and that has even odds no one will ever read. Not to mention my penmanship is horrible so odds are if every cache owner put eyes on every log entry I wrote it probably wouldn't be human parseable. back on topic: In the theoretical event that we were to give up either paper or online logs I would chose forgoing the paper ones. So in my opinion the hobby wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is if we didn't have online logs. Those that play for the numbers would probably stop caring. Not to mention that online logs help build communities among cachers that I don't think would exist without them. The quality of caches would drop like a rock as the feedback to the CO would be very poor. Having the experience I do now I think I would still cache without online logs. However without the initial interest I gained in caching from reading online logs I probably would not have started. I wouldn't hide caches either. Having to go out to each cache I've hid just to see if anyone found it would be tedious at best.

yeah this happens a lot, it seems. What really annoys me about this article is the general feeling that "nothing is safe, everything is a threat" attitude. It is a sentiment echo'd by the "Investigators" in the article, and by the comments by Peter Rubb about we don't live in the same world we used to. Fact is, we DO live in the same world we used to. There have always been threats for as long as I can remember. The difference is now they mainly come from overseas instead of zealous local groups (KKK, wacky extremist environmentalists, whack job people in general). The only real difference is how we react to it. We as a people have become very paranoid and over react to everything. Our leaders are no exception, mainly because paranoia gets viewed as the ability to protect and that leads to votes and budget increases. We need to all calm down as a society, get our wits about us, and stop living in a nation of fear. Otherwise the terrorists have won, and we might as well give up now. Not everything is a threat. In fact 99.9% of things out in the world (especially in the US) are not threats, and the 0.1% that are threats are normally not out to get you. The things that are actually out to get you are very rare indeed. Seriously guys, take a deep breath and relax, k? OK rant over (note: nothing above should be taken personal or related to geocachers in general, but to the world at large. Yes I realize I am preaching to the choir, and yes despite knowing that it is still therapeutic for me to type this)

I don't care about the paper log in the cache itself. I do care about the online logs. I like knowing that folks are finding or DNFing my cache.

You can get them cheaper in other places, but you are not in other places, and shipping is expensive, so I'd pay the $16.50 A lot of folks in this forum are US, and the Americans have a much closer relationship with guns then Canadians do (I speak as a Canadian living in the American south so I know this first hand). Their military is much larger than ours , and the average citizen has more guns, so they go through a lot more ammo. As a result there are more ammo cans around which drops the price by a large margin. So don't be surprised that they can get them cheaper than you. Factor in shipping and your price is probably a lot cheaper than it is here. If you can get to the US, bringing an empty can back is perfectly legal. Really its just a well made metal box. It is probably not worth the effort unless you are buying a lot of them and/or are going anyway. As for whether you should get a 30cal or 50cal it depends on what you are doing with it. If you are using it for a cache container it probably doesn't matter. If you are using it for a storage container getting the larger size is probably worth it.

If I can't find the log, but the last log entry was a find, I assume its my issue and just log a DNF. If I DNF and the last few logs were DNF, I log a Needs Maintenance log to inform the CO that there is a possible issue. If the CO doesn't respond in 3-4 weeks, I log a Needs Archive log, which loops in the reviewer (who normally gives another couple weeks grace - at least in my area), then the reviewer normally archives the cache if the CO doesn't respond.

For caching information I do the following: Run a pocket query for the area I am going to cache in. Export it to my Android phone & GPSr head out the door. For prepping for the trails I have a geo bag that I keep ready to go. It contains all I need: bug spray, first aid kit, extra batteries, geo-swag, sunblock, gloves, pens, and various other bits. If I am going out on remote trails I'll toss in a coupe bottles of water and some food (granola bars mainly). If I expect to do mostly drive by caches (i.e. no 1mile walks in the woods), I'll toss extra water in the car.

+1. The one thing I do is to make sure the wrist strap is looped behind the bracket, just in case. I do the same thing with my strap. Never needed it, but the extra layer of security gives peace of mind.

I have a RAM mount for my Garmin 60CSx - works really really well. Very solid mount.