Flatiron & Mrs. Wrangler

To be honest I"m not really sure what "trolling" is, as I don't spend a lot of my free time perusing the discussion forums. I only bring this to light as so many of the "power caching" folks seem to idolize some of these cheaters who have ridiculously high find counts. Most of the cachers I associate with play this game fairly, and don't need to cheat to boost their find totals. I usually call a spade a spade, and get a kick out of those who don't like the idea of calling someone out by name. These cachers know who they are and what they are doing, and probably don't give a hoot what I think about their caching styles. It just irks me that this game has gone from what it was in it's infancy to what it is today. And don't give me this BS about "it's only a game" or "play the game your way and I'll play it my way". Cheating at a game like this reveals a lot about a persons integrity and personality. That's my take on this subject whether some of you like it, or not. I guess that's why this is called a "discussion" forum.

I could understand somebody doing the CO a favor by replacing a log or entire cache IF there have been consecutive DNF's or notes indicating that the log sheet is wet, or whatever, but in this case I'm sure it is a matter of not wanting to spend time searching for the cache because it cuts into their FIND count for the day. Cache finder maintenance is definitely not the case here, in my opinion.

I don't get on the discussion forums very often, but just wanted to get this off my chest. I've made a habit of not doing power trails very often, as I've never cared about my number of finds that much. But after going with a few friends Super Bowl weekend on a rural power trail, I really understand how many cheaters there are out there. Some of the cheaters were claiming finds on caches that didn't have their signature on the log sheet, and one group dropped 4 throwdown caches even though the real cache containers were no more than 16' away. One of this group is the so called "Big Fish" (Alamogul)who has 130K caches. I can see how you can accumulate that many caches if you play by these tactics. This is only a game , but if you have to cheat to get a find, then that's pretty pitiful. Anyway, I know this topic has been covered many times before, but I'm interested to see what other cachers think about this kind of stuff. Thanks for listening.

I talked with a railroad employee a few years back,( After he threatened to arrest us for being within 150' of RR tracks out in the middle of nowhere) and he said it wasn't RR Co. policy, but Homeland Security policy. We agreed to leave and left it at that.

Weather Warrior...........Please do all of us Arizonans a favor and stay in the horrible state of Florida to do your caching. What qualifies you as an expert on geocaching, anyway? If you think our state is going to miss you, you're sadly mistaken......................

Myself and MOST of the friends I've geocached with renew their permits every year, as I enjoy having legal access to SLT lands whether it is for GCing, riding ATV's Jeeping, or just plain hiking. But I do know for a fact that quite a few other cachers don't spend the $15 for a permit and basically are trespassing on SLT land per their guidelines. But these same people won't hesitate to stop at McDonalds and spend $15-20 on lunch. I wasn't too happy to pay the permit fee a few years ago when they raised it ridiculously and apparently quite a few other folks weren't too happy about it either, as they reduced the fee back to it's original price. As far as cachers being good stewards of the land and hauling out trash, I'm not so sure of that, as I've picked up trash right next to caches that has obviously been there for quite some time (such as faded out pop and beer cans, etc. Most times when I look at the logsheet, there will be 20 or more logs on it, yet nobody made an effort to pack out the trash that I just picked up. I think we're fooling ourselves if we think geocachers are this group of folks who are dedicated to Pack it in/Pack it out theory. Evidence of this is the number of CITO events you see nowadays. Years ago when the number of cachers was just a fraction of what it is now, it seemed like there was quite a few CITO events going on. I don't think that's the case today. As far as damage to our desert environment is concerned, my own belief is that with the approval of power trails or series caches years ago, the amount of "new" trails has increased considerably. One in particular I can think of is/was on SLT land south of Florence, Az. We got finds on these caches not too long after they were published and were mostly containers just thrown into a greasewood (creosote) bush well off of the established trails. Since then I went back there while riding one day, and there is an obvious trail around the whole course. It's great to get folks out into our beautiful desert to see some of it's scenery, but I'm not sure building a power trail is the way to go. Anyway, I'm going to abide by SLT rules and will still be out there enjoying the desert, whether there's a cache there or not...........

If I understand it correctly,the Arizona State Land Trust property is owned by the Az. school system, and not the Federal or "State" government agencies. This is not the State of Az. requiring these caches to be archived, but basically the Az. schools, who own and manage these properties. The Feds are not implementing these rules "yet", but I guess we'll see. As far as the cacher who has decided to go elsewhere to cache, you'll be missing some great caches in Arizona, which will be your loss.

I don't know why this is such a surprise to Az. geocachers, as this was rumored to be a reality a year, or so, ago. ShadowAce from Tucson was responsible enough to archive his SLT caches last year and hopefully picked them up. Others refused to do so, (and ridiculed him) and will most likely have to do so, now. Yeah, it puts a little dent in the number of caches active in Az., but there's still plenty of caches on Forest Service land, BLM land, and private property. Bedsides, a lot of these caches that are being archived may not have fit in with GC's guidelines, such as permission of the property owners, having the correct permit, etc. How many caches are placed on city property (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, etc.)WITH permission to do so. Cachers for so many years now think that they have a right to place a cache just about anywhere they feel like it. I think there may be further issues with this with other state and federal agencies, due to this decision. And yes, I have seen geo-litter left behind by numerous cachers who just quit playing this game, or just don't give a crap about being responsible enough to retrieve their caches. It's going to be interesting to see how many of the State Land Trust caches are left behind by disgruntled owners.............

All of those weird items were found in caches in my beautiful home state of Arizona. I haven't found anything strange lately, though. .........................

We've found a few strange items in or next to caches, including a Tampax applicator,a squished frog, a black size 50N bra that took up the whole cache container,a pair of panties, and a pile of $&(^ on a cache container. Whoo hoo!

If you're so concerned about emissions, don't bother doing the E.T. Highway at all. You'll save a lot of gas AND time, but of course you couldn't impress anybody with your numbers.

Unabowler.................It doesn't surprise me that you have no idea who Dave Ulmer is, as you are considered a "newbie" in the geocaching world. For your information, Dave Ulmer placed the first geocache in Oregon and is considred the Father of Geocaching. Of course, you probably never heard of WWII or Vietnam either.............

I searched for that and it is "unpublished" ?!? Just as a side note. Myself and AJ.JR had the pleasure of sitting down with Dave Ulmer and Jeff (Team 360 or aka Indiana Jeff) a fews back for a few beers in Chandler (AZ.) and talked about "geo"caching and the original stash. Surprisingly Dave was not real happy with the direction geocaching was heading. I think he was a little taken aback with the scope and popularity of the game and what it had evolved into at that time. I wonder what his feelings are today. He also really didn't spend much time caching and only did so every once in awhile. As far as I know Jeff still has the OCB and brings it to events for others to see and take photos of/with. My thanks to Ambrosia for posting the video link, as I'd never seen it before.

Throwdowns seem to be norm around here, as numerous cachers have not only used 35mm film canisters, but spent shotgun shells, plastic water bottles, etc. instead of notifying the owner of a DNF or needs maintenance. The power trails that I'm referring to are the lizard and snake caches put out in the Florence, Az. area. I guess some folks just can't stand to log a DNF and will resort to ANYTHING to get a smiley. Pretty sad state of affairs..........

Well, AZcachemeister stole my thunder, darn it. I was going to ask if anyone had ever gotten a cache by hot-air ballon, but he beat me to it. I was lucky enough to be one of the five guys that got Steve's cache that day, and I was told that it was the first time it had ever been done before, though I've never been able to verify that. It was sure a fun day, but walking a hot-air ballon across our desert terrain was a little more difficult than I thought it would be. Holding the guy lines so we could manuever the ballon to the correct position was no easy feat either. It was really cool, though, to lean out of the ballon and snatch the cache from it's hiding spot. To make sure we all did the cache legitimately, we each went up in the ballon and signed the cache in person. I'd have liked to seen AZcachemeister's face when he saw that so many cachers he knew that weren't climbers claimed a find on his cache. Our pilot Scott went thru 4 or 5 bottles of propane to accomplish this feat, and we were all amazed at his piloting skills that day. It was definietly one of the more memorable days of my geocaching career. Way to go Scott!

Speaking of snakes, I now have a small bull snake living in my truck frame, and he's traveled with me for 3 days now. I think he kicks back in his snake-recliner in the well of my spare tire, but I'm not sure. I'll bet he'll be hungry in a few days and decide to look for a meal. Oh well.......

opjim...........The encounter I was referring to was when I was searching for a cache on the Montana Mtn. Loop outside of Queen Valley, Az. a few years ago. I searched for about ten minutes before narrowing down GZ and a likely spot for the cache. It was a series of rock ledges somewhat like the ones I referred to earlier in your area, and I got down on my knees to look under the bottom ledge and came face to face with a Gila Monster. I was probably 18 inches from him and he gave me a hiss and opened his mouth wide for me to see. If you've never seen a Gila Monsters open mouth, I'll tell you it was a little spooky lookin'. His mouth was black and salmon/peach colored and his teeth looked pretty menacing. I understand that they inject their venom thru grooves in their teeth and are called the Pit bulls of the lizard family due to their reluctance to let go once they clamp on to you. I jumped backwards in a flash and headed for the quad to change my shorts put on a clean Depends. I have seen a few Gila Monsters since then, but haven't had the urge to shake hands with one. That's the end of the story and hopefully there will be no more to come...........

If any of you do the Eastern Sierras (Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine, Bishop, Mammoth, June Lake ,Lee Vining, Bridgeport, etc.) stop in at Bodie Mike's BBQ in Lee Vining and ask for my wife Karen (Mrs. Wrangler) and say Hi. We still spend our summers there and would love to meet a few more cachers. Lee Vining is only 12 miles from the Eastern Entrance to Yosemite NP, and is a gateway to some spectacular scenery. There's quite a few fun caches in the area, and no major power trails to date. And the Yosemite CITO events are fun, too.....

I had to laugh when reading opjim's log about the rattlesnake, as I encountered one of quite a few snakes while searching for one of his caches on the Boulder Loop Trail in Payson, Az. I was in a bouldery (obviously), rocky area and had bent down to search under some large rock faces, and was on my hands and knees when I heard the all too familiar buzzing sound from below my crotch. Not wanting to go into the emergency room with a snake bite on my family jewels, I moved rather slowly to see if I could pinpoint where the rattling was coming from. I narrowed it down to a bunch of smaller rocks directly below the "boys", and was able to very slowly inch my way out of the situation. I never did see the snake, and I'm sure he was OK with that too. Living in Arizona, we've seen many rattlesnakes and actually quite a few gila monsters, surprisingly. I had a face-to-face talk with one a few years back, but that's another story..........

NYPaddleCacher and DragonsWest.......I used to live in the Felton/Boulder Creek area for years, and am familiar with all the places you're discussing. I have fond memories of riding my old Husky 390 dirt bike around Loma Prieta and on the sand trails heading up to Mt. Umunhum and Mt. Madonna. I left there when I was 24 years old, and don't really visit the area anymore, even though my sister lives in Capitola. I got a kick out of the kissing Aunt Flo remark, and agree wholeheartedly. I guess if you're into finds numbers, it may be the same, but the quality may not be the same. We used to get caught up in the numbers thing when we started playing this game (not a sport) many years ago. At that time, there was only a few hundred cachers (just guessing) that were involved in the whole thing, and quite a few of us knew the other cachers personally. Cache events obviously didn't have the attendance that they do today, so it was a closer knit group of people getting together. Now, with all the flash mob crap, everybody gets together for a quick photo-op and runs off to grab a few more dog-poop container caches. To say every cache is the same because your find count bumped up one, is ridiculous, but that seems to be the mentality of quite a few cachers nowadays. It's too bad, as far as I'm concerned, but if that's the way they want to play the game, have at it. But if I hear the quote "you play the game your way, I'll play it mine" one more time, I'll vomit on my keyboard. Every game has rules and guidelines, and to skirt those rules, or cheat, says quite a bit about the person doing so. Some may not like my opinion on this, but I really don't care. I have just as much right to express my views, as you do to express yours. The most timportant thing to me is that my wife and I seek the caches we only really want to go after, most of the time, and don't feel compelled to get every cache within 20 miles of our home. I drive by hundreds of caches every day, and don't feel that I have to grab each and every one on the way to work and back. This is just my opinion, although I know many other "old-time" cachers who feel the same way, but may not say so. Anyway, that's my two cents worth..........

I had to laugh when I saw which cache Snoogans was referring to, as I had the honor of getting the FTF on this cache, and it has always been one of my favorites. I also recognized the location of the photo in the original post. It's awful hard to beat the Eastern Sierras for scenery. I'm lucky to have had the pleasure of living there full time (part time now) and meeting Snoogans at a very small event he sponsored years ago. Thanks for the memories.

I agree wholeheartedly with Snoogans on this one, as I've had the pleasure of finding many of Snoogan's hides in the Eastern Sierras. Most of them are/were challenging and some were pretty innovative hides for their time. The Off-road Adventure Series (Can't remember the actual cache names) took some serious effort to get to and had great views to go along with them. I also had the pleasure of caching with Ranboze who also liked getting the tougher caches to find, although she went after the long hike caches and really rural hides. Having lived in the Sierras full time, I had hoped there would be more cachers that would make hiking or off-road hides and was not disappointed when MrSR71 started hiding caches in the area. The Southern California numbers crowd started hiding street sign, newspaper machine hides, etc. and a lot of the park and grab type of caches, but there's still plenty of middle of nowhere type hides to seek. My feeling is that caching has changed drastically after Groundspeak started allowing "power trails", or as some call them "Series caches" ie: ET Highway, Route 66, etc. . Most of the people who hide or seek these types of caches don't really care about the scenery or effort it takes to get to a cache, they just want the numbers. It's too bad as I've seen logs where somebody finds a rural cache or caches have been muggled, and write "Our whole day was ruined due to muggles stealing the power trail caches. Apparently they don't see the value of being out in the beautiful desert on a sunny day, just the fact that they couldn't get 50-100 finds for the day. It's too bad, in my opinion, that goecaching has gone down that road to a large extent. Ther's still great caches that take effort to get to, and those are the ones I'll tend to seek out most of the time. If you call me "old-school" that's fine with me. And thanks to Snoogans for placing caches in the Mammoth/June Lake area. It' much appreciated...........

What I find hard to believe is that ANYBODY thinks that archiving a geocache is that important. Aren't there enough caches out there? If there's a problem with a cache just outside the neighbors gate and it's causing trouble, archive the dadgum thing. It's really not that important folks! Some people seem to be so reluctant to archive a cache, or feel it needs to be "adopted" by somebody else, but why? If it's such a great spot, another cacher can plant one there after the fact and take over. Let's get serious people.

I'm with Wacko and Phishy on this one. How about those cachers who can't find the cache or it is missing, and lay down another container so they won't have to log a DNF? I guess the smiley is so important in their lives,that they would do just about ANYTHING to get a find. Pitiful.

I can't say that I've spent a whole lot of time "team caching" , but when we make a climb up on a mountain top. or do a great hike with other cachers, we all sign the log. I always get a kick out of folks who say "you play the game your way, and I'll play it my way".There needs to be rules or guidelines in any game, and those who tend to cheat or skirt those guidelines don't impress me a whole lot, to say the least. I guess folks do whatever they have to do to pump up their numbers, ya know. Anyway, I'd go with #1 thru 3.