hdmama2002

I just did this one recently with 2kds. Our postings were pretty accurate. I think if you go in with throw-away shoes that you will end up doing most of the trek in nothing but socks or barefoot. Unless you want to feed the beast, take boots and plan on emptying them at the car. Take clean under garments. I overlooked that and just took clean pants and a shirt. Should have realized that if the shirt was wet so was everything under it. We took two 10 year olds with us, they survived. In fact, they were begging for more when we got back to the car. There is a "trail" once you get in there, you just gotta pick a spot and commit to it. And lastly, cover up as much skin as possible. If the swamp monster doesn't get you then the mosquitos will. Have fun, I know that we did. You might want to give the nearby multi a quick look while your in there.

Is anyone else having problems today with Pocket Querries? I can build one, but the site isn't "running" the query so that it goes to my e-mail. I have tried several times, changed parameters, and still nothing.

I am wondering how to increase the size of the font so that when I print out the grid I can actually read it. I think that right now my computer prints it out in font size 6, yet I have a friend who prints it out in a size 12, much easier to read. I don't know if I need to make a change on the printer, somewhere in GSAK, or ....? I have Windows, don't remember if it is XP or 2000 since my brother just worked on my computer). I hope this is enough info, and I hope someone knows what it is that I am overlooking. Thanks. HDmama2002

From a former Explorist user, I am sorry to hear of your trouble. Back when I had mine, I could start it up in my house that is surrounded by trees and acquire 3-7 sats in less than a minute. The reason that I no longer use my Explorist is because it was no longer WAAS enabled. Magellan said that they did not do some firmware update a while ago and this, along with the fact that I "rebooted" my GPS, made it so that I was no longer WAAS enabled. I wonder if you called Magellan if they could help you figure out why it is taking so long. I can't imagine that you live in a lead-lined house or some sort of cave that doesn't get sats reception. Or do you? Do you live in the middle of Area 51 and sats aren't allowed anywhere near your location? But really, I have found that the Magellan Tech crew are nice and easy to deal with. Sorry to hear that you are having troubles, it's a great unit. HDmama2002

So I accidently broke my previous camera and now have some money to start looking at a new camera. My husband saw an ad for the Nikon P6000 which will stamp your position onto the photo( I think it is really the photo file), and I thought that could be neat. So, is there anyone out there who has gotten to use such a camera? Or do you have software that adds it onto the photo file? If you are willing - What's your opinion? Are they worth it, or should I just buy a nice pen and write the coords on the back of the photo when I print them out in a couple of months? Thanks in advance for any help, HDmama2002

Here in Washington State there are several cachers who get their kicks out of putting nano's or micros in blackberry bushes and other things that I am allergic to. Because of this, I once threatened to find the cache with a flame thrower or a metal detector. I figured after I burned away the blackberries that the metal container would be the only thing left. I admit that I have said that I would do it, but I haven't actually had to do it yet. Still, the option is there. []

I have been recently trying to add City Navigator maps onto the SD card in my Colorado. I originally had a 2 GB card and was trying to get WA state onto it. The computer keeps telling me that there is a problem communicating with the data card. I spent an hour on the phone with GARMIN and they told me that my card was bad. Have now purchased a 4 GB card and still cannot transfer maps onto the card. I am able to transfer maps onto the GPS, so I know there is nothing wrong with the GPS or the cable. I can also make a waypoint and transfer that onto the SD card. Does anyone have some advice? Am I supposed to format the card before transferring data? If so, how do I do that? The only reason that this is important is because I am soon going on a trip and would like to put several states onto the disk. Thanks in advance for your help, HDmama2002

I have a Colorado 300 and I love it, what I do not love is Garmin's lack of knowledge on their own unit. I once input a bunch of coin codes into the "write note" section after logging the cache as "found" on the GPS. When I got home I didn't how to get the codes back out. Called Garmin, and they didn't know how to do it either. They called me back about 20 minutes after I had figured it out on my own. I also do caching with friends who have the 60 CSX. Somedays they have better accuracy, some days I have better accuracy. The only thing that is hard with a new GPS is being able to have your fingers "memorize" which buttons to hit to do functions without actually looking at the unit. This is a little bit harder to do with a wheel. I too like paperless caching, it is hard enough to hold on to 2 kids and loose pieces of paper that they always tear into shreds. Good luck with your decision.

If you found a new puppy Lil Orphan "Annie" would be a great name. Or did you mean a caching name for your dog? We have a female Austrailian Cattle dog that I refer to as "Big Red" in my logs. Best of luck!

That's too bad. I never heard back from Bill after my email offering to help adopt or pick up his archived caches. Most of the caches are still in place. Tomison, 2kds, and I did most of the caches with in a couple of days of them being archived. We had all solved the puzzles and had a day planned to go get them when they got archived. We crossed our fingers and went ahead with our trip. I DNF'd the ones we couldn't find. It would be great if the series could be adopted, the final for A Baker's Dozen is in a great location.

Okay, I have been having problems trying to log BM's in the Auburn, WA area for the last 4-5 days. I thought it was my computer and have now tried to log the BM's on 2 different computers with no luck. I have noticed that if I log onto BM's that no one has found and click on "log your find for this BM" then I get the page to write my log. However, if I click on a BM that someone else has found and click on the same button that I get an error page. The error page says to type in what you were doing when the error happened and I assumed that a message was sent to geocaching.com. I have not recieved any communication back to make me believe that the report was ever recieved. Will try to be patient in waiting for word of a fix. Thanks. HDmama2002

These are some really good questions that you should answer before you up grade. I also started with an e-trex, but it never got closer than 30' on a clear sunny day with good sats. Went to Magellan after that, but they recently did something with their software so that you can't be WAAS enabled unless you buy the new Triton. Since REI will not stock the Triton due to system failure I went back to Garmin and bought the Colorado. Here is why: 1.You download caches directly into your GPS, you don't have to have GSAK or any other program( although you can still use those). 2. It downloads the entire cache page-description, terrain, difficulty, cache size, hint, and logs. This can be very helpful sometimes. 3. It is WAAS enabled. Accuracy is pretty darn good, even here in rainy Washington State. Now I admit that I only got the Colorado 300. I don't do back country hiking, so I didn't need the topo maps offered with the 400. I had an SD card from my Magellan and was able to transfer that over and use the street maps software for turn by turn directions( I get lost easily). So I really like that I am no longer carrying around pieces of paper from cache pages. It has freed up my hands to keep an eye on the kids. My big complaint about the Garmin Colorado is that the manual is very vague. I have spent A LOT of time on hold just so I could ask a couple of questions. I would normally call a geo-friend for help, but not many of my friends here have the Colorado. Oh, ya. My GPS will also handle rechargeable AA batteries, that will save me some dough. I hope this helps a little.

Well, that makes me a little frustrated. I registered my GPS on their web site, I have been cacheing just about every day. and I never recieved any notification about the sats being changed. The Explorist being WAAS enabled was the whole reason that I bought the unit, plus it was in my price range. I will call them again tomorrow and see what they can offer. Still, frustrating.

Almost a year ago I upgraded my GPS from a Gamin E-Trex to a Magellan Explorist. It was great! It came with a rechargable Ly-on battery, I bought the SD card, got the street map software, and was WAAS enabled for about $150.00. Then I noticed recently that my accuracy finding caches was as bad, or worse, than when I used the E-Trex. Today I called Magellan about my GPS not being WAAS enabled anymore. They told me that the "United States Government reset the satellites," and that if I wanted to be WAAS enabled that I needed to upgrade to the Triton. My question is this-is this a Magellan thing? Has the same thing happened with any of the Garmin products? I am not sure that I want to upgrade if the same thing is going to happen a year or two down the line. Besides, I like the fact that I have a rechargable batterly that can last 14 hours. I guess more questions would be: 1. Can you put rechargeable batteries in the 60CSX, Colorado, or Triton? 2. Can the Triton do the Wherigo caches? or is that only the Colorado? 3. Will the Map Send Software I have for the Explorist work with the Triton? I know these questions probably seem stupid, but IF I decide to upgrade I want to get the most bang for my buck, even if that means I can use some of the extras I have now on the Triton. I have also noticed that no one in the caching community around me uses a Triton, seems to be "Garmin Country" here. I have tried to get the local REI to turn ON a Triton once so I could play with it and they thought I was crazy. Thanks for any and all of your help.

Was wondering if you could give a description of the BBQ? Is there a covered area, running water nearby, close to bathrooms. is there shade? Just trying to figure out if I am going to pack any extras for the BBQ like a canopy. Thanks

I won't be able to make a meeting on the 28th, son is turning 2 and having his party that day. Got family flying in, driving from everywhere.....it makes for an all day event.

Well, any events in the Pierce County my family would attend. I usually don't attend the meetings in Redmond because it is too far to drive with 2 small children. As for the rest of the area you had in mind, it would depend on the date and time. Got to be home by bed time ya know.

Interesting. I was out there a while ago and got the impression that people were not allowed to walk the mountain from the Courtney Road gate. As a girl that was how we went up the mountain with our horses. Thank you for the update, and please keep them coming. I would love to get this done before August, that month is way too hot for me. Will try to look at my calendar more seriously in the next couple of days to nail down a new date for the hike.

My father-in-law once gave me this advice for the trail. If you are going to carry a side arm on the trail, make sure you save the last bullet for yourself. The thing with bears is that most side arms that you would carry will not kill a bear unless to shoot it point blank. Don't know about anyone else, but my aim would not be that good under pressure. Before I had kids I would take the dog with me every where. Dogs always know before people when there is wildlife nearby. Maybe you have a dog that could go with you? This is a great thread with some really good advice. Some of it may seem trivial but it will really help in case of an emergency.

I have been taking my kids out cacheing since I first started. At first I wasn't going to give my son an account, but then he started finding them by himself. He is really good at finding one that I wouldn't neccesarily find, maybe it's because he has a different point of view. So we decided that when he turned 5 he could have an account. I think the hardest part was finding a name that could grow with him so he wouldn't feel like he had a boyish name when he gets older. He goes by transformer1.

Am looking for a bookmark of Caches Near Washington Lighthouses, thought I saw one somewhere this one time by someone. HA! Does that sound familiar to anyone?

What about Steillacoom with Anderson Island? Then we could all get those pesky Sir2u caches done? I am excited about another cache machine as I have never been able to make it to them. The last one was on my son's 6th birthday party and the invites had been sent by the time I learned of the event.

I was just wondering the same thing today when I noticed a TB I found a while ago has over 30,000 miles on it. I was also wondering if there was a list of TB's that had traveled the farthest, kinda like a top 10 list. Then I wondered who owns, or is currently holding, some of the oldest TB's? Will continue looking through the threads. I am sorry to say that all of my TB were stolen or the caches muggled. Not sure if I will put any more out.

Well, I am sorry to say that I am going to have to post-pone this hike for now. Both of my children have been hospitalized due to the Rotavirus, and we just brought them home today. They are not ou-of-the-woods yet and are going to need constant care and close supervision for the next 6-7 days. They are still considered to be contagious, so I don't even feel comfortable asking a family member to help us out. If some of you still want to get together and do the hike then I think that would be great. You may even get to see some snow if you go over the weekend. As soon as I can get a new date figured out then I will post it. I am truly sorry for having to post-pone. And a big "THANK YOU" to Tomison for posting earlier for me, we really were not sure if we would get to bring the kids home today.

Wha? Training? Did you miss the part where I mentioned that I was out of shape? Plus, I have been sick with some bronchial infection for the last 10 days. Have barely been able to walk to the end of the driveway, really pathetic. Please stop training, it will only make me look better. []