dacjohns

I would guess they wouldn't be very water tight.

Have you looked at their website? http://www.lbl.org/ They have a GIS data set available on the website but I don't know how easily it can be used/converted with GPS. There are a lot of things to do. I would start with Golden Pond Visitors Center. The Homeplace and the nature center used to be good places to visit. I have been thinking about doing a cache run at LBL but it looks like there are well over 100 caches there.

It would also be nice if the cache owner posted a note saying that maintenance has been done.

It isn't just the road data that is off. Lables are wrong and water flows uphill and then back down.

Hopefully they are disinfecting their hands when leaving the cave. When I was doing frog surveys we had to disinfect because of the possibility of spreading chytrid fungus even though cattle and wildlife could spread it from one water body to another. [significant text above rendered in bold.] Well, one thing that everyone in the field is agreed upon -- if it is indeed true that the organism is infectious and that one way it is spread is by visitors to caves -- is that it is nowhere near as simple as disinfecting hands, and rather, the organism would be present on shoes, clothing and gear (including ropes, carabiners, stuff bags, etc.), and thus washing hands would accomplish nothing at all in terms of prophylaxis. Excellent points. I didn't think it all the way through. With the frogs we were concerned with whatever came in contact with the water. It has been awhile since I've been in a cave and forgot about all the contact with the floor, walls, and everything else.

My owner's manual recommends that lithium batteries not be used.

Most of my rechargeables are Energizer 2450 mAh nickel metal hydroxide. I've been happy so far. Non rechargeable alkaline batteries did not last. I also have a car adapter that I use when on the road.

When it feels uncomfortable. We walked away from a cache that was in front of a busy restaurant and someone was sitting at GZ. We walked away from a cache that was in front of an elementary school and it was while school was in session. There is a multi-stage cache at a rest stop that we haven't found yet because it involves looking under a foot bridge between the parking lot and building. That really makes you stand out.

I'm going to jump on this bandwagon and add nothing says "I don't care about my hide" like a cache page that looks like an AOL chat room log or a series of Twitter tweets. CHECK YOUR SPELLING, use punctuation and correct capitalization. If it looks like you didn't take the time to write out an intelligent description then most people will interpret that as you didn't take the time to place the actual cache well either. Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree. (I hope I spelled all that correctly, spell check says OK.)

Hopefully they are disinfecting their hands when leaving the cave. When I was doing frog surveys we had to disinfect because of the possibility of spreading chytrid fungus even though cattle and wildlife could spread it from one water body to another.

They have three+ IL TOPO maps, which one has 'visible seams' and where are you seeing them? I downloaded this one (hope the link is enough). http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/72/ The seam is at about N37 30.

Were you hiding a cache or looking for a cache? If you were looking for a cache I don't see how you were violating anything except for blocking a gate. Maybe he didn't understand what you were doing, just going for a hike. Regions, National Forest, and Ranger Districts can all have their own policies. It depends on where you are. Sometimes the information will be available on the website for the Region, National Forest, or Ranger District. Some will allow geocaching without a permit, some will allow it with a permit, and some will not allow it. That's just the way it is. You really shouldn't block a gate. Off road vehicle use also depends. It not only depends on Forest Service policies but now the state is involved. Also, it isn't always about resource damage. Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) and Forest Protection Officer (FPOs) can't be everywhere at once. There are not a lot of them and they have a lot of territory to cover. The George Washington NF is in the Southern Region. Here is a link to the Southern Region policy on geocaching. http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/texas/recreation/p...y_fs_manual.pdf

If all geocachers tried to follow the principles of Leave No Trace then many of these problems, such as geocaching being banned from state parks, could be alleviated. http://lnt.org/programs/principles.php

I have the IL download from GPS File Depot. It is pretty good but it does have visible seams.

I live in an area where there aren't many geocachers but I am close (within 50 miles) to quite a few caches. I would like to see more FTF Hogs/Hounds/Hawks in this area. I placed a cache November 15 and the FTF wasn't until January 3. Up to now there have only been 6 logged finds. FTF is part of the sport. It adds to the challenge and the fun but like anything else you can become obsessed at which point it may become unhealthy.

I would think that the blunt tipped scissors used in kindergarten would be OK. I've been puzzling over the pocket knife and multi-tool thing. I want to hide a cache in a remote location and I was thinking about putting a survival kit (which contains a pocket knife) in it for a FTF prize. Have to think about it more.

A good place to start is with the cache guidelines. "Use your common sense in most cases. Explosives, fireworks, ammo, lighters, knives (including pocket knives and multi-tools), drugs, alcohol or other illicit material shouldn't be placed in a cache. As always respect the local laws. Geocaching is a family activity and cache contents should be suitable for all ages. Food items are ALWAYS a BAD IDEA. Animals have better noses than humans, and in some cases caches have been chewed through and destroyed because food items (or items that smell like food) are in the cache. Even the presence of mint flavored dental floss has led to destruction of one cache."

I have become a FTF Hound but almost by accident. I would wait for the weekly Groundspeak emails, see a new cache, check out the cache page and find out it was already found. Then one day I was looking around and saw a little icon that said "NEW". I checked out a cache and found out it was close to me and hadn't been found, then I found 5 more. WOW. Now this was in the middle of the week, my day off came and off we went. Logged about 6 FTFs just ahead of some other cachers. I was hooked. So I am a FTF Hound but since I am limited slightly on which days I can geocache I don't get upset if someone else gets there before me. It's the nature of the game. There is an undiscovered cache that looks like it has a problem with the coordinates. There are probably about 4 of us watching it for the corrected coordinates. If I find it first, fine. If someone else finds it first that's OK also. I had to travel about 50 miles to the cache I was FTF today and found it just before someone else that lives much closer to the cache than I.