Stakmaster

I'm trying to work with the CO to make the geocache better without overstepping. Don't presume my intentions.

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It's the worst I've seen, but I'm sure you guys with thousands of finds have seen much worse. Changed the title to reflect that; obviously this is far from the worst but I want to hear some horror stories.

I do believe the CO intended the GPS marker to be where it is now, because the cache explicitly mentions "Right at the start of the trail" several times and the marker is literally the first step right on the beginning of the trail. I do not think they walked 20-30 feet off the trail, placed the cache, and their coordinates coincidentally happened to be off the same amount of feet and in the same direction as the beginning of the trail. This is where experience would benefit the CO; they may not even know that the coordinates should be at the cache, maybe just at a recognizable spot relatively near the cache. Like I said, they have only found 3 caches themselves so they may not have a good frame of refence. As someone else mentioned, the problem with the container and contents is that there is literally no indication that it is a geocache and not just somebody's trash in the bushes. Might I add, there WAS trash in that bush, very similar to the geocache. The only way I even knew it was the geocache was because it looked clean (for the time being) because I was FTF. The very first log though was not me, someone had gone after me the first day and DNF'd no doubt due to the same reasons as myself. Guess we'll see what future logs have to say but yeah, I think it's going to be pretty similar.

First off I'm not picking on this person, not going to say what cache it is or who placed it, but I did want to talk about it and see if you had any similar experiences. Was alerted of a geocache recently published near me last night so I went out but was unable to find it. Sent the OP a message asking for a hint, and they directed me pretty far from the coordinates, about 20-30 feet away. I went back this morning with the hint and lo and behold tossed in the bushes pretty far away was just a simple GLAD container with 2 pieces of blank scrap paper, a clothespin, and a rubber eraser. FTF, hooray? I checked out their profile and this person joined only a couple weeks ago with 3 finds and 3 hides. I understand not everyone has money to spend on official geocaching containers and crazy swag, and in a cute way this is basically geocaching at its essence in a little Tupperware container, but would any of you been happy to find this after searching 2 different days for a total of maybe an hour and a half? There's a reason why Geocaching recommends you find something like 20 caches before hiding your own. Honestly when I saw it in the bush I thought it was some random trash someone threw out of their car window as they passed by, I know you've all seen the type of stuff I'm referring to while hunting. The placement was also super strange. I'm going to message the OP and mention that there is a big tree absolutely perfect for hiding this in about 20 feet up the trail, with lots of holes and hiding spots. Tossed in a random bush by the side of the road way off the coordinates is not fun to find for anyone. Anyway, hopefully I can work with this new player to maybe help them and make this cache better, and was wondering if you guys have any similar stories? Have any worse experiences? All things considered it's not THAT bad, so I know you guys must have some horror stories worth sharing.

May 17th 2020 here, and having this same problem. The fact that this problem has existed for a year or more is insane.

That's a good idea. I guess one of my fears would be that I get denied based on a blanket "Nothing left on our property" type policy not necessarily having anything to do with Geocaching. I mentioned in my email that I would be checking on it regularly and maintaining it, so hopefully that helps if that's one of their concerns. Am I imagining this or doesn't Groundspeak have an official letter you can print and use to ask property owners about Geocaches, explaining everything about them and what it's about? I swear I saw that one time, some sort of generalized request letter made by Groundspeak to save you the effort of explaining Geocaching to landowners in the most respectful and informational way possible.

I just sent the email half an hour ago so no, that's not my primary problem. I was just thinking as I wrote it what are the odds that all the people that placed caches on private property actually went through the effort to do what I am doing. Thinking back to all the caches placed in parking lots, on lamp posts, and on utility boxes I would say the number is very few.

I'm in the process of hiding my first Geocache on an island I've wanted to hide a cache on for years, and I've recently discovered it's actually owned by the New York State Electric and Gas company (NYSEG). I've written an email to them explaining Geocaching and that I'd like to hide a cache on their property, but honestly what incentive do they have in letting me do so? There's a tire swing and camp fire rings all over the island despite it clearly saying "no camping" several places so it's obvious they probably don't want people there to begin with, and it got me thinking how much easier it would be to just hide it on the island without informing them. Obviously I wouldn't do that because it's against the rules, but I also doubt that anyone from NYSEG would ever find out about this Geocache unless they themselves are Geocachers, in which case would they really care? I was just writing that email asking for permission and thinking "Over 3 million Geocaches, how many of those on private property actually got permission from the land owners, and how many just placed it where they wanted?" Have you seen Geocaches get archived when uninformed land owners found out there was a Geocache on their property? Do Geocachers who do this get in trouble with Groundspeak? Like I said, I wouldn't do it because it's against the rules and I would hate to get found out and give Geocaching a bad reputation, but I can't deny the allure of just placing it where I want and hoping no one from NYSEG finds out about it. Have you ever been tempted to do this, or maybe have done it?

One "coincidence" I guess happened the other day. I had just started walking on a trail to geocache and a car pulled up to mine and parked. A sheriff came out, greeted me, flashed his badge and asked what I was doing. I said I was geocaching and asked if he knew what that was and he replied that he did. He explained that 2 kids had skipped school that day and were last seen on that trail and was wondering if I had seen anyone on the trail. He also said that one of them was wearing a backpack (so was I, maybe be thought I was one of them?) I told him that I had just arrived and hadn't been on the trail yet, but would call the police if I saw anyone. He thanked me and I went on the trail. Then, after geocaching for an hour or so, I returned to my car and a different sheriff was there, flashed his badge, and asked me the same questions. I told him that I had already spoken to a police officer about an hour earlier who asked me the same things, and that I hadn't seen anyone since then. I went home and saw online that the two kids were found later that day. I was the only person on that trail, and you're definitely not expecting to be flashed a police badge while just walking around geocaching in the middle of nowhere, least of all twice. Glad everything worked out, though!

I can understand your frustration. I have not released any of my own trackables yet but to lose so many would discourage just about anyone. Not even to mention how expensive some of them can be, I've seen some that are childhood items from the CO made into trackables. Imagine losing something like that to a total stranger. When I began geocaching I was doing it every day, and was fascinated by trackables. The items, the stories, the logs, everything. I picked up a lot of them (as I imagine many new geocachers do) but parted with them far less frequently. I took about a 8-10 month hiatus due to work and personal relationships and things like that but only realized after receiving a message from a fellow geocacher that... I still had a lot of those trackables. I felt mortified. Here I had just begun this amazing hobby, and then unwittingly I had hoarded a ton of these things that people had spent their hard earned money on and had their own wishes for where they would go and who they would meet, and they had just sat in my backpack. For nearly a year. When I was able, I took a quick trip out to a geocache I knew was visited frequently and dropped all of them (except one that I am still searching for). I know that's not ideal, but it's what I had time for at that point in my life, and thankfully one of the owners of those trackables picked them all up and dispersed them during one massive geocaching trip. I still feel a little guilt well up inside of me every time I see a trackable in a geocache for that. For a long time I didn't touch them. Recently I began picking them up again, sparingly, and only if I knew I would be able to drop it again within the next few days. So I guess I would just like to remind you that anything can happen. A lot of those owners of those trackables probably never expected to see those out in caches again. I had kept them for almost a year, logged no new finds, had no activity whatsoever. Then one day, they all were released again to continue their journeys. It never should have happened, and I still feel awful, but some of them may pop up again down the line. You just never know.

Today I was actually searching for a cache and found a plastic nano mouse hidden under a rock at the coordinates. It had no log in it, and when I checked the hint it said it was a camo tube. By my thinking this was either a decoy by the CO or a throwdown by someone who could not find the cache. I could not find this camo tube, and this cache was one of many in a series by a long dormant CO, about half of which are well known to be missing. I didn't even know throwdowns were a thing until recently, but this definitely looked like one. What it accomplishes I don't know, considering I felt no satisfaction finding what was clearly not the original cache, and I did not log it.

I suppose I could do that, though that sort of feels like cheating. I guess this is more of a "help me understand how to solve them on my own" sort of question, but each one is different so maybe it's useless. I just feel like I never know where to begin, like there's not enough information or direction, but that's the mystery part of it.

I've been geocaching for over a year and every mystery cache beyond the simple "add the dates in the graveyard" completely stump me. I understand how I am supposed to complete them in theory, but I read the description and get the information I need and I just hit a wall, like I have no idea where to begin. From people who hide mystery caches or those who have solved a lot of them, are there any common threads among them that could help me? How do most of them begin? I realize this is a very vague question but I have yet to solve a single mystery cache that isn't just a graveyard hunt and I feel like I'm missing out on a good chunk of caches. Is there any advice anyone could give me?

Oh wow, I had no idea. I knew it was very old but it's only maybe number 30 or 40 from the top when you sort by oldest geocaches.

Well The Spot is from 2000. It even has a composition notebook dated 2000 inside, but I'm sure that can't be the oldest.

Was just there today and it's alive and well. Beautiful weather as well.

I've considered going for it, but like many others have said there are a whole host of issues if you are to attempt it. The first being that you have to geocache every day. Even when it's snowing, or raining, or you have plans, or you just plain don't want to. Also, you would probably have to pace yourself. 1 geocache a day, if you intend on spending the last amount of gas money as possible during the challenge, and a lot of planning. Then there's also the fact that, if you have a demanding job, you may not actually, physically be able to go every day. There are days that I have to work 16-20 hours straight. I would feel pretty frustrated if I broke a 100 or 200 day streak due to forces outside my control. Basically, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, and people who have completed the challenge don't seem to enjoy geocaching the same was as they did before. 100 geocaches in a day, however, is a challenge that I will be trying come this summer. Unlike the 365 day streak, the worst I would lose is a day of summer.

Having just found The Spot as my 100th geocache, I became curious to see what the absolute oldest, original geocache is that has never been replaced or moved. However, it is difficult as many, many of the top spots don't seem to be actually placed on their place date, but are to commemorate a date in time. This is not to mention that most of the top spots are in different languages, and combined with the aforementioned commemoration geocaches, it is actually pretty confusing to decipher what is the official oldest original geocache. Does anyone know? I doubt it's in the United States, and that I will ever have the opportunity to find and log it, but I am still curious.

I don't necessarily hate them, but I do value them far less than any other cache. I could talk about them for a while but I guess I'll just sum it up. -I remember almost none of the micros I have found. Meanwhile I could talk for hours about interesting small to medium caches I found and the memories I made searching for them. -When looking for normal sized caches I generally expect the journey to be the majority of the fun, and the actual hunt to be somewhere between leisurely to moderate. When hunting for micros I know I will be scouring around for 10-20 minutes for something minuscule. Not a particularly fun prospect. -Some people "micro-bomb" an area, placing tens of them all over an area in a wide radius. I have a fair few problems with this. Due to the proximity rule it cuts off large areas where larger, more deliberate caches could be placed. When one cacher drops 20 micros in an area, I feel 1/20th of the accomplishment in finding them, and it becomes a chore. No matter how much effort it may have taken to place them all, it appears lazy when that's all they hide and they're all over one area. Plus, finding nothing but micros over and over again gets boring! -I feel excitement and happiness and anticipation when I find a normal sized geocache. I feel nothing when I find a microcache. "Well, there it is." You could probably analyze that further but generally speaking I just have no fun finding them anymore.

I guess it depends on how you view this hobby. A group of people of varying physical abilities drive out to an area specifically for a geocache, track it down however far it may be, locate it, and the most physically capable person retrieves it. Is it really fair that the other people, who made 99% of the trip and effort, shouldn't be able to sign and log the geocache? How awful would they feel if that's the case? Did everyone but the climber waste their time? Depends on if you view geocaching as a hobby of athleticism. I'm sure there are people who do, but I always thought it was more about the adventure. Plus, that's sort of one of the benefits of caching in a group, so you have a wider ranger of abilities available and so old, infirmed grandpa and little Billy can get those geocaches they'd never be able to get on their own.

There is a local geocache near me that is hidden in the crux of a tree with a micro hot glued into one half of what I believe is a walnut shell. The hint is, of course, "go nuts."

Leave No Trace was a general rule long before there was a website and an organization. In its original and purest form geocaching would be definitely breaking that rule. I'm glad there's an actual website and people promoting it, and that they understand and appreciate geocaching, but technically it really doesn't belong in nature. Once again, just playing devil's advocate, but there are purists out there like I mentioned in the OP that think like this.

Lol. It just goes to show that stuff like that isn't black and white though. I'd say geocaching brings people who would not normally go hiking and adventuring out into nature and helps them appreciate it, but I could play devil's advocate and say that hiding tuppoware containers full of paper and pens in the woods is littering. Just saying.

Leave no trace regarding what? Geocaching? Or stacking cairns? If geocachers adhered to Leave No Trace then geocaching would not exist.