Team Aspenoro

Thanks for all of the comments. Geocaching has changed, and some of us old farts would like it to be the way it was. I have learned some about sorting for the type you want, that people that complain might ought to be placing caches, and that some people clearly like quick finds -- and I thank each of you for your input. When you look at the number of finds in our profile, we are still newcomers. And nobody is holding a gun to our heads saying "Go cache -- and like it!" In a strange way I do feel better about this. Thanks!

I am just now getting back into caching after being away from it for several years. Back when I started in '04, one of the characteristics of a good cache is that it got people to a place where they may not have been before -- good scenery, good trails, etc. Now in looking at cache locations in our area, it appears that we have a few cachers creating caches that are ones you can drive to, find the cache, and be back on the road in minutes. And they are creating multitudes of them. Most are logbook-only and are located in every shopping mall in the area. What happened? Sure, I can ignore the caches they've created, and will, but why do we have to sort through this stuff?

Here is a post we left after dropping off our first travel bug at a cache in the mountains of Colorado: "What a great spot in the fall! And what a great place, with the ground covered in golden aspen leaves, for Team Aspenoro to send its first TB, Golden Aspen, on its way through life. Things just don't happen that coordinated. Perhaps we should buy a lottery ticket tonite -- naw, that would just spoil a wonderful day you lead us to.... Thanks again for the great cache." That was October 14th. On October 29th we received a message from the cache's owner that she had visited the cache and found it muggled and the travel bug nowhere in sight. As it turns out we were the LTF and our first travel bug never made it to another cache. This is not a "lost TB whine" -- you set them free and accept what happens. I just wonder if anybody can match or better that?

On the Denver news the other night it was reported that the nearby Boulder government is about to prohibit geocaching in its open-space parks. They say that the environment is being trampled. [You need to understand that Boulder is a tree-hugging town -- some say a twenty-five square mile island surrounded on all sides by sanity.] Colorado State Parks is/are working on rules to control caches within its park's boundaries -- permit required to place cache, mandatory renewal application each year, etc. Any other governments moving in this direction?

I am looking for some opinions to assist me to determine how I should feel on this topic. I would very much appreciate no flaming. With that in mind, I trust that you do not think the following is flaming on my part. In our state, we have 40 state parks. They are funded by daily park passes ($5), annual park passes ($55 reg, $37 sen.), and some trickle down money from the state treasury obtained by taxes. There are two recent constitutional amendments that, on one hand limit tax increases unless approved by the majority, and on the other hand require an increase in school funding each year. State Parks and some other government agencies sit right at the crossroad – read “waiting for their budget reductions.” Now we have a very large State Park on the outskirts of the state capitol city, that has graciously approved at least eleven cache locations. (There is an assumption there regarding approval by the State Parks. Rumor has it that the cache owners will have to file for approval each year starting next year.) There are two primary vehicle-access gates. There is one parking lot at the edge of the park awaiting a gate – read “awaiting funds”. There are many other ways into the park – walking, bicycling, etc. Here is the “gotcha” – the State Parks are maintaining this beautiful park as best they can given the funding cutback. At the same time, we have cache hiders utilizing the park to hide caches. One problem – on their cache pages on this website they are giving very clear directions to parking places outside the park where geocachers can park and search without supporting the park system financially. It is not illegal as far as I know. If folks think that geocaching is a low-profile activity, think again. I found out about geocaching from a seasonal park ranger! or -- I'm ready

Man are you going to be embarassed if she proves she can walk on water! ( In case anyone on the religious right has a problem with this post, please send me an e-mail through GC.com. I'll be glad to send you the coordinates of the cache I have been searching for off and on for two weeks. Wait for me there. The odds are real good your wait won't be short.)

OK - but you left out one important bit of info... How do you position your tongue while following this procedure...

I realized this when I first got my unit and did a lot of reading about GPS as a whole. Perhaps some IT or astrophysist person could explain why the government set up 12-hour orbits. It would seem to me that a big ol' Cray could figure out a different velocity for each satelite that would eliminate the 12-hour periodicity of the system without also lumping the satelites all on one side of the earth on occasion, i.e. keep a reasonable spread.

We'll add our recommendation for the Vista -- so far there is no indication that it is the weakest link in the chain -- that, I believe, is an 'honor' to be bestowed upon the human operators. Garmin also has a top notch customer service department.

I really wish I could. But he just doesn't have the legs for it anymore. I would feel terrible if I took him out and something happened. I think my grandma would go on a few with me. She likes to walk. But then I would get that guilty feeling again leaving my grandpa behind. Sucks. I just want someone to see all the cool places I see when out and about. I think geocaching is a great thing to do to spend quality time with someone, but it just came around too late. I still geocache with my 5 year old and am glad we found something we both love to do. I just hope she still likes it when she is a teenager...lol Here's a thought from someone that isn't too far away from not being able to get out and around enough to geocache. Buy a digital camera or a camcorder. Take a lot of pictures of you and your daughter geocaching. Make sure you are in the pictures too. Most digital cameras or camcorders allow you to hook up to a TV to run a slide show or show the movies. Go to his place, and show him the fun you are having. If possible, get him involved in looking over prospective cache hunts and helping you decide which ones to go on next. Or let him flat out pick one -- make it a big deal. Go by his place on the way to the hunt. Show him what you are taking along. Stop back by on the way home. Show him the pictures of the cache HE picked. I'll just bet he'll be as excited as you are, will want to tell his neighbors about "the cache hunt I sent them youngsters on."

Just walk backwards down the hill!

Across the mountains of the moon And through the valley of shadows Ride, Bowley, ride In search of ElDorado James Caan (as Mississippi) in ElDorado w/ John Wayne

Some time back we did a DNF -- looked for 1/2 hour each. Upon returning home I checked the cache page only to see two DNFs within a few days before us. Lesson learned, check the cache page as you are going out the door on the hunt. We currently are in the middle of a potential DNF. Couldn't find the first micro on a multicache. Spent an hour a piece looking with no luck. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about a place I hadn't looked and how the clue could have been deceitfully clever (or cleverly deceitful). Was tempted to go back in the middle of the night until I recalled the park closes at 10PM. I went back the next day only to discover that I had indeed checked the suspected hiding place the day before. We now have 3 hours invested. Several previous finders have logged that they found the first micro easily. So I'm thinking it has been mugged. Sent an e-mail to the owner but haven't heard back yet. WE WILL FIND IT!

I believe we were LTF on a cache a couple of miles from here. The cache disappeared for a while right after that. Of course it could be because someone stole two Catepillar tractors and run them over a hill and into a depression where the cache was hidden. The place must have been swarming with news people (slow news day) as the incident made all of the TV news shows. The really weird part about it is that my brother-in-law is the job boss for the construction company employing the earth movers!

We are reasonably new to this ourselves. But we have already picked up on a few things that help us. 1) As you get close to your target according to your GPS, don't try looking ahead and going "I'll bet it's under that big tree." You'll find yourself fixating on the tree and missing other good hiding spots. 2) In college, I had a professor that wouldn't let us use our sliderules (Yes, Virginia, I said 'sliderules') until the last five minutes of the class. He claimed that as soon as you picked up the sliderule, you turned off your brain and used the sliderule to do things like multiply 2x3. Same thing applies here - consider that the GPS gets you close, then put it away and start looking around like many have already suggested. 3) When you do locate a cache, put your GPS over the cache and set a waypoint. Later, compare what your GPS said to what the cache owner gave for coordinates. Then you will see that you have two error factors, your GPSr plus the hider's GPSr, and some possible inaccuracy in the GPS system itself. 4) Don't forget this is supposed to be fun!

When discussing "I had more finds in one year...", I would like to offer an analogy from the employment environment. I always tried to determine if a candidate had ten years of experience or one year of experience ten times. It's the age old battle of quantity versus quality.

I am a solid fan of two trekking poles. We are volunteer rangers at a state park in Colorado. I had seen folks with the telescoping poles and thought that was a little much. However, I have lower back problems and my walking had been reduced to about a 200' distance without stopping. We had some out-of-state company in town and took them to the park. The day before we went, I spotted two old ski poles in the garage and decided I would give them a try. Made a two-plus-mile hike with no stops. The next day I had a set of Komperdells, and it has been getting better ever since. I'm not sure what the magic is, but they work great for me!

Not sure where you re located, but it could certainly be this area in Colorado. We are new to the pasttime so we are still learning to look; but I would really enjoy creating some good caches. My only problem is that everytime I think of or go by an area that I think would be good, I find when I look it up on Groundspeak I discover it is already populated with several caches. Sad part is, many of them are what I would call "drive bys" -- don't bother turning off the engine when you park, you won't be out of the car that long. Plus, the kind of cache I am thinking of would be a multi with requirements for some space. It would really be neat if someone could start a thread on tips to locate areas suitable for hiding different kinds of caches.

Bermuda triangle?

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When my father started school (circa 1918) being left-handed, as he was, put him in a category of witches and such. So his teacher tied his left hand behind his back for the rest of the school day every day. He ended up mixed up -- some things he did righty, some lefty, some ambedextrous. Me -- a right hander -- I'm facing carpal tunnel surgery. So I'm trying to do a crash course in left-handed self training. Fortunately, I have an eTrex Vista which does work much better in the left hand. Now if I could just quit jabbing myself in the cheek and chin with my dinner fork....

Beware environmentalists -- this is what can happen to you when tree hugging is no longer enough.

The male part of this team served as a 1/Lt in the US Army from 1963 to 1965. More and more, as I grow older, I wish I had stayed in for 30. There is just one thing wrong with that thinking, however -- had I stayed in I wouldn't have met the female half of this team, and that would have been a serious bummer. I think most people respect the military service of others. But there are times when they seemingly don't. Example. We have a neighbor who works for the federal government. I worked in commercial industry. She is not a veteran but got every Veteran's Day off. I was a veteran, and worked every Veteran's Day. We joked about it -- but inside there was a little voice saying "Something is out of whack here." Just some thoughts...

We learned something on our very first cache... It was a multi with three film cannisters leading up to the ammo can. It was in a residential green belt. As we approached the third micro, I spotted a big tree at the right bearing and distance and convinced myself that was the hiding place. We spent a full half-hour looking -- and I made several trips around the base of the big tree -- before we gave up. We went back a few days later and found the micro about three feet from the tree. I was so convinced it was at the base of the tree that I got tunnel vision. Keep the mind open, Grasshopper!