Steve&GeoCarolyn

... I have a flamethrower, if you want to borrow it. >.> I thought that belonged to Zolgar. Thank you for the offer but my sense is that a flamethrower might produce a slightly different experience than I have in mind when I go walking through wetlands. Can private citizens actually own flamethrowers? I assume that these are not allowed to be used as swag (if one could find a cache large enough). Carolyn

OK, I can definitely say that I will not be visiting that cache. It would require someone made of sterner stuff than me. When I first saw Vinnie's Psycho Urban cache series, I showed my beloved that one and said excitedly, "Wouldn't it be cool to go there?" He looked at the listing and said, "But you're afraid of everything in the listing. Everything." "No, I'm not. I don't mind spiders." He told me that he didn't think my fearlessness around spiders qualified as meeting the basic requirements to search for that cache. Carolyn

One thing I ran into while trying this is that I had a tendency to overdo it in the beginning. I think since the body is using different muscles and learning to walk differently, I needed to start slow. My beloved is now starting to do this as well and we're starting him on no more than one mile until that is easy and pleasant and doesn't result in pain the next day. You might want to just back off a bit on the mileage and move up slowly. Carolyn

Hi, I'm thrilled that we have the same taste in gadgets. In the Oregon, you move the child waypoints and the main gpx files to the same place: the gpx folder on the Oregon. Once you are using your Oregon, you'll find the main geocaches in the Geocaches section. To get to the child waypoints go to the "Where to?" button, then select "Waypoints". They will be in there. In the Nuvi the waypoints and geocaches are both in the Extras area. Go to Where to? then select Extras. Go to Custom POIs. Then to whatever folder you put your files in before uploading to the Nuvi. I hope that helps. If I misunderstood your question, please let me know. Carolyn

I think this is the key. Some areas really are extremely fragile. Alpine environments come to mind. You can do a lot of damage in a few minutes that will not disappear for many years in an alpine or sub-alpine area. On the other hand, my tracks through the wetlands we hike through here in the Midsouth disappear nearly as soon as we make them (making it all to easy to get lost, even with a GPSr). Any bushwacking we do through poison ivy, brambles, and thorns will be quickly negated by these fast growing menaces. Most areas I suspect are somewhere between easy-to-destroy and nearly-impossible-without-a-flamethrower. So we should be careful but not paranoid and always aware of where we are. Carolyn

Example here Aren't you supposed to avoid terrifying newbies in this part of the forum? I thought the tadpole designation or posting in the Getting Started area was a guarantee of gentle treatment. And here you expose him to Psycho Urban Caches first time out of the gate! Shocking! Carolyn P.S. Other than soggy plush toys in the cache, we haven't seen anything bad.

Hi Swizzle, We do murder mystery parties so I'm familiar with the problem you are describing. It happens to us as well. Here's what we do: 1) We flesh out each character and give each a unique motivation within the story. (Even if it doesn't matter to the plot.) 2) We have a variety of mystery writing sourcebooks that have ideas for plots, characterization, character names, murder weapons, causes of death, etc. We consult these when we are stuck. Then we try to figure out what would cause each character to commit the murder. We put in a couple of false clues based on those ideas, pick the "real" murderer and flesh his motives out a bit more, and then write it up. We've found that writing it up is very helpful. Thinking is all well and good, but the real ideas come together once you are typing. Good-luck! (And if you need names of helpful books, just let me know.) Carolyn

Sometimes cache owners will put additional waypoints in a section on the cache page devoted to that. Additional waypoints are used for things like the best place to park or locations of things you might want to see. Most caches don't have additional waypoints. But you will always get two files, one with the geocaches (including the coordinates of the geocache) and one with additional waypoints. If no cache owners have put additional waypoints in their pages your waypoints file will be empty. Carolyn

I have considered this very issue and have come to a conclusion. What I need to do is travel extensively, preferably at very long distances. I've pointed out to my beloved that we could be more effectively anonymous if we were to cache in Brazil, the UK, Florida, and India. But he simply laughed. We'll see if he's still laughing when the men in black come knocking after correctly triangulating our location from our found logs. Carolyn

I think an attribute is a wonderful idea. I'm not so certain that a cache type dedicated to history and working in the same way as earthcaches would also be a good idea. Unlike geology, history has legions of agenda-driven devotees and the battle for historical interpretation is primarily waged in the public fora, not in academia. History is political and personal in ways that geology is not. It would be a rare person who would be upset by a geological discussion. On the other hand, people whose relatives or ancestors were involved in a war or massacre (on either side) are deeply emotionally invested in how the event is presented. People are even emotionally involved in less dramatic historical events. Just observe the rancor that accompanies any discussion of Sally Hemings and Jefferson or whether the Wright Brothers were the true inventors of the airplane. I've seen people pounding the table about which ship in WWII was the largest. I think a history cache type (as opposed to a history attribute) would be a lightning rod for unhappiness and nastiness. You think that discussions of lamp post micros are hot? Just wait until someone starts a discussion about whether the events at Fort Pillow constitute an unjustified massacre and shouldn't that cache that /whitewashes/unfairly accuses the participants/ be archived. Then you'll see hot, bitter debates. Carolyn

But that is your real picture, right? Carolyn

It was on the other side of the pole, at just above head height. It was there - honest! Well that's comforting, isn't it? As you geocache I am sure that you will start mentally sorting caches into buckets of those types you want to do and those types you'd prefer to avoid. For example, I am perfectly willing to fight through brambles, thorns, and poison ivy for a cache, I'm even willing to visit habitats that hold poisonous snakes and vicious bugs. But I draw the line at anything that has electrical wires that might be live. That truly scares the rational parts of my mind. My advice is to do more caching so that you can find enough variety to give your mind a chance to work with the data. Is this another one for my list of dangerous topics to avoid? Carolyn

Hi! We have an Oregon as well. The normal way that it is set up is for the arrow to always point in the direction of the coordinates (the cache, in this case). The idea is that you follow the direction of the arrow. This works great until you get into heavy tree cover and then the poor little electronic compass has problems. (We carry a regular compass as well for really bad moments like that. But normally when the compass goes wacky we just follow the numbers instead. We've only pulled out the regular compass twice.) You can make the compass somewhat more accurate by calibrating it. You'll find the calibration in the Set Up icon. Look for the selection marked "Heading". When you get in there choose "Press to begin compass calibration" and follow the instructions. Finally, each time you open up your GPSr and take out the batteries to replace them, you should recalibrate your compass. I don't think you should send it back. It is working as it is designed. For me I had to get my mind over the idea that the needle should point north and accept the idea that the needle points to where I should go. Then I started to really enjoy it. Carolyn

Thanks for another perspective on this. When my friend asked me to look at his logs he gave me his profile URL. When I put it in I got back something like this (with his name rather than mine): This was the reason I joined geocaching.com. I didn't have any intention of caching. I just wanted to read about what my friend was doing. Then he led me down the petaled path to this addiction and of course I had to get a GPSr, and so forth. I wonder how the original poster is communicating the info about his logs. Is he sending them the cache pages or his profile URL? Carolyn

I think they need to be members to see someone's logs and gallery. This happened to me with my friend before I became a member. He sent me his info, but I couldn't see anything until I joined the website. I think if they sign up for the free membership they should be ok and will be able to see your logs. Carolyn

And probably 90% of them where I come from. But I'm quite certain the OP obeys all local laws and ordinances regarding parks and bike trails that are only open from dawn to dusk. I'm sure he wouldn't want to give Geocaching a bad name or anything. A few parks around here close at sunset, but most are open at night, at least until 11 pm. I don't think one has to disobey rules to do night-caching. At least not here in the Midsouth. Carolyn

I am so not picturing myself walking through snake-infested swamps in the middle of the night in my pajamas. Yes, I am a total wimp about these things. That's just the way it is. Are snakes nocturnal or diurnal only? I asked my beloved and he said that he suspected that they could be found anytime day or night. (He's comforting that way.) Carolyn

Happy to help. We're up early to get a jump on the 97 degree temperature. We bravely head back into the swamp today to find the second stage of the cache we tried to find last weekend and we want to give ourselves the best chance of not dying of heat stroke. Now I am off to the swamp. Wish me luck! Carolyn

hi again, it is garmin its details are, garmin topo great britain(all regions)v2 micro sd/sd adapter,my device is garmin vista hcx ,thanks Well, that's the answer above then. Garmin is saying that they can't give you a scale for that product but that they double-promise-with-whipped-cream-and-cherries-on-top that they're giving you the best detail available. Carolyn

Are you looking at Garmin's products or some other company? What kind of device do you have? Here is Garmin's answer to that question for the UK maps:

Hi, Here's the deal with topo maps and detail: What you are looking for is the scale. The scale is what determines the level of detail of the topo map itself. US topo maps are commonly available in 1:24,000 and 1:100,000. The 1:24,000 zooms in more and you get more detail. (Just remember that the lower the second number in the ratio, the more detail the map has.) Topo software (which is what I suspect you are really pricing) takes the topo maps created by governments and adds features to them. In the US the maps created by the US government surveyers are available free to the public or for a small charge if you want the map printed on paper. From what I can tell, all the programmers of topo mapping software do is take the free government maps, scan them, and then wrap them with a set of features. So the question you need to ask is what sort of features are you looking for? Pictures of the area? Aerial photos? 3-D renditions? Ability to load to your GPS? ??? Once you decide on your features, combine the list with the best scale you can find and you're good to go! Here's the link to free USGS maps. There may be something similar available for free from the UK government. Carolyn Updated to add: It looks like you have an equivalent of the USGS called the UK Ordnance Survey. Here is the link to their maps.

OK. I'm not detecting any of Briansnat's caution words: But I'm still sensing some sort of tripwire here. Perhaps the "film cannister" becomes a micro? or the ammo can is really in a cemetery? Or someone is being set up to mention the word lamp post? Hmmmm. Definitely a difficulty 4 post. (Doesn't require special equipment, but is sneaky nonetheless.) Carolyn

My beloved would be absolutely delighted with a historic attribute and I would like it as well since it would allow me to find caches that have a high chance of pleasing him. Carolyn

What do you do if you are further from the cache? Last weekend we hiked for 35-40 minutes to get to the cache and then came up against a river we could not cross. According to Genie (our GPSr) the cache was about 450' from our location and if we had crossed the river we would have been able to find it. I felt that we had trudged through high weeds, water, and other obstacles, fought mosquitoes and other bugs, and generally worked hard to get to the cache, therefore we should log a DNF. The total time getting to the river's edge and then back to our car was over an hour. (Besides, I had pictures I wanted to upload and a great story to tell). My beloved felt that we had not come close enough to the cache for it to qualify as a DNF because we didn't actually get to do any searching for the second stage. Besides, we clearly took the wrong route. Therefore it shouldn't be logged until we had made an honest effort to search. We ended up with a compromise and I posted a note with our story and photos. What would you have done? Carolyn

One thing we've found is that it is harder to find caches in urban environments (at least for us) than it is to find them in natural environments. I don't know where you have been caching, but if you look for a regular sized container (as everyone else has said) in the woods or some other natural environment, it may get easier. To us the way people interfere with the environment to hide their cache is immediately obvious and a bit odd. For example, humans place sticks in straight lines. Nature does not. Also the cache will look a bit more obvious since it will have straight edges while the natural world is curvier. If you were trying to find the same thing in the city where everything looks man-made, it becomes more difficult. Carolyn