Zero Montana

What..? Google it sometime! Why...? I live in PDX, was a part of it, AND was/am a fan!

Yes. CGA has gone through a renaming and a reorganisation of sorts. GEO (www.GEOregon.com) is the name for the foreseeable future.

Sorry, no sports almanac here.

For some reason, I hadn't given any thought whatsoever to upgrading the software in my OR 300 for many months -maybe because it was working fine and I was satisfied with it. Then, out of nowhere, I decided to head over to the Garmin Wiki and see what was up with, well, updates. After seeing that there had been SEVERAL releases since I last updated, I thought I'd fire up WU and give it a go. The process went smooth enough -no issues there. But the odd thing was that upon restarting my GPSr, up pops a message saying 'New software detected. The software is OLDER than your current software. Do you want to continue installation and override all user data?'. The new software is OLDER than the year-old stuff that was already there??!! I chose 'no'. Weird. thoughts/comments? tnx! tv

I filled up in either Alamo or Ash Springs, don't recall which. Used Rachel as my base of operations and cached my way to Tonopah and refueled there.

tnx, WeightMan!

Hi all, I've built and submitted a PQ, and set it up to run each Sunday. Having given the preview a look, I saw that it wasn't what I was after due to a couple of overlooked items during the building. I've made the mods/corrected the errors. Question is, will I know have to wait a full week before the PQ will run again, or are modified queries still generated later in the day? tnx tv

Can't resist adding my two cents, likely stirring the pot in the process. In no particular order of relevance... *Most of the naysayers appear to be out on the east coast. Completely different environment/geography out there. Not too difficult -but still annoying after the first dozen posts- to understand why they feel as they do. *I did the trail on opening weekend and spread it over a couple days. Even then, vehicular traffic was sparse at best. Yeah, there was a good bit of driving onto the shoulder though I saw VERY little evidence of folks having actually driven beyond and into the scrub. More often than not, the winds pretty much erased the shoulder incursions. Maybe things are different 4.5 months later. As for the Alien Head trail, I'd say the foot-to-vehicular traffic ratio was probably something like 10 to 1. But true, it often does take only one to screw it up for the rest. Without exception, everyone -and I mean EVERYONE- who was out there on foot who saw the vehicles was extremely vocal in expressing their dismay. *As I read through this and similar threads, I'm struck by the similarities between power trails and one of my other passions, ham radio contesting. Each is about pushing oneself -and the hobby in general- to ever increasing lengths. Also in each, there are -sadly- those who 'get it' and those who don't, and those who don't seem to take great pride bashing those who do.

Help your potential guide(s) make an informed decision by posting the gc codes.

Tnx, Team Taran for your comments. I think it was the fact that I'd been in a crunch for time that kept me from including what I now see as some very helpful info. In any event, my little crisis has been solved in that I went back and created a NEW query with a NEW name using what I'm gonna insist were the same parameters as before and this time, it all worked. Just for the heck of it, the params and the gear: Garmin OR 300 'centrepointe type' query resulted in 993 of the target 1k caches being precisely what I was after (the above was confirmed via previewing on 'the nearest cache page'. I'd then loaded the PQ into my GPSr, fired it up and wham, I had a list of caches 200 miles beyond what I'd seen in the preview. As an aside, I also created a temp database in GSAK and dumped the .gpx file (straight from the desktop, mind you, not from my GPSr, and it too, showed the same oddball stuff. But as I said, it's all irrelevant now as that subsequent query went off without a hitch. Tnx for the feedback... even yours, LD .

This I can work with . Yeah, that was one of the reasons I'd cleared out all the other gpx files on the GPSr before loading the new one. Well, that and the new one contained 994 caches. I do have it set to show names and while what came up is at least in the same state as the target caches, they're just not the ones I was expecting to see. In fact, my first reaction was to manually type in the names of one of the caches I'm after and it couldn't come up with anything remotely like it. I then whipped up a temp database in GSAK and tried the same... and got the same results. From where I'm standing, it really does seem like some sort of bizarre transporter malfunction, for lack of a better term .

OK.. fair enough. Since most of you here are likely well beyond me when it comes to the ins and outs of PQs, I didn't want to appear as though I were addressing a bunch of neophytes. I notice your helpful reply stopped short of offering a few examples of what I could add to make it less.... inadequate. I'll ponder it myself and get back to ya.

Hi all... Very odd and frustrating issue here. Last night (OK... five hours ago!), I built a PQ and previewed the results and saw exactly what I was hoping to see. Great! Big deal, right? Imagine my bewilderment when I fire up my GPSr after loading it and discover that the results were now so different it was as though it was a completely different PQ! Not a single one of the caches shown on the preview pages were in this PQ... not one! Given the conditions listed below, how the heck did this happen?? I cleared out all the stuff in the GPX file on my GPSr. prior to loading the new PQ.. I DID download the correct PQ from the queque.. Thoughts/comments welcomed! tnx! tv

Oh, man. I really have to bite my tongue here so as to remain cordial and in compliance with the TOS. I'll just suffice to start by saying cool your jets, turbo. It really chaps me to see such blanket statements. I am not ALWAYS about the numbers. I often enjoy -and sometimes prefer- the multi-mile hikes in the forests/deserts for a single ammo can. But to get back to your statement.... Most of the numbers types I know cringe at breaking a twig (and they still manage to pull off numbers that'll make your head spin). With one exception, I've never seen or heard of a numbers type -crazed or otherwise- wreaking such havoc just to grab another smiley. This goes for the FTF crowd as well. I dunno, maybe it comes from living in the PNW and always having to watch out for poison ivy/oak. Whatever. Point is, most of us have more of a conscience that you might think.

Two of the silver for me, tnx!!

I can't emphasize this enough. No matter how reasonable a feature request is, there will always be a handful of very vocal people that will suggest that the requested feature should not be implemented because they don't personally want to use it. The number of people that go to a lot of trouble to generate and add stats to their profiles indicate that there is quite a lot of demand for this feature. Unfortunately I don't expect that it will be developed any time soon unless GS was to partner with one of the people/organizations already generating these kinds of stats. No no. You have failed to consider that some of us don't want ANYBODY using the feature. Not just myself. I happen to rather strongly believe in not trying to turn Geocaching into a competitive contest of any kind. While we're all free to possess our own various beliefs, I'd say that -generally speaking- the 'It's not a contest' sentiment (sounds like FD, doesn't it, OM?) went out the window the first time some cacher saw 'FTF' written in a log and asked 'What's that mean?'.

It would be tempting to do this, although I'm not at all sure why. But I've no interest in tossing my geocaching identity and my RL identity into the same digital gene pool, so to speak.

A good one for this thread... happened sometime last summer. I was going out after the FTF on a newly published cache. Pretty good hike into the sticks along the Columbia river. At any rate, I was first on scene by a LONGSHOT. During the entire trek into the woods, I never saw another soul. I set about searching and had things pretty well zeroed after about 15 minutes or so -not including the half hour hike to GZ. Finally, I heard footsteps and looked up to see a husband-and-wife team approaching. We chatted a bit. Usual stuff. Had I been here long, had I found it yet, etc. As individuals, we each soon zeroed the same spot but they were just a bit closer/quicker/more willing to trash both their clothing/whatever than I was and they came up with the find. I don't recall if they offered a co-FTF (I don't think they did), but it was cool with me. Had I 'found' it? No way. I'd been searching the opposite end of the log and had just taken a step or two on my way to the other end. I was within ~20' but I didn't 'find' squat. My rule of thumb is that if I'm part of a group ('group' being ANYTHING more than just myself), co-FTF is entirely acceptable if the other party(ies) involved were within an arm's reach and were clearly/actively searching in the direction of GZ, and then only if the one who physically made the find offers it up.

I strongly suspect that this power trail was set with the knowledge that it would be archived almost as soon as the record was set, and certainly less than three months. Sure, I suspect the power trail would take some maintaining - but IMO NGA shouldn't have set it if they weren't prepared to put in the maintenance effort. If you're going to set a power trail like that IMO you should at least have the courtesy to leave it in place (as per the listing requirements) long enough to let everyone have a fair crack of the whip. Also, with all those caches archived anyone wanting a cache listing for the area won't be able to see the wood for the (crossed out) trees. IOW, the area is now blighted. JMHO... Geoff Hi Geoff, I told myself I was going to quit flogging this dead horse, but I gotta put my .02 in here... I lurk far more than I post. But have been reading the TotG threads with interest since I'd planned to trek from Oregon to make a run on it. Too late now, but that's beside the point. At any rate, through my reading here on both this forum and the forums on the NGA site, as well as a number of email exchanges with folks a bit closer to the action, I've come to the opinion that when NGA placed the trail, they had every intention of it being in place for a good while. I know I would have to think long and hard about placing 500+ caches along a ~50 mile stretch of "road" in the middle of the Mojave if I knew that I'd be having to head back out and pick 'em all up just 60-90 days later. I'm thinking you wouldn't go to that trouble, either. If I understand the nature of PQs correctly, your issue with the area being 'blighted' is moot as PQs will only return listings that are currently active. Providing, of course, the user sets it up that way.

I find that I am of two minds regarding the whole thing. I like to think I caching habits/behaviour is such that I tend not to be a numbers (rate) junkie. I'll take quality over quantity any day. That said, it was the uniqueness of ToTG that had been drawing me to it. AFAIK, there was no other scenario like it anywhere in the country. At least not in the western states. I scheduled vacation time for it and when asked how I racked up such numbers in 2 or 3 days, I would not have been ashamed or embarrassed to say 'yeah, it was a saturation trail.' But only in the sense that ti was such a unique thing. YMMV

Add my name to the list of folks experiencing this. In my case, all finds were logged with the correct date in the first place -some via iPhone, some at home via desktop. Since around Aug or Sep of last year, the same 15-20 gpx files will have bad dates attached to them after loading a My Finds PQ into GSAK and running the FSG macro. That said, both GSAK and FSG are innocent in this. I've become 99% sure that there's been something going on -intermittently, of course- with the robot that handles the My Finds PQ. I go into GSAK, manually add a log with the proper find date, delete the log with the improper date, and all is good in the world until I run the next My Finds PQ (I've since taken to just manually loading gpx files into GSAK one at a time so as to avoid this recurring annoyance. Downside: I'm unable to reap whatever benefits there may be to using the PQ to begin with).

Tried it again and don't ya know, it's working like it should. Go figure!

Tried it again and don't ya know, it's working like it should. Go figure!

Tried it again and don't ya know, it's working like it should. Go figure!

I have tried that but it still snaps back to the shortest route or main highway. I had the same problem, until I discovered that I had to grab a point on the route, not the END point. If you grab the END point, the Map software redetermines what is the "Best Route". Hope this helps. Thanks for your help but it doesn't seem to want to work for me. I grab a point along the route, drag it to where I want it to be, then as I proceed along dragging points to my intended route, I look back and find the route has jumped back to a highway or a shorter route. I can't seem to "pin" the route and have it stay there. As you can imagine it's very frustrating. I am experiencing the same issue. Did you find any resolution to this?