Super_Nate

I agree with this! Are we having more email issues? I was looking through my list of placed caches when I noticed that one of them got found yesterday.....I never got the email!

I guess Tennessee would be one of the locations that it is local to because I just looked up the earthcache numbers here and we are over the 100 mark. That is saying a lot since Texas is the second largest state in the country with 13 earthcaches...WOW!

Trust me, you will have MANY MANY more opportunities to find trackables. If you are a premium member, you can run a PQ on caches around your home coordinates that have trackables in them. Then you can go visit that cache and take the trackable (granted you can help it on its goal) and move it along to another cache. If you are not a premium member, then search caches near your home coords via filter out finds, or zip code and scroll down until you find a listing with a trackable icon. Echoing off what briansnat said....no need to trade for trackables. Those are the only objects in a cache that are not trade objects, but objects that you take to move along on its goal. Trackables have owners that are wanting to see them succeed.....so help them along. BTW - Good luck with your geocaching quest! Hope you have a lot of fun.

So that would mean this hasn't been discussed yet, so what is your opinion on the topic at hand?

Let's keep this thread on-topic! I was inspired by what we were just talking about so I just started another thread to continue discussion on the quality of earthcaches. Carry on.....

Now there is a proliferation of earthcaches thanks to this master program. Due to distance and terrain, I have yet to see any of their places, but they seem to be mostly well known sites, and created in many instances by people from outside my state. Has the earthcache ceased to be about a geological feature that someone wants to share, and become more about numbers earthcaching, getting that required number in order to advance in rank? I have wondered the same thing. For me, it was finding earthcaches....I remember when they first came out and they were spread out to the point that you had to go an hour out of your way to go find one. Arriving at that earthcache was worth every single second of that hour because the site was facinating and jaw-dropping and probably my favorite geocache smileys EVER! I would go on cache runs in which for me numbers was the goal for the day, but we would go 10 miles out of our way because we were going to pass an earthcache. Now when I go on big cache runs, two or three earthcaches are usually in the direct path of where we go because somebody somewhere saw an intact rock in the side of the road that has a crinoid in the center so they made an earthcache out of it. I honestly think that earthcaches should still be published, but do away with the Earthcache Masters and having a scene of earthcache numbers....I think the earthcaching folks need to be just a little more strict on what should pass for an earthcache. Just my $.02 This is a thread branching off of another earthcache thread that got off topic....voice your opinions on the quality verses quantity of earthcaches here

With the original topic at hand...I don't really see a big problem with earthcaches being listed on top of traditional caches. However, I am also okay with the guideline to be several feet off of an exsisting physical container. The worse thing that will happen to that container is a few more visitors. Now if it was a PMO cache, then that would open doors for a little more questions...and thus warrent the need to ask the exsisting cache owner first. But an earthcache is virtual, and would not disturb the physical container....so I don't see a need to ask permission from a cache owner. Switching gears to earthcaches in general....I am from the part of Tennessee described earlier as the earthcache hub! They are literally EVERYWHERE! I have visited a good number of them and I have determined that it is about half-in-half on the quality of the site. Is this really an outstanding location, or is it another basic waterfall write-up? With nothing against these great folks, but a big factor in the amount of random earthcaches is the earthcache master program. Their is a requirement to own 20+ earthcaches in order to get a higher ranking. So that triggers a bulk of it right there. I have to pull for Nenos here.....For those who can't go very far, the many earthcaches these days provides easy access to natural features right in the backyard.

Another thing that popped into my head that you might want to take note of. You will want to have the coords for all the stages of the multi submited as additional waypoints on your listing. Don't worry, others won't see them unless you have it set to be for public material. This is necessary for the reviewer to check for the distance rule on other caches in the area......because remember, the stages of your multi have the same 528 feet rule that other traditional caches do. The individual stages of a multi do not have this rule with each other,...just with other caches.

That is exactally what I did for my first couple caches. I was unsure how I was doing on my coordinate shooting, so I made a big deal in my listings that they were my first caches and I needed honest input how well I did. I got input alright, and now I could do coordinate shooting in my sleep. It is nothing to be nervous about to publish a cache.....nothing at all! Heck, I have been to two or three caches in which they were .25+ miles off on coordinates. Thanks to detailed hints, I was able to think twice about the area I was in and go over to another location that made more since and find the cache. I recommend that if you are unsure about how well you did, then make sure you have good hints. Cachers are very intelligent people and will figure things out pretty quickly. So worse case senario would be the coords getting somebody into the park, and they have to find the cache with the give-it-away-hints. Sure, that isn't the funnest....but they will shoot better coords for you, and you will learn for the next time. But based on the way you have been talking, I honestly think you are just fine....and don't lose any sleep over bad coordinates if they do happen. Geocaching is supposed to be for fun, and hunting for the cache is part of the fun. If the coords are off because it was your first cache....SO WHAT!!!! At least then I searched more places for the container. As long as you don't make bad coordinates a habit. Then that is when people will start giving you raised eyebrows. YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!! Just get r' published!

Another thing that some people forget to do is not check off the day of the week that they want the results to generate. I learned that one the hard way when I first started running PQ's! If you are filling out a PQ on Wednesday, and you want immediate results to your email account...then check off Wednesday. If you want to see your results right away then you can go to the PQ list page and then click on the "preview query" icon.

I don't think the person getting FTF should go through a moral delemia! FTF's mean nothing except the joy and satisfaction of a job well done, and the same smiley that the 94th to find will get. If you are a FTF hound, then I would vote for the person finding it first because after all....it is called FIRST TO FIND. So if person #1 found it first, that would make them first to find. If you are not a FTF hound, then I would vote for what everybody else has voted for and say joint FTF! Their is no record of who gets FTF...no icon on the stats! So then WHAT DOES IT MATTER ANYWAY! If their is somebody in your group who is a FTF hound, and it doesn't really matter to anybody else....then I would vote for letting them claim it so that it is a win-win for everybody. FTF is just a couple random letters that you attach to your log if you follow the reviewers published mark. I tend to be pretty flexable......unless their is actually a FTF to go get, then I tend to be a FTF hound

I do want to commend you for being so careful with shooting coordinates. I know of some people who will just go to a spot, push mark on their GPS and call it good. You are actually taking the time which just shows that you aren't lazy. Chances are, you are just fine with the coords after all your attempts. Just go to the site, wait for about 10 seconds then mark the numbers. Walk about 150 feet away and wait 10 seconds. Then use the GoTo feature on your unit to walk your way back to the cache and see how close it gets you. I do this about 5 or 6 times on my Vista, and I usually get bulls-eye coords. Thanks again for going the extra mile....and good luck with the new cache.

:huh: That's pretty funny.....

There are two categorys on the Geocaching tab for your account......caches found and caches owned! When you place a cache, you get a tick mark for your stats under caches owned. When you find a cache, you get a tick mark for your stats under caches found. What would inspire you to get a found tick AND an owned tick? You OWN a cache for OTHERS to find! You FIND caches that OTHERS own! You don't FIND caches that YOU own! It is indeed frowned upon to log a find for a cache that you own.

And.....yes!

Answering this question now several months later! The name of the resort that this cache is located is called "Cha Creek" They are some of the nicest people that you would ever want to meet.

I have scanned this thread....didn't read every word, but I'm pretty sure I got the main idea. I believe in everybody playing the game anyway that they feel like playing....as long as you are having fun. I will not bash anybody for discovering trackables. Me personally, since I am an avid trackable handler....I see good and bad in the discover feature. My opinion is that the discover feature is necessary for trackable owners to know that the item they own is still safe and active. This is done by somebody visiting a cache somewhere and upon seeing a trackable inside of it, they will log a discover log if they didn't want to take it. I also see the discover log necessary as a time efficient substitute for logging trackables seen at an event. It used to be where we retrieved a travel bug from the event, and then posted a note to the event page to place it back. Discover logs eleminate the trackable from going into your inventory. I personally never discover trackables. 100% of the trackables on my stats are trackables that I picked up from a cache and dropped in another one somewhere else. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, so kudos to all you discoverers out there.

I can ALMOST guarantee that it is not a 'bug' in the system. The cachers who logged the TB into the Redneck cache did it after you logged it into your ABC cache. It will be cleared if you relog it.

I would be interested in getting one of your TBs/coins! I will gladly take a picture of it and place it into a cache in Tennessee!

Well, I went through the different steps to try to diagnose what the deal is here. This is what I found: You posted a note to the cache page....SUPER Looked at the travel bug page, and the log saying that you dropped it into your new cache is there....SUPER Looked at the travel bug history to your new cache, and it does register that the bug in question was indeed once logged into your cache. This is the only thing I can think of. The people who placed the bug into "Redneck Run #1" must have logged the grab log and the placement log AFTER you logged the drop into your new cache. The travel bugs don't register based on the date posted, rather it registers based on the last person to log it. In other words, you can log a bug into a cache on 8-24-07...and then somebody somewhere forgot that they once moved the bug back in January 2007, so they decide to log it. They can log that they placed that bug on 1-1-07, and that is where the travel bug page will detect it is currently located. So this is what I suggest: Go back and delete your grab log, and your placement log. Then relog both without any date changes including posting the note to your cache page for placement purposes. It should be back to current by then because you will then be the latest person to log the bug.

I agree the need for more pictures needs to happen. So that inspired this picture that I took of some of my best friends from college out on a cache trip in the mountains.

Here is a cache that I copyed. I emailed the creator of the cache that I really liked and I asked him if I could do one like it in my hometown, and he said yes. Thus, I have created this cache.

If ever in doubt, go to your stats and find the list of caches that you have hidden. If one of them has a line running through the title, then it is disabled. I just looked at yours and the cache in question is active.

If you go to a cache that doesn't have a listed trackable inside of it, then you can email the owner of the cache to perform the discribed action in the previous post. As just a random cacher who doesn't own the bug or the cache then that is the best you can do....just reporting the fact that the bug is missing.

I wish you luck on your trip. The only thing I want to state is the importance that you properly log the travel bugs in and out of the caches that you find/place them in. If you are not sure how to do that...visit the Travel Bug Logging Page