garyo1954

I'm a bit surprised. Not finding near as many people out looking as there caches. Mostly it depends on your area. Here we have a total of 122 caches in the county. Most were planted between 2003 and 2010. Others between 2013 and 2014. I only know of one planted in 2017. Those visited most often average a visit every 15 to 30 days. Those least visited average 4 to six months. Of the total, 22 have been visited at least once in the last 7 days. (that's going to be a bit skewed since there was a meet and people were traveling through). 18 have not been found in more than a year, with five of the top 6 nearing two years and the top cache nearing three.

You can't blame people for not following the rules. Once competition entered the picture, and people saw others cheat using the technical wording of the rules, they had no reason to continue to follow the rules. Take baseball, if one team is stealing signals, you can bet the other teams is playing the same game. The fun is gone when anything becomes a competition. That's especially true when those who made it a competition warped the rules to achieve their standing. There are still purist, just like their are purists in baseball, or any sport. Unfortunately, you can't have the rules written for competition apply to those who choose to do caching for fun. That leads to exactly what you have now. People who don't follow the rules because they are in it for fun vs people who want the rules applied stringently due to the competitive turn of the game. There always seems to be that minority who ruins anything for everyone else. For example, a new person joins our laser group and immediately proclaims he just bought the best laser on the market. Yet, he's never run a laser. Someone points out 90% of us have the same machine and his is no better. Now the guy is completely falling out of his tree because he has the new improved electronics, and some fluff add-ons that he'll never need anyway. Then an old timer tells him its not the machine, but what he can do with the machine that counts. And suddenly this new guy who has never used a laser in his life goes ballistic and none of know anything. Its all the same. Someone claims a certain program is better than another. Or someone comes in betting they cut at a faster speed, higher power, or thicker material than anyone else. Or they can laser material not intended to be lasered. And then he's told this is not a competition, you think he's David Banner and just transformed into the Hulk and is even now destroying his own neighborhood. I admit if geocaching were an Olympic event I would see it differently. But its not. Still there will be people who want to make it so, enforcing rules that do not apply to the situation, or the conditions, or the idea with which others took up the endeavor. And that mindset eventually turns people off and turns others away, and may even keep those thinking about it to hit the off switch. Owners want people to log caches, but want them to follow the rules they laid out when designing the cache. Well that will never happen. Then they wonder why more people don't visit their cache. I honestly get the impression there are owners who hide a cache thinking/hoping it will never be found. And when it is, they immediately question the legitimacy of the find based on the rules.

Its under his statistics on his profile page. 9-9-15. From reading threads 2005-2007 it seems the "unofficial" record was 260 to 270 back then. From the threads people would spend months finding a area with concentration, and planning the most efficient route, before the attempt.

Yeah, some of these people I'd like to sit down with and ask, "How did you do that?" For example over at Project-GC I checked on the Top Caches in One Day. (I surmised it might be several hundred accounting for distance, finding, signing, replacing). I was surprised! 1000 caches in a day will barely land you on page 55 in the US. You need 2159 to move into the top ten. 3196 will put you in second place. But if you want to be #1 you'll have to find 5579! (hans415 currently stands at #1 with 5578) In my uneducated mind, that seems an impossible feat even in a 24 hour period.

Is being the first of the group always that important?

I agree thebruce0. Courtesy and understanding from both sides would go a long way to resolving some of these issues. I suppose if you sent 100 people after the same cache, you'd find more ways than you perceived to locate it. Anyway, I'm getting ready to go out for bit as soon as I finish my coffee. I'll try to keep all the rocks out my shoes and hopefully not drop any that would end up in anyone else's.

These are the type questions that make me wonder if geocaching is for me. As far as I can tell, I'm the non-conformist geocacher. I want it to be fun. I'm not worried about my stats or your stats. I may sign a log; I may not. I'll leave swag and not take anything. My actions depend on the situation. But I understand the general rule. Somebody hides something; someone goes looking for it. Now when the rules become so technical they sound like the NFL catch rule, its time to rethink. People are going to be people. They aren't always going to apply the rules as you would. In some cases a group of four don't see the point signing and replacing a cache only to have the next member of their team retrieve it, sign it, and replace it, and so forth.....

The only independent study I've seen was done based on census numbers....(best I can tell those were in 2010). They also mention an online survey but received 20 response which would be too few to make any credible inference. ".....looking at the number of logs per zone paints an entirely different picture. First, the population density result from the low and high cache zones was reversed. While high cache zones have lower population density, high log zones have higher population density than low log zones (778 people/sq.km vs. 485people/sq.km). This means people in higher density areas are logging more searches. Many other demographic attributes were significant as well... •Age: high log zones have significantly younger geocachers (37.9 vs 39.9 years old on average) •Climate: high log zones were significantly warmer (averaging about 3 degrees Farenheit warmer than the measurements for low log zones) and had less precipitation (an average of 41.6mm less per year) •Area: high log zones were significantly smaller than lowlog zones (171 sq. km vs. 306 sq. km), indicating more urbanness in high log zones. •Education: the education score was significantly higher in high log zones (2.14 vs. 2.08) •Income: median income was higher in high log zones vs. low long zones (about $6,170 higher) We also found statistically significant differences in married and unmarried populations. Low log zones have 45.6% married vs. 54.4% unmarried while high log zones have a slightly different 44.4% married vs. 55.6% unmarried population. However, we consider these differences practically insignificant and exclude them from our analysis. •Crime: crime was significantly higher overall in the personal and property crime subcategories in high log zones vs. low log zones. This is likely an indication that high log zones tended to be more urban. The analysis of these zones reveals that while lower population density areas tend to have more caches, higher population density areas tend to have more logs per cache. Furthermore, while no demographic features significantly impacted the number of caches in a zone, nearly all of our demographic features showed significant differences based on the number of logs. Despite a very democratic placement of caches, those with the most activity tended to be in zones that were wealthier, better educated, younger, more urban, and had better weather." From: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/temp/geocaching.pdf

No sneaking around. I found your comment interesting and had to know where they are from. Nothing mysterious.

Have fun! That's the best tip I got.......

Doing my best to be there!

I'll get a little off topic and ask you Nessie42... Have you ever found GC13Y2Y likely the most favorited cache in the world? (maybe I read too much?)

LOL.....good deal! And that's very likely true in a lot of cases.

Its all good. The whole thread offers great ideas for people (me) just starting. I expect the answers to be different for different people, different areas, and different situations. I suspect there is no true answer but any answer offers some insight for people who are just starting out. I ask as something pops in my head as I'm piddling. One thing that bothers me is not seeing (a lot of) new people asking questions. That makes me to suppose that most sign up on a basic membership, locate caches in their area and go looking.

Thank you for clearing that up. This had me wondering who the reviewer was in my area.

Yeah, there was a time when carrying a knife wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but you never know what people are thinking, who you're going to offend, or how they are going to perceive your intent.

That does sound quite interesting. About a couple of hour drive from here. 4th Annual East Texas get together is 4/22 in Tatum. That's about midway. I'll shoot for that.

Now we're talking! First aid kit was my top of the list. Writing things and notebooks. Didn't think of Duct tape but that goes in. Spare batteries as well. Matches/firestarter Telescopic grabber with magnetic tip Tweezers and grabbers Hand sanitizer.....never thought of that. Flashlight always come in handy. Knife? or hatchet? I did print out a listing of the PQ and maps of the areas, but then I wondered if it wouldn't be better to download maps to a tablet and use that instead? I won't be using a phone. Not only do I hate phones, I'm useless with one. My son and daughter-in-law finally convinced me to get a smart phones last year and right now I'd have a hard time making a call on it.

Definitely thinking of getting a hiking stick. Just up the road a woman killed a couple of copperheads a week or so ago. I can see where going where few travel could make a stick a good investment.

You got me there. I did say bare....guess that was leaving things a bit lean. Maybe I should have said what do you take that is most useful? For example one blog I was reading the guy took a single chopstick for poking and prodding.

Bought a back pack today for caching. So what goes in it? When you go out caching, what are the bare essentials you won't leave home without?

Thank you K13. Yes sir all done right here at home. I have a CNC router and a laser. The router was supposed to be a father son project back in 2012, but the son acquired a girlfriend which was more interesting than a computer operated router. Added the laser last year when son married girlfriend.

No, Doc, never been to Eureka. Just listening to what you were saying. The only syringes (I think it was all one) I found metal detecting a ball field. The rest is mostly rusty nails, screws, occasionally a can. Coins are generally the deteriorating zinc penny. Took half a coffee can of those to the bank and was told I needed to send them to the mint. It would cost more to send them then they are worth!

I'd say we have more rock hunters than cache hunters. And the rock hunters have their own facebook page which is more than the cachers have. I ended up finding geocaching while posting treasure boxes and asking if those would be okay. They are, but I was also referred to a geocacher in the area who got me started. As it is I'm free to post on the rock page. I don't mind trying both. I can always get coordinates or a picture, post on the rock page and have the rockers get them. Doing that, only once has a box gone unfound for two days.

My first response was an acknowledgement that everyone jumps (Eureka!) when someone looks for your caches.