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briansnat

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Everything posted by briansnat

  1. I have a few magnetic caches. Early on I had trouble with glueing the magnet to the container. Every adhesive I tried, failed. Then I learned to put the magnets inside the container. Then all you need is some duct tape to hold them in place and keep them from sticking to each other. Of course you need strong magnets. I used rare earth magnets I bought online or salvaged from old PC hard drives.
  2. Some possibilities 1 Someone saw you hide it, got curious, found it and took it 2 It wasn't hidden very well or hidden in a high traffic area.and easily discovered by non geocachers 3 It wasn't secured well and moved thanks to wind or water 4 It was hidden somewhere where geocaches aren't allowed or a permit is required and someone actually monitors the area for non compliant caches Tips 1 Hide your cache well off the beaten path where non geocachers are unlikely to venture 2 Camoflage your cache. Whether a good camo duct tape or a flat spray-paint that matches the area or even gluing leaves, twigs etc. to the cache 3 Use a container appropriate for the area. In high traffic areas a small, a micro or nano should be the best choice. Further off the beaten track you can use a larger container 4 Hide it well, in as natural looking manner as possible. Unnatural looking piles of rocks or sticks actually may entice non geocachers to investigate 5 Make sure nobody sees you hide it
  3. I had one reappear after being missing for 8 years. Unfortunately it went missing again a short time later.
  4. It seems nearly anything goes as long as it's a mega.
  5. When I started in 2001 I was in my early 40's and in pretty good shape and hiked a LOT. 6-8 miles was common and 10+ miles on occasion (though I admit I was usually wiped after anything over 12 miles). As a result, many of my hides were hidden while hiking and were usually between a 1 and 8 mile hike from the closest parking. The rockier and steeper the terrain the better. I was known for some pretty physically challenging hides. Fast forward to today and I'm old enough that I received my Medicare card in yesterday's mail. I'll be 65 in a few weeks. I have two knees that start screaming about 2 miles into any hike and because of that I don't hike nearly as often as I used to. Accordingly, the stamina to do anything more than about 3 miles just isn't there. After three miles I feel like I used to after 12. I'm sure the extra 40 lbs I've gained since 2001 hasn't helped. I don't hide much these days. I think I've hidden two caches in the past 5 or 6 years when it used to be two or three a month. More than anything it's because I don't feel like going through the effort and expense only to receive largely "TFTC" and "Found" logs. If people aren't enjoying them, I don't see the point. I used to go after the tough hides. Long hike, rock scrambles, thick brush, thorns, way off trail, etc. Not a lot would discourage me. Now if I see one of those I often think, "Not today, maybe next time I'm here". So yes, age has certainly changed things.
  6. It wasn't abuse from the start, it was a misconception of what a LB hybrid was by many from the start. A LB hybrid is essentially a geocache AND a letterbox. Not a geocache that is LIKE a letterbox. Cache at posted coordinates=Traditional Cache at posted coordinates with LB stamp = LB hybrid Cache with multiple stages and clues = a multi cache Cache with multiple stages and clues and a LB stamp = a LB hybrid In the very beginning of this site Jeremy approached the letterboxing community and proposed listing letterboxes on gc com. The LB community, who generally had (and may still do) a low opinion of geocachers, refused the offer. So the LB hybrid was introduced. The idea at the time was that they would attract both geocachers and LBers. Although it would make sense to cross post them on LB sites, it wasn't a requirement. The only requirement was the stamp.
  7. It could be legit. Some reasons have already been mentioned. Another fairly common scenario is that when a geocaching couple who logged under a single account splits, the half of the former couple who didn't get the account may log their finds on their new account. When logging late however, it's always a good practice to explain what you are doing just so the CO knows it's not a phony log.
  8. My only goal is to have fun. Setting arbitrary targets seems more like a job to me and I already have one job.
  9. As I mentioned, in many states hunting is a year 'round thing and in most others hunting goes well beyond the traditional bear, bird and deer seasons. Some seasons aren't particularly popular (coyote season for example), however you may well have walked past a camouflaged hunter without knowing it, especially in bow season.
  10. You don't consider 2006 the early years of geocaching?
  11. It's very different. A listing service can write it's own rules as to what is allowed and when items can be removed. They can control what their site is used for.
  12. Then there is the phenomenon of DNFs feeding each other. Something I've encountered a lot as a CO. After a long string of finds, Cacher A posts a DNF. Cacher B figures it might be missing, but searches for a bit and posts a DNF. Cacher C sees two DNFs, thinks its missing, but gives it a cursory look and posts a DNF. Now you have three DNFs on a cache that nobody else had an issue with. So you check on it and it's right where it always was.
  13. I have one that turned 20 this year (still with its original logbook). A lot more that will have their 20th cacheday in 2022.
  14. As I understand it, virtuals can't be adopted. No caches can be adopted if the CO doesn't initiate the process (with rare exceptions). This is a listing service. Gc Com doesn't own the caches, so they are not theirs to give to someone else. Because virtuals are so few, every one that is taken off the board is bound to upset people. If the CO is not maintaining their cache they should be archived, virtual or not. Of course with virtuals, maintaining doesn't mean fixing a container, it means policing the logs. If a virtual is consistently receiving "armchair" logs, then it is a candidate for archiving. So technically, you did nothing wrong. You encountered an unmaintained cache and posted a NA (A NM might have been the better choice), however you need to understand the people who were angry with you. A popular virtual that was under GC com's radar, was brought to their attention thanks to your log and was taken off the board. .
  15. I've hidden over 360, mostly high quality caches. Nothing elaborate, just caches hidden in interesting areas, with many involving longish hikes of a few miles. I spent much of my time maintaining them, hence my relatively low find count after 20+ years at this game. Now that I've gotten older and have health issues that preclude long hikes (dadgum knees), there are some that I can no longer realistically maintain. Thankfully I have a network of geocaching friends who have helped me maintain some of them and pick up the ones that I chose to archive. Kudos to you for choosing to hide a few high quality and consistently maintained caches.
  16. I'm sure there is a FB page for your former area in Maine. Posting this there might garner more responses. Here is one https://www.facebook.com/groups/20365072704/ Another option is contacting prolific cache owners in your former area directly through the website to see if they are willing to adopt your caches. Whatever you do, please don't leave them behind, unmaintained, to rot.
  17. In many states hunting is basically a year round thing for one species or another. I live in NJ, not what many would consider to be a big hunting state, however there are only four months out of the year where one species or another is not "in season". Of course deer season is by far the most popular and what most people refer to when they say "hunting season". It's when a geocacher is most likely to encounter hunters. Even with deer there are bow seasons, black powder seasons, shotgun seasons, doe seasons, rifle seasons and more. In some places there is a buck season that only hunters who previously harvested a doe that year can participate. Sometimes even in "deer season" there are days or weeks when deer are not in season. So a geocacher needs to be aware that hunters might be out nearly any time of the year. I recall looking for a place to hide a cache in a county park. I had to use "nature's bathroom" and squatted in what I thought was the middle of nowhere. As I pulled up my pants I suddenly noticed a camo ladder set against a nearby tree. Following the ladder up, I noticed a well camouflaged bowhunter in a tree no more than 40 feet away. He never said a word. I motioned an "I'm sorry" and got out of there quickly.
  18. In the early years of geocaching, at least in my home area, a pen or pencil was expected. I received numerous NM logs because there was no pen or pencil. Of course that ethic changed once the micro became king. Still, I managed to fit a small pencil or cut down Bic pen in my micros.
  19. Not really a getting started issue. Moving to the general forum
  20. When I started geocaching I signed my geocaching name and my real name for the first few finds. This was in 2001 when there were not a lot of geocaches. Shortly after logging my first find I received an e-mail "Hi Brian are you related to X and Y? " Yep X is my brother and Y is my father I answered. It turned out that the CO was friends with my brother and dad and served on the same police dept. with them. It's certainly a small world when the CO of your first find in geocaching knows your family. Especially considering that back the there were perhaps 20 geocachers in the entire state.
  21. Definitely the low level Garmin eTrex units. They don't cost much and do the job.
  22. Units don't become unsupported by Geocaching com. You can use a 20 year old unit on this site. What happens is that certain methods of directly loading caches to your GPS may change or become unsupported. For example some of the old "plug-ins" no longer work for sending caches to his GPS. It is not the GPS, it's the method he is using.
  23. About where on the river did you find it?
  24. I had 4 gallon sized ziplocs stuffed with old logbooks going back to my earliest caches in 2001. I didn't feel right about throwing them away. Especially the older ones, where people used to fill up the a half or full page with the story of their adventure. Some were interesting reads and logs brought back memories of some of the area's geocaching pioneers who either left the game or passed away. Alas, I made a move in August and I was combining two households with my new wife into a 1 BR condo. Lots of stuff had to go and the logbooks didn't make the cut. I kept 3 or 4 but the rest went in the trash.
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