Couparangus

I have to admit that I’ve scaled back my caching activities over the last couple of years. The reasons for this have been primarily due to the proliferation of s***ty cache hides and the “micro management” of new hides and events. I’ve always proposed the 20 minute rule where any cache find will take you at least this amount of time to find. Whether that time is spent solving a puzzle or getting to the cache location is not important. This alone would almost entirely eliminate all the waste of time caches. Truth be told I’ve never been a fan of what I call the secret society of geocache approvers. I’m currently evaluating two other ‘cache sites now. Cheers! C-A

If you play the 9th hole you have to go through customs? (guess)

I had to research Madame X on the web. Very cool! I'm sure someone will get this one. Is she back yet?

I think we're ready for another question. Someone better ask one soon otherwise I'm going to punish you with yet another natural science one! I've got some great ones for pond scum and tree diseases.

What a machine! Congratulations, Ted!

I do believe Yorkshire has it!

Hmmm....some of these recent questions seem to be straying a little off topic. To get it back on-track, I'll ask the next question. Q: In what century, and in which country, was the magnetic compass first employed in navigation?

Its only a hobby, guys.

Its clearly a practice ring for the Polar Bear Wrestling Club. Actually, think Moop has it. Not sure if its unique to WAAS though.

Awesome, I have 2 caches in the top ten! Wait, that's the bottom ten.

Yikes, I usually don't have the Kandahar region in my weekly updates! Total guess, January 2002 ?

This is a difficult question to answer. Obviously, you couldn't pile one atop the another as they would fall over long before you reached the necessary height.

By jove I do believe you've got it!

Wow. I think I did indeed grind this one down to nothing!! Hint, Richard Attenborough played John Hammond in Jurassic park. His brother is generally considered to be the pioneer of the nature documentary.

Yikes! That's four answers that I'd accept. A tie breaker is now called for! Q: Name the younger brother of the actor in Jurassic Park whose character had the same name as a famous blues musician and his father the record producer. Hint: There is a tie-in here with the first question, albeit somewhat oblique. That should slow things down a little.

What a guess!! I know about this place because the wireless in the building was accomplished by one of my acquaintances. Alright, its time for another natural sciences question (evil grin)... My daughter is 7 years old and knows the answer to this one so y'all have no excuse. Q: If you were Geocaching on the south coast of England and found an ammonite, what exactly would you have?

An aeroplane flying through that goofy hotel that looks like a sailboat?

Well, Mort25, I take it you are not prepared to prove your point by going through official channels. Your Napoleonic attitude ensures you'll always have all the "proof" you'll ever need. If this cache goes missing again you will be getting a personal visit. That is a promise. C-A

I was going to quote Mort25 and shoot holes through most everything he's said - and believe me, it would be easy. Quite frankly, I've got better things to do. What this boils down to, in my opinion, is a cache that is well within guidelines and one pedant whose (mis)interpretation of a lone sign in the parking lot is the issue. I don't feel that I'm under any obligation to prove the cache as its fine as it stands. Given only Mort25 has taken exception to the cache, then the onus should be on him to prove there really is a problem with it. Given your station in the provincial government it sounds like you're in a good position to take it up with the appropriate people. However knowing your attitudes and behaviour here, I can easily imagine that your credibility outside of geocacing is also less-than-zero. Consequently I'm not surprised that you have chosen not to follow this up through parks Ontario but found the time to type over 3,000 words of bile here - invariably while at work I'm guessing. If you're not prepared to do this, then this issue is dead and the container will be replaced. C-A

Just a quick note to let everyone know I have been following this thread and will make comments later when I get a chance to digest all this. I'm glad this is out in the open now so everyone can see precisely what I'm having to deal with. Cheers! C-A

I think I may have been guilty of that at one time! <blush>

Ah, some more clarification is in order: In my case its entirely different. This is where is issue sits. Of this, I don't know for certain. I do know that the cache was in situ well before any moratorium on Prov Parks 'caches. To my knowledge was indeed grandfathered in. I'm a card carrying member of OGA and to my knowledge they and the GC.com group have not been advised by Prov Parks there is anything with this cache that needs to be addressed. The reality is that if the cache has to be removed there will be no replacement and in my opinion, and others, that would be a very unfortunate. Curiously enough, Mort25 has claimed that even if his Geocaching membership is canceled he'll sign back up with a sock puppet account to gain information on any new coordinates and attempt another removal of the cache. I have some theories as to why he's acting like this but feel its prudent to give him the chance to explain his outrageous behaviour before I table them. Cheers! C-A

I guess a bit of background is in order. A cacher contacted me some time ago with respect to one of my caches, GCGK93. His complaint was that one of the stages, known as Big Old Pipes, was in an environmentally sensitive area of Mono Cliffs Provincial Park. I found this difficult to believe and went up to the park to have a look. What I determined was this is not an environmentally sensitive area by anyone's standards, its the site of an abandoned farm. This area, although not part of an official trail, is part of the park and used by the equestrian crowd. There are no signs indicating it is off-limits or any such thing. With a name like Mono Cliffs its easy to imagine that there are some cliffs there. Not too surprisingly there is a warning notice at the parking about this asking hikers to stay on the trail. The Big Old Pipes stage is well-removed from any cliffs, or any dangerous area for that matter. I was contacted by Mort25, a cacher whom I've never met nor had any previous dealings, to remove this stage or he'd remove the cache. No, I'm not making this up. Given that caches in Provincial Parks are a relative rarity, I didn't mind providing an alternate to the Big Old Pipes stage and this new one is directly on a trail. This seemed okay for a while, but Mort25 has more recently taken exception to the cache again and told me he was removing it. In a later email he then claimed that it had been removed by animals. As it stands right now he's openly threatened to remove the container again if I re-stash it. Mort25 had indicated that he doesn't work for Provincial Parks and has no authority to enforce Park's rules, or Geocaching guidelines for that matter. He's been made aware of what he needs to do with respect to contacting Provincial Parks with respect to this but has, to my knowledge, decided that he already has all the authority he needs to act directly. I can back up all this with emails. Cheers! C-A

For the love of pete! Regardless of your starting point you'll come to the new location to find this clue and won't need to go off trail. The reality of the situation is that you have no business interpreting Provincial Parks policy and certainly none in "enforcing" your perception of their rules. If you're truly interested in conservation why don't you direct your energies in cleaning up the area below the lookout platform where people regularly dump empty water bottles and other detritus?

I don't want to sound like a grouch, but I wish people would put more thought into their stashes. I don't speak for everyone I'm sure, but others have shared with me their disappointment in many of these type of urban wasteland caches and otherwise inappropriate cache hides. There was a time when caches were archived when found to be in undesirable or un-family friendly areas. I can't think of any of my stashes where you'd likely be accused of anything illegal. As far as I'm concerned Geocaching is still very much a fringe activity. If I could use BQ's example, the likelihood of something detrimental coming out of a cache like that is so obvious I would've aborted it myself. C-A