lostinjersey

quote:by ski: I posted my messages on the removal of the caches as a courtesy so people wouldn’t continue to look for them and also to alert geocachers about the illegality of Wilderness caches. I know you are thinking, “that’s not much of a courtesy”, but has anyone noticed that after a geocache is placed in the nearby Mokelumne Wilderness no one can find it? No, it’s not me nor do I know who has been removing them. and another quote, this from the geocaching welcome letter... quote:If this container happens to be sitting on private property and you wish it removed, please let us know. We apologize, and will be happy to move it. We ask that if the property manager feels it needs to be removed that he contact the cache owner & it will be removed. This is not always easy, as the property owner may not know who Gwho is, or exactly how to reach him. Fine. But I would expect a geocacher to live up to a higher standard then that. Period. end of story. I also had some time to reflect ony my earlier post about abandonment. If I own a car & leave it purposely deep in the woods, is that abandonment? Yes. You can purposely abandon something. Whatever my reason, if I leave it someone public and don't come back for it, although I may technically still own it, the average layperson would consider it abandoned. Despite the presence of the geocaching welcome letter which informs someone why it's been left, the fact is that they are under no obligation to consider it something besides litter or to think of it as anything besides abandoned. Some will interpret it correctly but there's no obligation there. If a land manager, paark ranger, Yogi Bear thinks it's something abandoned, or feels it litter, and if that's against the rules, then I would think he has the right to take it. It comes down to opinion, and we all know the cliche about opinions and what they're like and how everybody's got one, etc etc. In which case IF it was justified for it to be removed we come back full circle to what I said at the top. Personally I can't for the life of me understand why anyone who plkays for both sides so to speak would want to take on that responsibility. At best, they could just notify the owner, notify the rangers and then let nature take its course, but why would they want to get involved in actual removal? Why set yourself up to be viewed as the bag guy? And again, I renew my comment that geocachers live up to higher standards IMHO then the general dorky public. In this situation they didn't even meet the public standard. www.gpswnj.com

quote:Originally posted by BrianSnat:But to that end the Code of Federal Regulations includes specific laws prohibiting the abandonment of personal property and littering on national forest lands, both of which carry fines for the violator Is a Geocache really abandoned property? It depends. I would sya no because I know the intent. The average person who stumbles on it could say "hey look what someone left behind. cool!" and walk off with it. I decided to look up the definiton and I found the following: To give up by leaving or ceasing to operate or inhabit, especially as a result of danger or other impending threat: So if I leave my cooler in the park after a picnic is that abandonedment? or if someone walks off with it, is it theft? If it clearly belongs in the possession of someone (i.e. I'm still there picnicing) then it's theft. if it can reasonably be infered that the person isn't returning for it, then it's abandoned and you can do what you want. I think the welcome letter clearly establishes property rights and intent to return, so no I don't think it can be considered abandoned. However. Do we have the right to put our property on their land permanently? (by permanently I mean indefinately, I know we can and will remove it if asked) I suspect the answer is no, but I'll have to read the lengthy post fully before I can say for sure. This begs the question though, why is her cache still there then? www.gpswnj.com

quote:Originally posted by Mopar:If I could find a few of you wild and crazy cachers with personal watercraft, I'd still be up for it. That's the hitch. I think if anyone here had a personal water craft they'd have come forward by now. Since they didn't it's rely on renting, which just ain't going well. maybe someone will get one for christmas. I will go on record as saying I had hoped to find interested persons, and hoped someone else more knowledgable (preferably the one with the boat) would take charge. didn't happen. with no other leader & no boat, I plan to hold off, research this out much more thoroughly in the spring, before reposting in the forums about the idea. Course if mr boat owner shows up, I'm up for this regardless of the time of year. shoiuld be a lotta fun rehardless of the temperature. (he says that now they all thought silently) www.gpswnj.com

I realized in retrospect I left out a paragraph I had meant to type. I will basically say it now, but with more info. What I wanted to say was that this didn't sound to kosher to me because a) it's 10 miles and I don't imagine these currents are terribly easy, especially if there's other boat traffic, which I imagine there is. What I was trying to do was compell us to spit or get off the pot. I was hoping someone else might know of (or find) a better (i.e. closer) place. Well.. I think this outing may have been planned a bit late for a few reasons and may have to wait till next spring. talked to the cache owner, he kayaked over. Doesn't know of any boat rentals places. no help there. he said the currents are very swift, experienced pilots only. ok, confirms my other thoughts which leads to this conclusion We have to get a bigger boat with someone knowledgable to pilot it. smaller boats are not as safe plus will require 2 pilots since one small boat won't accomodate everyone. Furthermore the boat rental place says he only rents till it gets too cold. too cold as defined by the first snow, which coincidentally is today, depending on where you live, so we might not even be able to rent. Unless everyone is die hard committed, I say this waits till spring. At least I know theres definate interest here. What does everyone else think? www.gpswnj.com

I checked out rentals. I could only find one place, The Boat Livery on City Island. 718-885-1843. N40°51.369 W73°47.473' 4 miles to the bridge, then 6 miles to the island. Motorboat costs $55 & seats 4 people. no boat license is needed. Note that all the palces I found were at City Island. Is there a rental palces closer? Could be but I didnt find any. If anyone else wishes to search that out, please feel free. It's almost 10 miles which seems kinda far. I am not a boat person. I didn't know how to ask this so I didn't bother trying. My only concern is will we be able to "beach" the boat, or will will we have to drop anchor & then wade in from a distance. This is critical. I'd imagine we could beach it or get close enough where you might get wet half way to your knees. Again, I'm not sure. We'd have use of the boat till 4PM. I repeat, I'm not a boat person. I urge anyone here with boating experience to a) say so & please volunteer to drive.. er pilot. if said person thinks what I said is logical (about beaching) also please say so, if not could they find out? As for time. I propose say 11AM on Sunday 11/10. Let's have the roll call if you will. To summarize the proposal: Time/date: 11AM Sunday 11/10 Place: The Boat Livery 663 City Island Ave, Bronx Cost: $19 p/p. Bring: Dress warm, bring a change of pants, socks & shoes just in case. Also bring items for a new cache, possibly two. there are other islands out here we could hide one in. Travel plans is everyone's responsibility, but I will be willing to bring some folks if they want to meet me either near my house in Bogota. Personally the area in Fort Lee is a good park n ride spot too. www.gpswnj.com

quote:Originally posted by GoldKey:I would take the following things off the list: Spring Water/Can of Nuts (I would not eat or drink anything found in a cache) I dunno, the water should be okay, seen that left a bunch of times. it's sealed with that rip-off ring thing. Nuts I agree even if its sealed its a bad idea because of animals www.gpswnj.com

I can;t find it now but someone commented that your avatar is downright scary. Not only is that true but I ran into your brother last night at the Weird NJ Issue 19 party. Dude, do you have any sexy british superheroes from the 60's in your family? Sheesh! Y'all remind of that episode of the Simpsons where they the dentist tries to convince Ralph Wiggum to brush by showing him "The Big Book of British Smiles" www.gpswnj.com

I seem to recall there was a LC based on finding an unusuaully painted l;imo. also finding a geodesic building. Now I can't find either one. Does anyone know which one this is? or were they archived? www.gpswnj.com

It certainly sounds as if the caches were legal if they had tacit approval from local rangers. What it sounds as if is that they looked the other way, but when pressed they will follow the rules, or some interpretation of those rules. My only thought is this: ski says she spoke with someone who said get rid of it. tahoe says he spoke with someone who said legit. How can they both be telling the truth? Easy, either a) they talked to different people or the ranger changed his tune when challenged. Either way, common courtesy says you should either contact the cache owner or jeremy to review it if you think the owner is unlikely to be objective. I just found a cache today that is in close proximinity to a rr tracks and an overpass, which is watched by police because kids throw rocks off it. My GPS said cross the tracks and I practically ran into a cop. The cache is technically in the woods, but it is close (say 20-30 ft) from the tracks. WOuldn't this violate the "not near rr tracks" rule? Hell i passed a no trespassing sign when I crossed the tracks. If I was rules-lawyer I'd contact the owner or Jeremy (privately or with the archive button). In this case though the owner made it clear: his cache was legit but close to somewhere you shouldn't be. That covers it for me. Had Ski contacted Tahoe, maybe the cache would be archived, maybe not, but at least it would've been the owner removing it voluntarily, not having it stolen by someone who thinks they know better. quote:(2) Nothing in this Act shall prevent within national forest wilderness areas any activity, including prospecting, for the purpose of gathering information about mineral or other resources, if such activity is carried on in a manner compatible with the preservation of the wilderness environment. seems very straight forward: nothing in the act prevents anything as long it doesn't F**K up the environment. Pretty clear to me. SO maybe he didn't even need permission then? What this whole thread illustrates is that there is a lot of confusion over where you can & can't put caches. I bet even those in the various Forestry Depts may not even be clear. Which is why all this should be discussed first, not arbitrarily decided upon & then acted on, with theft being the result. (and this is IMHO undebatable: unless the cache owner gets it back, it has been stolen, regardless of the whole right/wrong of the location placement) www.gpswnj.com

stupid double clicking fool. disregard please.

Our main issue is the boat of course. So final request: who here can offer up use of their boat? looks like perfect tommy can pilot if we need to rent one. also how is the date 11/3 for everyone? how does 11/10 work as an alternate date if that's no good (as may be for me since I may have to work overtime that weekend?)? appears as if we have 6 interested individuals: me mopar caruso vonster & sr doggy. perfect tommy Also, if we do this there are several islands in the vicinity that are apparently quite legal to visit. we should all make a group cache. I can provide the container, we should all pool items together for it. (think 6x6x3 ammo box sized items) also was curious was anyone planning on bringing spouse/kids? Doesn't seem as if one boat would hold more then just the above mentioned geocachers. Or would it? Wouldnt want to overload the boat then end up the next day we are the central figures in some newsday story that resembles one of those horrific indonesian ferry disaster stories. www.gpswnj.com

quote:Originally posted by umc:Gwho, Close. I put a brand new USB Network Card with cable and drivers in a cache. ($40.00usd) value and someone took that and traded 2 mint candies for it. I have several of these cards so it wasn't too big of a deal for me to put it in a cache but the fact that two mints were left in its place was rather 'weak'. Live and learn I guess. that's the one I was talking about. USB card, DSL modem, close nuff. they're both not found in a dollar store or in a happy meal www.gpswnj.com

It took me a year to get to 100, I can't wait till 200. Hope your 1st 100 was as inspiring as mine, and that your next 100 is just as satisfying www.gpswnj.com

I saw a log in a thread (which I can't remember which one it was) in which someone put a DSL modem in a cache and it was taken out by someone who left candy. or maybe some cheap toy. It was a really weak trade. Got me thinking about some bad trades I've seen. Wondering what you guys have seen. I also figure this could become a confessional for some people too. Figure I wouldn't ask someone to do something I won't myself, so rather then say the worst trade I've witnessed, I'll confess that in The Jukebox (since trashed) I left a 70's hits CD and took a double Beatles CD. Felt guilt all the way home. Had thought about going back later & dropping off another cd but the cache got trashed first. I decided to put into a new cache I created to leave as a nice treat. So what have you seen? (or done) No bashing of anyone who confesses please. www.gpswnj.com

Once we get E911 equipped cell phones as the norm it won't be as useful, except in areas where there is no cell reception (which actually is a fair amount of the territory where geocachers & hikers go) Among the top selling cell phones only one is 911 equipped, and even then your area must provide the right coverage. So for now it's a good thing. an expensive thing, but a good thing... Someone commented on USA being behind the curve. I won't go off-topic too much except to say that A) they're right and Americans think they're the kings of the world but they're not. If I say one more word I'll really be off topic so I'll shut up now. William www.gpswnj.com

so lets nail specifics then... where & what time are we meeting? www.gpswnj.com

We still have one of those quaint archaic things? I thoguht that went out with the carrier pigeon. www.gpswnj.com

ignore. no delete button

Federal Hill Celery Farm Six Feet Over And my favorite hide: Planes, Trains & Automobiles www.gpswnj.com

A few months back I created the Library at Old 9W which is a book trading cache only. Then I found out about bookcrossing. Oh well. If I can get back up there, I'm going to register the books, but it'll be a pain now that the books are there & I'm here. This reminds me that I wanted to put a bookcrossing link on the cache page though. Thanks! www.gpswnj.com

What kinda terrain are we talking about? and what kinda of vegetation are we looking at? How bad could it really be? Personally I think I'd do it as a multicache where they have to find a micro which then tells the next micro which then tells where it is, leading them down the "correct" path. The only question I have is: what's to stop them from hunting yours first, then bushwacking 800 feet to the other cache? Absolutely nothing. If you're overly worried, I'd have to say forget the cache then. Or are you just worrying too much? www.gpswnj.com

I recently made this post in the thread geocacing.com too commercial?. it concerned whether not the rules of geocaching were getting in the way of the sport, and whether Groundspeak was becoming more important then geocach, or whether geocaching & Groundspeak were inseperable. At one point I made the comment that interested me was this one, http://www.navicache.com/ because it lists numerous caches found here. I wonder how exactly they're doing that. Within 18 hours I received a rather terse email from someone at navicache. (apparently they monitor the boards here) They felt I had accused them of being commercial (which I didn't) and that I accused them of swiping cache info (which I didn't) I'll admit that it seemed strange to find caches like Regal Eagle and What a Bridge listed here & there as well. After looking into it further it seems as if some geocachers have created the same handle on their site site, then listed caches that they've placed & logged here already, using the exact same name. Which prompts this thread. Should caches be listed in both places, and if so, what would the protocol be for logging finds over there. It seems kinda pointless (to me) to create a cache then list it in both places. What do you all think? For the record I could only find two sites which had databases. The navicache site seems to have nothing but caches already created over here, which begs the question: what's in it for me to create an identity over there? Absolutely nothing, which is why I think each site should have it's own unique caches. Bear in mind I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, not am I am criticizing anyone who has created caches and logged them over on competing sites. I'm just saying, there's no incentive for me because it's not new. What do you all think? Geocaching Worldwide Navicache www.gpswnj.com CLARIFIACTION: For options 3 & 4 in the poll I am asking if you logged a find on XYZ cache and subsequently found out it was listed on both sites. Obviously if you think it's cool to maintain a presence in both places & knew in advance that it was listed in both places, it'd make no sense to visit then not log both. Sorry for any confusion. [This message was edited by Gwho on October 13, 2002 at 02:46 PM.]

I just wanted to invite anyone who might be interested to a park cleanup on Saturday October 19th. It is located in Little Ferry somewhere near N40°50.413' W74°02.163' I believe they said its at the end of Mehrhof Rd. It will run only an hour from 9-10 AM. I plan to bring my son & maybe my wife, if she's feeling up to it. Afterwards I plan on hiding a cache. Just thoguht it might be a good way to see some fellow geocachers AND to help create a new place to cache! Hope to see some of you there. If not, well you can see what we did if/when you seek the cache I hope to hide there. William you can read more about the park & the cleanup efforts here: http://www.northjersey.com/cgi-bin/page.pl?id=4681777 and here http://www.northjersey.com/cgi-bin/page.pl?id=5243249 www.gpswnj.com [This message was edited by Gwho on October 13, 2002 at 07:45 PM.]

quote:Originally posted by k2dave:Perhaps commercial was the wrong word. What I mean is that this site has developed sort of attitude of "I'm what Geocaching is" and by doing so has lost part of what Geocaching was. Geocaching was an open community (some of you have posted this) and that was part of the heart and soul of geocaching, it now feels very closed and protected. I suddenly "got it". I think. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're worried about the fact that there is no such organization to the sport. I think an analogy for you would be saying how kids used to play stickball on the stoop, but then the parents got involved and started creating rules, requiring umpires, then laws were established regarding unruly parents, and then they couldn't play on the street so they moved it to the ball field, a league was created and under the guise of "we need to protect the children" now the coaches & every members of the support staff down to the groundscrew need to have background checks. In other words, it's not about the sport any more, it's all rules, regulations and legal stuff that has nothing to do with the core sport itself. Is that your problem? If so, I can truly understand that. I decided to do a google search for geocaching you'll find several other sites each of which has their own database of caches. None of them has the depth, the quality of site, or (for lack of a better word) the panache (did I even spell that right???) of this place. Some are somewhat interesting such as http://www.geocaching-fun.com/, which is lookingto be a database of tourist attraction. Very very slim pickings so far, but they do have a link to geocaching.com One that interested me was this one, http://www.navicache.com/ because it lists numerous caches found here. I wonder how exactly they're doing that. It also seems you have taken an issue with how geocaching.com IS geocaching. To use my analogy, kids who continue to play off the stoop aren't viewed as legit because they're not part of the league. The league IS baseball. There is no baseball without the league. Am I getting your sentiment right? If so, then I can sorta understand your feelings. Commercial is probably the right word, but it wasn't what we were thinking of when we read the commercial. Assuming I've gotten your point, I'm not sure how to respond. I would say that if you do feel that way you should try to support the other geocaching websites, especially those that have their own cache databases. Other then I can't really think of anything else to say. The "sport" is dependant on a central database. It isn't as if one can "geocache" without other participant and a place to store the ifnromation and the logs. Can there be "competing" websites & databases? Sure. The problem is that it's almost like the DVD format problem. A lot of folks are staying on the sidelines (me included) not jus because of price but because I want to make sure I get the format that will prevail. Why should I nvest my money in DVD+RAM when in 2 years it may bo obsolete? I want to make sure there will be longevity to what I'm doing. Likewise if I go the trouble of placing & seeking caches at a newbie geocachin.com wanna-be (not to sound as insulting as that probably sounds) what happensa if in 6 mon ths they go belly up? Once someone has established themselves asa leader, they are likely to remain, while newbies may die off. WHich creates an inherant problem (both here & in many other situations with competing formats) no one want to support the one until its established itself, but without support, it can't estabish itself and so it dies. Whch sucks. No easy solutions here. www.gpswnj.com

I propose Sunday November 3 (or any other sunday between now & then) I can do saturdays but I'd be on a tight schedule due to commitments.