BBWolf+3Pigs
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Posts posted by BBWolf+3Pigs
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Any assistance or advice would be gratefully received & you can contact Grandad Tucker at: tometucker@hotmail.com
Thanks for looking,
tuckerstribe
The local geocaching.com forums are not visited as frequently as they have been in the past. You might be better off looking for Facebook Groups for the various areas you plan on visiting (e.g. Northern Illinois - https://www.facebook.com/groups/NIAGC/.
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Once again things that no one is asking for to be changed get changed.
I don't like the fact that my caches show up as dull green circles with a white star in them. They get a little lost with the green unfound icon and the coloring of Google maps. I prefer the old bright yellow star icons.
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Howdy all!
I will have a very short stay in the MSP area in early November, and was thinking of driving up to Fargo (or Wahpeton or Fairmount) in order to grab a cache or two in MN and ND (I already have SD).
I am looking for a pretty direct route, with short diversions OK, and some "must do" caches along the way and in North Dakota.
My plan is I would land at MSP late morning, drive up to North Dakota, caching along the way, and then head back to M-SP area for dinner, with a departure the next morning.
Any suggestions for caches (and a good place for lunch and dinner) are greatly appreciated.
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Heck, up here at 53° north (Edmonton), in the shortest days of December, we can even sneak in a little night caching before dinner.
I'm not crazy about it.
Your picture reminded me of my favorite night cache experience.
We were approaching the final stage of the cache, which was marked with two red fire tacks. We round a bend in the trail and I tell the others with me "I see the two red tacks!". And then they moved into the woods! "Nevermind...just an animal!"
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To me a true night cache requires following reflective trail tacks to the cache.
I've seen caches where more than reflective tacks were used, but still required darkness to find/complete.
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How do you mean? So are night caches dedicated caches? Not just a 'normal' cache?
There are caches built specifically to be done at night.
Others may do night caching, finding "normal" caches after hours.
<edit for typo>
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I read in people's comments they do "night caching". Sorry for the impending stupid questions but they're coming...
Is night caching literally done during the night and if so, has anyone every been questioned by land owners or the police? I got questioned by the police mid-day when looking for a cache in bushes in a dried up stream. I had to explain the game!
I just imagine caching at night by torch light would look very suspicious.
Yes, done at night.
These need to be set up in locations with permission, or where one would be expected to be at night.
There were a couple in a local state management/campground area, where you were allowed to be out at night. I placed one in the same area, on the lake, where you are allowed to be kayaking/canoeing at night.
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I've done the 1/2 on the way out, 1/2 on the way back on some of the shorter bike trails in my area. It's still annoying having to stop every ~1000'.
If that annoys you, just do 1/8th or 1/16th or 1/32nd or whatever doesn't annoy you.
And that's why I stated in an earlier post that if/when I do the trail in VT/NH, I'll stop every couple of miles.
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..and it's rare that I'm in the mood for stopping and starting on my bicycle every 160m.
There's a rails to trails run from Brattleboro VT to Keene NH that I want to peddle. There's a cache basically every 0.10 miles. I figure if I every get out to ride it, I will stop every couple of miles or so, and grab whatever cache is closest. I am certainly not stopping every 528'.
I guess another way to do it would be to do every third or fourth cache, and complete the trail in multiple trips. It would certainly make a nicer ride. I have also heard of people skipping every other cache one direction, and grabbing the others on the way back.
I've done the 1/2 on the way out, 1/2 on the way back on some of the shorter bike trails in my area. It's still annoying having to stop every ~1000'.
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..and it's rare that I'm in the mood for stopping and starting on my bicycle every 160m.
There's a rails to trails run from Brattleboro VT to Keene NH that I want to peddle. There's a cache basically every 0.10 miles. I figure if I every get out to ride it, I will stop every couple of miles or so, and grab whatever cache is closest. I am certainly not stopping every 528'.
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Meanwhile, the whole point of the puzzle may be to get you to ask for a hint. But you have come to your conclusions...
On the other hand, I do do a lot of puzzles, and the approaches you're talking about are routine.
But, anyway, yes, what you suggest was, in fact, my conclusion: the puzzles were unsolvable because the CO wants people to have to come to him for a hint.
Reviewers don't blindly publish every bit of nonsense that comes their way. The cache has to be solvable from the page.
But sometimes the puzzle involves throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
"Take each number, multiply it by the day the cache was published, square it, then divide by the number of columns on the Acropolis". Yes, there is a solution, but unless there are clues in the listing, it would be *extremely* difficult to solve (if not impossible).
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Stand up for proper cache logs. Delete improper cache logs. That's how new cachers learn. Everyone has to learn somehow, and sometimes, your cache might be the one they learn on. Maybe you'll get a stupid email once in a while. Oh well!
I think the key is to inform the person as to why the log is being deleted. A "Your log has been deleted" message with no explanation will only annoy the recipient.
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Igator, it's like you are reading my mind. I'd throw in a couple of caveats: 1. Don't have this every year. Make it every 4 years, like the Olympics or the election, to really emphasize the importance of attending. 2. As for spots to hold it, I'd nominate Chicagoland first. Center of the country, two major international airports, lots of hotels, normally decent weather in the summer, and the area is flooded with caches.
A proposal for Geowoodstock was submitted by a group from RI a few years ago. We had support from the State (Convention and Visitor's Bureau up to the Governor's Office). The Convention Bureau was behind us 100% and will to do what ever it took to help us make this a reality. We had a venue large enough to support a Giga-Event. We had inexpensive housing and food arrangements (beyond camping) to support a Giga. There were other activities and side trips that would have spanned a long weekend.
RI is close to Boston and NYC airports (providing direct flight access from Europe and much of the USA) as well as Providence Airport, and an easy train ride from Philly, Baltimore and DC. There is plenty of hotel space outside of Newport available (outside of Newport the summer is the off season). It would have provided a jumping off point for caching adventures around New England.
We didn't get selected.
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I used to hide new caches for release during my summer time event.
But it got to the point where everyone was darting off to find them in hopes of FTF. Not much socializing for those folks.
I eventually stopped doing it.
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PS, anyone know of any facebook groups or forums for Vermont. The ones posted in the pinned thread are all boarded up, and the facebook group I found only had 8 members....
There's the New England Geocaching Community group on FB:
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The self-description of a P&G series in my area is: "The purpose of the series was just having another cache to find, no scenic views, no cool container to find, and a hide that shouldn't be all that much of a challenge"...Well, as the former President said, "mission accomplished!"
edexter
Or the ever popular "I was driving by this parking lot/guardrail/dead end/etc. and it just had to have a cache!".
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But does every strip mall need an LPC or guardrail at the end of a cul-de-sac need a pill bottle? Can't people find interesting locations (view, history, etc.) that warrants a visit beyond getting a GC.com smiley?
You seem to be assuming that if they didn't hide this cache, they'd hide a better cache, as well as the opposite: that because they hid this cache, they won't hide a better cache. I don't buy it: I don't think that the existence of such caches has in any way diminished the number of hiking caches hidden. If anything, I'd guess that such caches have increased the popularity of caching, thereby increasing the number of people hiding hiking caches.
On the one hand, my experience is largely limited to my area, so YMMV. But, on the other hand, if hiking caches are, in fact, becoming extinct in your area, I'd be tempted to say that it's a luck of the draw in what kind of COs are hiding and what the culture is encouraging them to hide, not because of a systematic abandonment of hiking caches for parking lot caches in the hobby as a whole.
Latest example:
"One thing I often hear about this particular type of hide is that they're great for keeping streaks going. If the weather's bad, you're not up for a hike, or life just gets in the way, these can be perfect to keep those streaks going."
In my area the ratio of hiking to non-hiking caches is definitely shrinking. The fact that the majority of new cachers are in it for quick finds and/or numbers, people are not hide the "old school" caches anymore. Nobody wants to find them.
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- Hiding hiking caches is not for everyone. Some may be intimidated by the potential maintenance requirements due to distance, time, physical demands, etc. Most long hikes are a bit of a drive away from residential centers, so cachers may not want to commit to driving out there to do maintenance. Even if cachers don't mind the drive, they may not have a flexible enough schedule to actually go out there. Even if cachers have the time, they may not be physically able to hit the trail several times. Perhaps cachers don't hide hiking caches because they can't commit to hiking cache ownership.
Agreed. But does every strip mall need an LPC or guardrail at the end of a cul-de-sac need a pill bottle? Can't people find interesting locations (view, history, etc.) that warrants a visit beyond getting a GC.com smiley?
It's come down to creating listings like "I was out with the missus, and hid this in the parking lot while she was shopping. Now you have another cache to extend your caching streak."
Why not "From this overlook, you get a view of where the Battle of Rhode Island took place. Here, The RI First (aka the Black Regiment) withheld several advances by the better trained and equipped Hessians."
Placement is just as simple, will let people extend their streak, and doesn't require a long walk. And I know which one I'd rather visit.
- Hiding hiking caches is not for everyone. Some may be intimidated by the potential maintenance requirements due to distance, time, physical demands, etc. Most long hikes are a bit of a drive away from residential centers, so cachers may not want to commit to driving out there to do maintenance. Even if cachers don't mind the drive, they may not have a flexible enough schedule to actually go out there. Even if cachers have the time, they may not be physically able to hit the trail several times. Perhaps cachers don't hide hiking caches because they can't commit to hiking cache ownership.
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"The cache has been replaced by placing it (being an oversized tennis ball) in a dead tree stump in a pipe so it's not as likely to go missing (it's a camo)."
Was the pipe already there, or did you place the tennis ball in the pipe in the dead tree? I hope it doesn't look like an IED!
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I love souvenirs.
I completely messed up this year's Road Trip souvenirs.
Finding caches on December 31st and January 1st could be tricky. I will have to do some extensive research to see what caches can be found in winter. Might be lots of snow, might not be, so planning has to take that into account.
B.
Several of us found paddle caches on either side of midnight 2 winters ago (I live in New England which makes it an adventure). We launched at 11:30pm on the 31st, found a cache, attended an event at midnight (complete with fireworks and champagne) and then found another cache on the 1st. A great night of caching.
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The problem with just one Jasmer (or whatever) challenge is that it automatically becomes unavailable to the vast majority of cachers. If it is physically in, say, Texas then most non-American cachers won't be able to get it. Can I have it in NSW, please?
The alternative is to make it a souvenir, which is completely against the way I enjoy challenges.
How is that "..completely against the way I enjoy challenges."?
The only difference I see is that you don't get a smiley, but instead a badge or souvenir.
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I see the game evolving, at least on this site.
Many who no longer feel an obligation to sign the paper log, or answer the questions for an earthcache or virtual. No interest in hiding or finding something away from a paved surface. This is what is becoming the norm.
One day soon we'll see something like this:
No need to get out of your car. Powertrails can be completed in a fraction of the time. It can even log caches you didn't even know are there.
But you were there, right? You're entitled to a smiley for being there, aren't you? Who cares if you found anything?
(edited for spelling)
You just described that other game that starts with an "M".
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What a nice log there! See how the finder talked about his experience finding the cache and offered hints for future finders? An inspiration to us all.
(I hope I properly detected sarcasm there!)
SE Mass need help for a small event in August
in Northeast
Posted
Have you posted on the SEMAG Facebook page?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/424582484297536/