Gonzo-YT

I use a military surplus chest harness out in the woods. It's really comfortable to wear, and it has various pouches and places to strap any number of things -- GPS, survival gear, trade items, etc. The hip belt has more pouches, including a larger fanny-pack style one that is great for a jacket and other extra clothing. The whole system is modular -- I can add and removes pouches as I need them. It cost me about $60 CAD ( ~$45 USD) at the local surplus dealer. Granted, I wouldn't take it to the local park, but then again, the local park doesn't have any geocaches. Regards, Anthony

Personally, I'm into the wilderness hikes. I like walking, and I enjoy working with maps and figuring out where I'm going on the land. For instance, on several caches recently I've added 5-10 km to the distance required to hike by walking in on an old logging road rather than driving it. It's more fun, and also saves my poor old 1986 Subaru from trying to make it over rough roads. I do enjoy finding the cache, but I don't want it to take too long. I do wish our area had some multis. I think the best multis would be ones that require you to plot a route across the terrain -- the caches would serve as your major waypoints. I've got some ideas for a couple to place myself. Regards, Anthony

I don't know, but in Yukon we have an engagement cache. OK, so it admittedly it has nothing to do with marriage -- I didn't name it. Regards, Anthony

When there is a trail, I follow it. It's always easier and often quicker. I never plan for an off-trail route unless I know there is no trail -- then I do my research, use topo maps and plan a route that I download into my handheld. Just to put this in context, I'm used walking in remote wilderness areas with 10-25 km distances. It's a different situation in different areas. Your situation may be different where you live. You also have to be sensitive to the land, whether you are in an urban or wilderness area. It's amazing how fast a few people following a route can start erosion or damage vegetation and streambeds, not to mention animal and/or fish habitats. If you're going to be a low-impact land user, stay on the trails unless you have to go off them. In similar vein, I think it is irresonsible to place caches in areas where people would have to cross sensitive terrain or bushwhack heavily. Even in areas where there are no trails, there are always more environmentally friendly routes to take -- old creekbeds, rock formations, gravel or scree, etc. Regards, Anthony

IMHO, putting a cache in a stream is not a good idea. I don't know about your area, but here in the Yukon a good-sized stream or creek means that you're almost certainly going to have people tramping through areas where fish spawn. Also, what was a small trickle of water in June could be a raging torrent in August, and you might be putting someone in an unsafe situation. Something else that occurred to me -- what do you do when the stream freezes solid in the winter? Chip the cache out? At the very least, the freezing and thawing would almost certainly harm the cache. Regards, Anthony

I highly recommend Prairie Geomatics -- GPSZone.ca. They're always very fast and knwledgeable, and they also carry Otter Boxes, which are simply the best outdoor electronics cases anywhere. I've also dealt with GPSCentral and they are great. Regards, Anthony Whitehorse, YT

This was kind of touched on in the current thread on approvals, but that one seems to have degenerated a bit, so I didn't want to add to it. Someone brought up a good question: what are the guidelines for being close enough to maintain a cache? I haven't seen anything on geocaching.com. The reason I ask is that many of the caches in my area -- Yukon, few that they are -- are placed by people from totally far away who will never return. I don't really like this, it just doesn't seem right to me. Just because we have relatively few caches doesn't mean that people should feel free to come up here and just dump them off. What happens when they need maintenance? If there is a 150-mile limit (or whatever), then why is it being ignored in the Yukon? It almost seems like people are taking advantage of our land and environment. Regards, Anthony