Aksor+Raskol

No, but the idea is intriguing. Some things that might be considered: 1)hours of operation 2)fees 3) regular or micro 4) satellite reception. But what a cool place to see the sky!

I agree with Kite and Hawkeye to a point, but aren't the sats geostationary? Then what would cause one to get better reception in some areas than others? Usually I tend to get degraded reception due to tree cover more than how many birds I've locked on.

Hey neighbors, we're probably going to be in B'ham over Labor Day from over here in GA. Looking for recommendations of 6-10 "must-do's" while we're in the area. Thanks!

Take 2 aspirin, go to bed, and try again tomorrow.

I'm from all over and have never heard of stick-tites. Animal, vegetable or mineral?

My wife and I use them quite a bit. Usually when we are caching, one of us will have the GPS and the other will be looking around and we'll get separated. She ain't real good at hollering and I ain't real good at hearing so we use them to keep in touch. Sometimes she won't want to climb that hill/crash that brush/walk in that/go through there so I go off and leave her on the trail and she helps me find my way back. They were a good investment.

Enough with the freakin' acronyms. Just say "cache in/trash out"! IMHO there are too many acronyms. LOL! BBFN

I agree with OG. Goats are cheap, eat anything and at the end of the season you can throw it on the BBQ for your local geocaching club. Those guys will eat anything, too!

Your GPS does have the capability of determining altitude based on timing from the satellites, but it's not as accurate as a true altimeter. Just consider it a guide, and no I don't think you can change those numbers nor need to.

Oooops! Forgot to tell you that the DeLorme Atlas is available at most major bookstores and Office Max, Office Depot, etc. BTW you can never have enough maps!

Here's a couple things to consider. Get a DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer of your state. The topo maps aren't the best, but it shows towns, features, rivers, roads, etc in great detail and helps plan how to get from your house to the cache location. My wife and I find no benefit to having 2 GPS units, but we did buy a set of FRS radios. Often one of us will be using the GPS to get close to the coordinates and the other will be off on their own looking in tree trunks, under rocks, etc. and we find ourselves out of range of shouting at each other. And sometimes she just doesn't want to bushwack with me and will stay on the trail while I go charging into the bush. It's just easier to stay in touch without yelling like an idiot and scaring everything around. Also as said previously by someone, a must-have is a compass with a rotating degree ring. When the GPS starts going whacky, back off and use the bearing feature on the GPS to get a bearing TOWARDS the cache, then use the compass to point you to it. Do this from at least 3 angles and triangulate your way to the cache. This is pretty basic, but if you have any questions how to do this I'm sure if you post another question someone (maybe even me) will be happy to elaborate. Looks like you got a good selection of trade goods. Now get out there and get some caches logged!

When you can't walk through a store without checking out all the inexpensive little things that you could buy for trade goods. When you drive your new family sedan on rutted, dirt, mountain, forest service roads at 3,000' elevation in January through 4 inches of snow to try for a cache on the approach to the Appalachian Trail.

Like "Kite" said; after you power up the unit and get satellite lock (ready to navigate), use the PAGE button to get to the main menu. Hi-lite MARK and push the ENTER button. The LAT.Lon. coordinates you see are the coords you are standing at. You need to change those to the cache coordinates you are seeking, so use the up/down buttons to hi-lite the coords and hit enter. Then use the ENTER buttons and up/down buttons to change the coords to match your cache page and hit ENTER again. Now use your up/down buttons to hi-lite the 001 or whatever and change that to whatever name you want to give to the cache you are seeking. After OK'ing everything your waypoint will be stored on the WAYPOINT menu and you can hi-lite the waypoint you've just created and hit GO TO. Viola! You're on your way! This is cumbersome without data cables, but I've been entering caches manually on my l'il yellow Etrex for years and it takes no more than 2 minutes to enter a waypoint after you get the hang of it

Sandstone would be the logical choice, but all the rock around here is granite. Bummer. Lava is soft. Guess I need to move to Hawaii.

Oh, sure! And then hide it in a rock quary! They don't have difficulty ratings that high! Now I could kick myself for not thinking of it first!!! Seriously it sounds like a great idea and I was just thinking about using a "native" rock and somehow using carbide bits, etc. to hollow out a depression to get a micro into.

Yeah. What the other guy said. I've noticed that too, but try not to get hung up on numbers. Ahh! Ten Sheckle Shirt. One of my fav-o-rite tunes, too!

To jrja_grl - Y'all get busy and get some caches hidden in Walton county. It's wide open and beggin' for some caches. I've been wanting to get one out there for over a year, but can't seem to find a park, monument, scenic vista, trail, etc. to put one in. Maybe y'all know the territory better. And to Strapped-4-cache - Try the GGA forums on ggaonline.org to hook up with a caching partner. My guess is that more local cachers read the forums there than at geocaching.com. Good luck to all you "noobs"!

Keep it. Start a collection. Impress your friends.

Don't forget a couple VERY important things about goecaching alone: 1)ALWAYS let someone know where you are going and when you'll be back. Be creative about this. 2)Carry your cell phone or a whistle if you are out of cell range. 3)Don't find yourself off-trail and alone with a broken ankle, broken leg, snake bite, lost, etc. 4)When in Urbania, be street smart; when in the boonies, be wilderness smart. Geocaching is fun, but don't risk your life.

BTW, would it even do me any good to look up "brown recluse" or is it true that they're perfectly ordinary-looking little spiders that I probably wouldn't get a chance to ID, anyway, so why scare the beejeezus out of myself? Response to katybird. No, I'd be more concerned about the ticks than the brown recluse. As it's name implies it likes to stay hidden. Just don't stick your hand where it doesn't belong and you'll be fine. Carry a stick and bang it around in crevaces before you put your hand in there, and if you're still worried, wear thick leather glove and long sleeves. Brown Recluse and Black Widows don't scare me as much as ticks. They aren't looking to get a meal off me and won't bite unless provoked.

When you are driving throught the south and see houses, trees, billboards, hillsides, etc. taken over by thick, stringey vines; that's kudzu. The only thing good about it is in August when it flowers, it smells like grape bubble gum.

Is the Topozone link from cache pages down? I've tried multiple browsers and get TCP ERROR reply.

Carry a big roll of toilet paper in one hand as you watch your GPS with the other. Then act frantic as you look for the perfect place. You'll be left alone in no time.

Remember that the person who placed the cache may have done in under heavy leaf cover in summer, or picked a day when reception wasn't best, and he may have placed it with the GPSr giving him no more than a certain degree of accuracy. If the GPSr gave him a set of coordinates, but the degree of accuracy is, say 30', then he was already off by a 60' diameter circle. Now you go looking for it with the same degree of accuracy and you could be off by 120'. Take that into consideration and don't give up. Look for the clues listed. Look for likely hiding spots, trampled grass, broken twigs. Your senses will sharpen with each cache you find. You will find some that the GPS will literally point you to, and you'll wonder why you had so much trouble with the last attempt. Keep with it and don't be discouraged. I have a cache on my list that I've been to twice with no success, and now I see that others who have found it have noted in the logs that the coords were off by 50' and have posted new coordinates on the log. I'll bet I'm successful next time I hunt it

You need to triangulate with an orienteering compass or any other comapss that has a rotating ring marked in degrees and a fixed pointer. When you get within the area that you know the cache is located, switch your GPS to BEARING and get a reading. Rotate your compass dial to match the BEARING in degrees, line up your compass arrow with north and site down the fixed arrow. The cache location will be somewhere along an imaginary line in the direction you're looking. Now walk 20 or 30 paces to another location, get another BEARING and site down that line. Your cache should be (should be) somewhere in the area of where those two imaginary lines intersect. Spend some time experimenting with this procedure on a cache you've already found. This has been useful to me when you lose satellites in deep cover. Find an area with good reception and get your BEARING from there, the move to another area of good reception. Obviously, the best locations would be 90 degrees from each other, so sometimes it helps to get 3 BEARINGS. Hope that helps