The red-haired witch

Of course, the bolded part covers pretty much any word in any language.

Many people who can write fairly well English do provide an English version of their cache description, especially if the cache is in an area where anglophone visitors are common. But not everyone can write English. You're assuming that if you lived in Quebec and your native language was French, you'd also know English. It varies by region, but I think that over half the population of Quebec is still unilingual French (while about 90% of the rest of Canada is uniligual English...) I don't think the reason is a new political trend (anyway, there certainly is nothing new about having linguistic frictions in Québec ). The reason why older caches tend to be in English is that, a few years ago, the Internet in general(and the geocaching website in particular) was much more unilingual English. So only people who understood English could really participate in the game and publish caches. Nowadays, you can manage even if you know very little or no English at all. Most "tourist geocachers" adapt well, either using electronic translation, asking for help on local forums if they need help with the translation of a specific cache, or contacting local cachers to go caching together. We're happy to help

Rather tahn saying what won't work, do you have a solution to offer? Are you going to translate the cache pages manually for visiting tourists? Sure, automated translation might not always be perfect, and it may make some puzzles or "complex" multis unsolvable. Most tourists tend to avoid those types of caches anyway. Even excluding those, camnpete should still have a few thousands options of caches to go for in Montreal and Quebec City. Oh an additional piece of advice for camnpete: you may want to do a search on the oldest caches in the province, several of those are in English.

While I prefer Garmin myself, since you already have an Explorist (I'm guessing Explorist GC, as there is no Explorist GS), I'd suggest giving it a little more of a chance before spending more money on a new GPS. A quick search of the forum indicates that you can indeed manually enter coordinates on that GPS forum link I know some people who have it and they say it's pretty good. It can't do everything an Oregon can do, but it is much cheaper. For the same price, I'm not sure you can get any other GPS that allows for paperless caching...

Hey, I saw that! Bad Narcissa, I won't invite you to my backyard anymore As she says, there doesn't seem to be a really bad part of town in Ottawa or Gatineau (aka where the scary French people live). Here, if you see a part of the map where there appears to be no caches, odds are it's just because there are many multis and puzzles ending in that area

One other reason to let the cache owner (or anyone wanting to read the log in a different language) do the translating : online translation tools improve over time. The translations can still be off now, but they are better than they were 5 years ago. I wouldn't feel comfortable posting some text if I don't know what that text is saying. The translation could have been horribly wrong and I may be posting something insulting. So I'll log in French or English, depending on where I am, the language of the cache page, or what language the cache owner understands (if I know the cache owner). I might try a few words in Spanish if I ever find a cache where it seems appropriate. But if I was to find a cache in Germany or Japan, my log would probably be in English, with a "Danke" or "Domo arigato" at the end. And there are good chances cache owners anywhere understand at least a bit of English too .

I think it's a blizzard (or snow storm). We get very few avalanches in Québec (and there aren't a ton of caches in the Chic-Chocs and Torngat Mountains where they usually happen). The terrain on the souvenir looks too flat for an avalanche anyway

Sans être premium member, on peut télécharger les coordonnées seulement une cache à la fois, et pas avec le GPX (description, indice, logs, etc). Mais vraiment, si c'est le genre de budget que tu as, le 30$ US/année pour être un membre ne devrait pas être un problème, il devrait rester de l'Argent après avoir acheté le GPS. Un Oregon 550, par exemple, excellent pour le paperless (avec écran tactile, une tonne de mémoire, une caméra...), se vend maintenant 400$ au Canada. S'il coûte plus de 300 Euros chez vous, ça vaudrait peut-être la peine de l'acheter ici et de le faire expédier. Le Oregon 450 ou un Dakota seraient encore moins chers.

I would think winter gloves or mitts would be a better idea to dig in the snow. Rubber gloves are a bit uncomfortable when the temperature is below 0. And shoveling a 30 feet radius is technicaly feasible, but it's not much fun, especially when there is 3 or 4 feet of snow (ok, we don't have that right now, but it wouldn't be unusual here). It all depends where you're doing your winter caching, of course... I think searching for caches that were recently found s still the best method in the winter, especially for a beginner. The snow then becomes an advantage (easy to follow tracks) rather than a problem. And it's easy to do even for non-premium members : doesn't any "nearest caches" search give you the date of the last find?

The train trip from Ottawa to Toronto is quite nice, I've done it several time. Here is a link to the train station page : Ottawa station Both the airport and the train station are about equally far from Kanata (the train station and airport are only a few km apart though). Does your car absolutely have to be dropped off at the airport? You may want to check with you car rental company if you can drop it off at the train station or nearby.

Si si... le log doit être en papier. Non, il seulement doit être physique (par exemple un morceau du tissu ou du métal). En effet, le log peut être fait en n'importe quel matériau, du moins qu'il soit possible d'écrire dessus physiquement (avec un crayon ou un stylo quoi). J'ai déjà trouvé des logs en bois, en métal, en feuille aimantée... Je ne crois pas qu'il soit permis de placer une clé usb dans la cache comme log et d'obliger les géocacheurs à avoir un bidule électronique déterminé pour pouvoir "écrire" dans ce log. Les géocacheurs doivent pouvoir signer le logbook pour que la cache soit valide (sauf pour les exceptions que sont les caches virtuelles, webcams et earthcaches...). Je crois d'ailleurs que c'est la seule chose qui a arrêté le rétrécissement des nanocaches. Imaginez la taille qu'elles auraient si elles n'avaient même pas à contenir un bout de papier... Et les "codes de vérifications" ne sont plus permis depuis longtemps, qu'il y ait un logbook ou non. Avoir à faire parvenir un code au propriétaire de la cache pour prouver qu'on a visité la cache est considéré un ALR (Additional Logging Requirement).

When following the footprints, look for those leaving the cache site. Usually, the last place they looked is where the cache was

Hi Witchy! Can I steal your profile signature for a T-Shirt? Of course! And I won't even turn you into a newt

Of course I would have published it. Reviewers don't get to approve caches, they just publish them if they follow the guidelines. They can only refuse to publish if the guidelines are not followed. As I can see nothing even remotely offensive in the cache page, I'm guessing that Groundspeak has used here the "if there is a complaint it is offensive and must therefore be edited" philosphy. It may makes sense in the client service business, but it sometimes means that something that is ok with 99.9% of people and not ok for 0.1% of people has to be changed. Having seen the other caches brought up as "objectionable", I'd say some people here are a little too easily offended. Some jokes may be childish, but that is a far cry from saying that it means the cache will traumatize kids who may find it. As others have said, either they won't understand the joke or it won't bother them... unless their parents overreact, in which case the parents reaction may cause some negative effect. OK, I realise this cache is in the US, where some people are willing to argue in court that the sight of a breast on TV can traumatize youg children. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see that a few american cachers are very easy to offend (I said a few... not generalizing here). And for those saying that such jokes are a modern scourge and screaming "oh, look where this world is going, doom, doom doom!", I'd suggest you better not research a 1982 song from April Wine or think about how many times a pussy was mentioned on "Are you being Served", a series now several decades old. Actually, I'm now thinking about making a cache about my cat and calling it "Cute Pussy". Would that be vulgar and inappropriate for families to seek?

If there is no difference in performance, why would you pay 450$ for a 550 when you can have a 60csx for 230$? Seems like a good use of our money for the government to buy less expensive equipment in that case. Also, you may not realise that most SAR teams in Canada are volunteers, and not financed by the government, so have a very limited budget. Actually, having used both models, I can say I find the performances of the 550 are better on many things (geocaching, compass, ease of use, map clarity), but the 60cx is what my SAR group uses and it's still perfect for SAR. Actually, now that the price is down, we may be able to buy a couple more.

La distance à laquelle il est permis de placer une géocache est généralement la distance pour laquelle vous pouvez démontrer que vous pourrez en faire l'entretien à l'intérieur d'un délai raisonnable (quelques jours ou quelques semaines). Ça varie énormément d'un individu à un autre. Quelques dizaines de km n'est généralement pas un problème (si on a un moyen de transport autre que la marche ) Des distances bien plus grandes sont possibles si ont peut démontrer au réviseur qu'on visite l'endroit régulièrement ou si la cache a un "parrain" local. Je trouve étonnant que quelques centaines de caches dans votre département vous semblent un trop grand nombre . Il y a environ 2000 géocaches dans un rayon de 25 km de chez moi, et c'est une très bonne chose. Ça veut dire que même après 6 ans de géocaching, j'ai toujours plein de nouvelles géocaches à chercher, même quand je n'ai pas le temps de voyager très loin. Et la grande variété disponible me permet de choisir quel genre de géocaches je veux aller chercher et d'ignorer celles que je n'aime pas

You say ropes and climbing gear are not required, but how high does someone have to climb to find your cache? I would consider ropes and climbing gear to be required (by prudent people) if you have to climb high enough to be likely to die if you fall, not just if it is impossible to go up there without a rope. After all, some crazy people free climb high cliffs and tall buidings... that doesn't mean that a cache halfway up the outside of a skyscraper would not be terrain 5.

I agree completely! Pretty much all of the year is "something" hunting season. And wearing visible clothing does make the Search & Rescue team job's much easier I'd rather say "hey, I see him, he's on that hill over there" than "wait, I stepped on something, no, someone... wow, that's some good camo!

Lowest altitude is most probably this unfound one : http://coord.info/GCG822

I... No, I think I better let a moderator handle this comment, I won't be able to stay polite. Obviously the country would run much better without all those pesky public servants Can we go back to recommendations for an Ontario visit? I think there are lots of great caches in the Ottawa area. Urban, Park, Wilderness, all types are nearby. You also get the possibility of grabbing a cache or two in the neighboring province of Quebec if you have a goal of finding caches in all states and provinces. If you start in Southern Ontario and drive towards Ottawa, you'll never run out of caches to find along the way, many geocachers travel those roads and there are lots of caches to make a roadtrip enjoyable (and very long if you can't stop yourself from stopping at every cache )

Indeed... but the super efficient CCC rescue team built this new website for us : http://canadascapitalcachers.ca/

I'm surprised no one has suggested simply not wearing pants and socks. Most stickers/burrs don't stick to skin Or, if you'd rather not get your own skin all scratched up, I'm guessing they don't stick much to leather clothing either. Go for the biker-cacher look

The geocaching guidelines do ask us to not modify the environment to place or hunt caches. But I wouldn't interpret them as meaning that, if I see something dangerous near a cache, I can't try to make the place safer for the next hiker (be it a geocacher or not). I don't mean that in a heavy handed manner... As always common sense is important. I'm not saying that everything dangerous should be removed from nature. The OP is not saying he's going to remove all the pointy sticks from the forest. But cutting one branch (that is now contaminated with blood) seems like a good idea. If I see broken glass or old rusty barb wire near a cache, I'll try to remove those things if I can safely do so (or at least make it safer somehow). It may go against the letter of the guidelines, but certainly not their spirit. Sure, those things may have produced all kinds of interesting stories about geocaching injuries in the future, but we don't really want that, do we

I think all the people horrified at the idea of a dead branch being cut are funny Actually, scouting does involve making campfires and such (anyway, it did in my day ), so I don't see why any scout would oppose cutting a pointy dead branch from a tree. I'm assuming it is a dead branch we are talking about, because I've never seen a tree with live branches pointy enough to cause that kind of wound... but I've never been to Australia. The whole "LEAVE NO TRACE" (in all caps, of course) movement sometimes takes things way too far in my opinion. Don't walk on grass, don't gather raspberries, poop in a plastic bag to carry everything out . Scouting tends to take a more practical approach, teaching kids how to responsibly use natural ressources. Picking edible plants, fishing, building shelters out of branches... It's not "let nature be" it's "we're part of nature". To get back to the subject of geocaching injuries, mine are mostly sprained ankles, but I also have a few scars from encounters with various plants, the worst ones being those extra-sharp stumps left by beavers snacking on small trees. I can say I've left plenty of blood traces.

Eaten no, Drunk yes. Some assorted tea (in sealed foil wrappers, plus I put it in boiling water, so seemed safe to me) and a mini bottle of rum (that was the FTF prize in a pirate themed cache!)