Cap'n Cache & Lt. Geo

The largest cache I ever found (GCRJ5H) I had to go inside of to see what was in it. Once inside I had enough room to comfortably relax, sift through vast amounts of very large swag (think teddy bears that were child sized) and sign the log out of the bugs and rain. The hint for the cache if I remember correctly was that it was hidden under some sticks. The cache was a large tent in the middle of the woods with a few small twigs perched on the top to make the hint accurate. Surprisingly, this cache managed to last almost two years before it was archived.

Several weeks ago while on vacation we had stopped to take a short 1.5 km hike to see a reportedly spectacular waterfall. I was the only geocacher in the group though the others knew of the activity and had come along with me from time to time to find caches. They waited patiently while I found the cache a few hundred meters from the parking lot and then we hiked off to the falls. After doing the requisite oohing and aahhing the rest of the group decided to head back. I told them I'd follow along in a minute after I grabbed the cache very nearby. I followed my arrow onto a wide flat rocky area that slowly, then not so slowly, tilted downwards towards another flat treed area where I knew the cache must be located. Just past that was a large cliff down to the bottom of the falls and the river far below. I looked around for a way down to the flat area but couldn't see anything obvious. Closer and closer I crept looking for a way down as the rockface became steeper and steeper. Now the rock was quite rough and my hiking shoes had a great grip on it, but did I mention the patches of wet moss? No? Well, there were these patches of wet moss..... Yup. Soon enough I was sliding slowly, then ever faster down this ever steepening rockface. I remember thinking to myself that this was probably a Real Bad Idea as I frantically tried to stop my descent. Now fortunately, or maybe unfortunately as fate would have it, there were spots all along this cliff-face where scraggly trees were growing out of cracks in the rock. I managed to grab onto one of these as I rushed past it at a velocity better suited for motorized vehicles and ended up hanging ape-like from a branch after sliding/falling about halfway down this 20-30 meter slope. I think it's been well over a decade since I hung by my arms off of anything. It was nice to know my body still knew how. I managed to swing my feet over to a protruding rock (it occurred to me at that moment where that protruding rock would have impacted my anatomy had I kept sliding) and stood there for a moment to assess the damage. Alive? Check. Still in possession of my GPSr? (notice my priorities) Nope. Walking stick? Nope. Hat? Nope. Sunglasses? Nope. Cell Phone? Well, that's some good news anyway. Now what to do? And why is a tree branch sticking out of my leg? OH MY GOD A TREE BRANCH IS STICKING OUT OF MY LEG!! About 1/2 an inch thick and angled up out of the back of my right calf was a tree branch. I figured it must've just broken off and stuck into my skin a bit. I began pulling it out. 3 full inches of tree branch later I was standing there watching blood seep out of a large round hole in my calf. Strangely, it didn't hurt at all. I put some weight on that leg. A bit of a twinge but it would support weight no problem. The blood was seeping steadily, but just seeping so I figured I must've avoided anything too crucial. At this point I had to decide. Try to climb back up and get the heck out of there or climb the rest of the way down to get my lost property, which I could see piled neatly in one spot at the bottom. Screw the hat, I hated those sunglasses, and I wanted a new walking stick anyway. Except there sat my GPSr. On my way down the stupid blood kept making my leg sticky and slippery at the same time. I made it the rest of the way down in one piece, gathered up my lost property and..... ....yup, proceeded to look for the cache. A moment later I came upon a nice plaque embedded in the ground. Somebody had fallen off the cliff and into the falls near this spot. I looked down at my bleeding leg, wondered vaguely why my fingers were swelling up where I had sprained them in my monkey-bar act, and scratched absently at the 18 inch long S-shaped gash down the other side of my leg and decided this one could wait another day. I climbed precariously back up and out of the little flat area. I kept waiting for my injured leg to give out but it seemed amazingly strong considering a 1/2 wide, 3 inch deep hole was in the middle of it. On my walk back out I passed the trailhead that led gently down to the flat area where I had my adventure. I smiled and nodded politely as I passed hikers coming the other way who looked at my blood soaked and scratched up leg, sock and shoe in shock. I arrived back at the parking lot to my brother's exclamation... "It's about time! We were getting worri...... WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO YOU?!?" A short 1/2 km hike to a handpump for water to wash out my injuries, a half bottle of antiseptic, some bandages and I was good to go. No, I didn't go to town to get stitches. The next day I went for an 8 km hike. I know, I know.... but I found 4 caches!

Refurbished goods are one of the big secrets in consumer electronics devices. Most often, refurbished units are actually absolutely brand new units that have been sent back to the manufacturer from the wholesaler or retailer due to bankruptcy, overstocking, old stock, packaging getting slightly ripped, etc. More often than not you're getting a brand new unit. When you're not getting a brand new unit, you're getting something even better: a unit that's been far more thoroughly tested by the manufacturer, before being sold as refurb, than than new units. Enjoy the savings. I almost always look for refurbished when buying electronics.

Palm and Windows Mobile devices do things a bit differently, so you're going to have to get out of thinking in "Palm" and start thinking in "Windows Mobile." To transfer files over to you Dell Axim you will generally just click on your Dell (when connected to your PC) in My Computer on your PC to open up a window showing the contents of your Dell. Then you can just drag and drop the files over to whatever folder on your Dell you want the files in. For Cachemate, use GSAK to export a GPX file and copy this file onto your Dell Axim. Start up Cachemate, and use the little import button at the bottom of the screen (looks like an arrow pointing to a bunch of pieces of paper), select the options required on the screen that appears, and then click the 'start' button at the bottom left. This will open up a dialogue. you can then find the file you copied over and load the GPX into Cachemate. If the GPX has a lot of caches in it, this may take a few minutes. You'll see the progress dialogue tell you where it's at. The slowness of loading the GPX is my biggest gripe with the PPC version of Cachemate.

Just a test for something

Woops, I can think of 5. And one of 'em is my own cache! I dunno how I managed to forget about that one. Heheheh. Add GCNGJB to the list.

I can think of 4 caches in my area alone where the "only log once" limitation wouldn't work. GCA0D6, GC4411, GC43F3, and GCVYF7. Now granted, the first two are "grandfathered" moving caches that have been around for years but they are still two of the more popular caches in Calgary. The third one is a bit unique. And it is probably THE most popular cache in Alberta. It's been grandfathered too, I doubt it would be approved today. But without "official" benchmarking in Alberta it gives people a chance to do something unique and enjoy some absolutely stunning hikes and views as well as some easy drive-ups. The 4th one is fairly new, was recently approved, meets the guidelines, and allows up to 8 finds for the same cache listing. In other words, we gotta be careful about all these "blanket" rules. There are often legitimate reasons to keep things as they are. *sarcasm on* And, of course, we all know how more and more and more rules in our lives has made things so much better, freer, and safer for all. *sarcasm off*

Fairmont Hot Springs is at N50 20.153 W115 51.061 or thereabouts. Radium Hot Springs is further north at N50 37.042 W116 04.350. If you're coming up through Cranbrook BC there's a lot of caches in that city. Cranbrook is at about N49 30.498 W115 45.514. Have a great trip!

My 60CS did exactly the same thing. I had to send it away for warranty repair. I'm still waiting to get it back.

I too got my roll of camo duct tape at Walmart.

No, but there are different applications that do exactly the same job. Check out GPXSonar http://gpxsonar.homeip.net for a very nice application that can read gpx files directly. You can either just drag your emailed gpx file from your pocket query right onto your PPC, or you can massage it with GSAK first (which is what I do) then export to gpx onto your PPC. You can also use GSAK to export to html, and drag the folder with the html files in it to your PPC and use Pocket Internet Explorer to read the cache pages, but with no facility for writing field notes and the many other features GPXSonar offers. Best of all, it's free.

I hate to add to these tales of woe, but I'm having a similar experience with Raytech. My 60CS died suddenly back in April and I phoned Garmin to find out about warranty repair. Having heard some questionable things about the Canadian repair depots I asked about sending it directly to them. The support person managed to convince me it would be a better idea to send it to Raytech. Well, that's a decision I regret wholheartedly. I sent the unit back in April, and after not having heard a single thing via any mode of communication I finally phoned and asked "what gives?" They explained that they couldn't fix it and had to send it to Garmin. If they don't know how to fix the durned things, how come they're an authorized repair center!?!?! And why the complete lack of communication!?!? Anyway, I asked how much longer, and they replied at least another 4-6 WEEKS. I then asked if Garmin would send it directly back to me, but of course they said no, it would be sent there first, then of course another 2-3 weeks for them to send it back to me. Absolutely unbelievable. This is a completely unacceptable business practice is this day and age. Anyway, weeks later and I still haven't heard a thing and still don't know when (if?) I'll ever get my GPSr back! It was either go without geoaching all summer or buy another unit while I waited, so I broke down and bought another unit. A warning to all. Don't send anything to Raytech.

Here's mine in Calgary, Alberta, Canada at 75mi. Not too bad but nowhere near as dense as some places. Notice the complete lack of detail on the geocaching.com maps. I hope this gets added sometime, it would save having to use other tools to do the same thing.

I too have been having a lot of problems with receiving my pocket queries lately. I was originally told this was due to my ISP spam filtering their email. This may have been part of the problem but it is certainly not all of it. Supposedly that problem has been resolved, and anyway I have several of my pocket queries now sent to my gmail address. Often the queries are not generated on the day they are supposed to be. Sometimes I get them late, sometimes not at all. When they are generated, there are still times I do not receive the email, on either email account. Sounds like some bugs to work out for sure on the machine that generates the PQ's.

I'm looking for someone to help me log the above cache. My coords are 23 16.222 which if used as South Latitude puts it somewhere near Rockhampton in Queensland or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. If anyone can help, check out the cache page and email me please!

I too am looking for help with "What's in a Name" I need someone near 23 16.222 which if used as East Longitude is somewhere near Tampere Finland. Please email me if you can help!

Hmm, where do you start picking this one apart. Buried caches. Etrex's that get reception while duct taped under cars. Etrex's that transmit their location to nearby palm pilots. (I want one). The line "She parked there so we know which cache she was at." Huh!? With how many caches nearby? And that was vastly understated. I could go on. Sigh. You know, every time I see a TV show that depicts some real-life hobby or profession that I know something about, they screw it up royally. Just goes to prove how much you can believe from what you see on TV. I should've skipped this and gone out and snagged a few more caches tonight.

Thanks, I forwarded your error logs to my ISP's email administrator. Hopefully they'll be able to help clear this up. I appreciate your quick response and email, it's always nice to see such good service.

I ran two one-off PQ's this morning, and have another regularly scheduled one that should have arrived today. They all show as sent on the PQ page. As of now, 11:00 PM, I have not received any of these. Kind of put a damper on some of my caching plans today.

It *IS* in my log. And in several other people's logs too. I'm guessing he didn't have the opportunity to read the logs before going to find this one.

I have two more bits of bad news for you regarding the dead magpie. I did this cache a while back, more than a month ago as a matter of fact. The dead magpie was there at that time, and looking at logs, even a bit before, so it was very, very, very dead by the time you got to it. The other bad news? That's not where the cache is. Look East.

I noticed you said you're entering coordinates in the "hddd.dddd" format, but coordinates on geocaching.com are usually in the "hddd.mm.mmm" format. Maybe this is the problem? Check that your gps receiver is set to hddd.mm.mmm and not hddd.dddd. If it's not this, and not the map datum, then I'm not sure. I know on my GPSr, which has autorouting feature, if I accidently route to a waypoint on-road instead of off-road (as the crow flies) I'll obviously get a much larger distance to travel.

Sounds to me like your GPS receiver is set to the wrong map datum. Coordinates on geocaching.com all use the WGS84 datum but yours might be set to something else.