Ladybug Kids

With three days left to vote, 276 ballots have been cast. Last year, 382 GAGB members voted in the election for Committee Members, and 441 voted in 2012. Help spread the "get out the vote" word so a new standard can be set!

Some Reviewers publish caches very soon after they appear in the queue, so one best have their cache in place before submission for review.

The ballots for the 2014/15 Committee Election were sent via SurveyMonkey a short time ago to all GAGB members of record as of 1st October 2014. Before you open your ballot, you may visit a special “GAGB Elections” board in the GAGB forums at http://gagb.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=53 to read the candidates' responses to questions posed to them. You are also encouraged to reread the candidate manifestos because one was been updated since the original posting following discovery of omitted material due to a copy and paste error. Each ballot is tied to an e-mail address, so please do not forward the ballot e-mail to anyone else. Only one vote per ballot is allowed by SurveyMonkey. The ballot "From" line reads: "ladybugs at geocachealaska.org via surveymonkey.com" <member at surveymonkey.com>" (replace the "at" with an "@" and delete the spaces on both sides of "at") The ballot "Subject" line reads: "Please Vote: 2014/15 GAGB Committee Ballot Notification" The above two line of information should be helpful in locating your ballot in spam folders should you not receive the ballot in your inbox. The poll will be open until midnight, GMT, Friday, 28 November, 2013. Thank you for your participation! At your service, Michael Malvick/Ladybug Kids GAGB Returning Officer

Guideline III.2.4 states "Event Cache owners can request that cachers sign a logbook, but this is optional and cannot be a requirement for logging an Event Cache." Reviewers as a general rule don't review the D/T ratings except for the specific examples given elsewhere in this thread. Not until the Reviewer has found the cache as a player could s/he possibly know the D/T. However, the Reviewer will sometimes ask about a D/T rating if something seems out of whack or nudge the Cache Owner toward the ClayJar rating system if the Cache Owner's D/T ratings are consistently high or low.

Nominations for the GAGB 2014/2015 are closed and the candidates' manifestos are posted here in the GAGB forums. Candidate questions and answers are also being hosted on that Board. The election will be managed electronically using SurveyMonkey during Saturday 22nd Friday 28th November 2014. Cheers, Michael Malvick GAGB Returning Officer

There are now fewer than fifty of each finish of this geocoin left. Don't miss out on maintaining a complete Alaska set and buying those stocking stuffers for the December holiday season.

Nominations for the 2014/2015 GAGB Committee are now being accepted in this thread of the GAGB Forums. Nominations will be accepted Saturday-Friday, 8-14 November 2014. The Election of the Committee will be held during Saturday-Friday, 22-28 November 2014. Regards, Michael Malvick/Ladybug Kids GAGB Returning Officer

Sometimes, one's geosenses work. Other times they don't. A DNF is no big deal. On average, one out of every eleven cache hunts ends in a DNF for me, so I have hundreds of documented unsucessful hunts. I put watches on my DNFed caches and more the half of the caches turned out to be missing, so my DNF provided an important signal for the Cache Owner that something may be amiss. For what it's worth, I don't split hairs regarding when I log a DNF and when I don't. If I turned on the GPS and followed it to ground zero, that's part of the cache history and it should be recorded for the Cache Owner's and others' benefit.

I spent the first half of my life in Arizona and Southern California and the second half in Alaska. Moving north is the best personal choice I think I've ever made. All seasons have their virtues, but colder temperatures and snow make for one wonderland after another.

Which cache is that? On topic...Most Alaska State Parks have an iron ranger to pay $5 for parking. A Muni Recreation Area near North Pole also charges a per car fee for access. Washington State Parks has an access fee and permit process. Grand Canyon National Park, Denali National Park, Wupatki National Monument, Sunset Crater, Yellowstone, etc., all of which have at least EarthCaches and Virtuals charge an access fee.

Why the triple secret permission? What's up? Land Manager prohibition. Depends on the jurisdiction.

Neversummer sumarized the guideline nicely. Ideally, the local maintainer is a cacher with a well-established reputation for maintaining his/her own caches. Said cacher can then put a watch on your cache(s), monitor the logs, and proactively react to issues as they arise, before you even have to ping him/her. A problem with vacation caches is they don't "belong" to anyone local and so they are given lower priority by the local maintainer. I have direct personal experience with placing a cache in New York State in Florida, birthplace of William Seward who spearheaded the purchase of Alaska from Russia (Seward's Folly). I made a connection between Florida and Alaska, created a two-step multi beginning at Seward's monument downtown, and hid the final cache near Seward's crypt. The cache perked along for awhile, got muggled, my long-distance maintainer replaced it once, then stopped responding to e-mails even though he and his family were still actively caching. I found that even though my family and I visited the area once per year, having a local maintainer was insufficient to maintain a viable cache and ultimately archived the cache, swearing off ever placing another vacation cache. I even took a shot at international exchange caches. One cache died after a year or so after being muggled once and the other is still doing well seven years after placement, so I'm batting 0.500 there. Different reviewers will ask for different local maintenance plans. What is required is subjective based on prior experience with local vacation caches and other local factors. Hot spot vacation areas get a higher proportion of vacation caches and the Reviewers for those areas may have more stringent requirements such as requiring the name and e-mail address of the local mainainer if the local maintainer is not a cacher with a valid account. The Reviewer may even take the step of sending the local maintainer an e-mail to confirm that the local maintainer agreed to maintain the cache. Many of the e-mail queries from the Reviewer go unanswered or even bounce (gee, do Cousin Daisy or Uncle Fred even exist?), and the associated caches never see the light of day. I personally was asked by a cacher who was leaving the state if I would maintain a "couple" of caches he left as parting gifts. We discussed which ones (I thought). Next thing I knew, my local Reviewer pinged me asking if I'd really agreed to take on maintenance duties for the new caches and his several dozen already published caches (uh, no). So, it is understandable to me that Reviewers get jaded by cacher maintenance plans that include family members, surf shop pros, cabana boys, fill in the blank with a non-cacher type, who don't really understand the game. If the maintainer isn't already playing the game, s/he probably won't be gung-ho about fixing things the first, second, or more time the cache has an issue. Ultimately, the Reviewer is the one who gets to deal with the NA logs when the DNF strings begin, the lack of response from the local maintainer of record and the cache owner, or, even better, the remote Cache Owner who edits the cache page telling people to go ahead and log a find with an optional photo since the container is missing, You can't control the actions of others, but you have full control of your own. That's why placing caches within your area of direct influence is oftentimes the best tact to take. P.S. Rain and clouds do not affect GPS accuracy. The wavelength was specifically selected so moisture in the air doesn't mess things up. Otherwise, how could Alaska Air fly approaches to Alaskan airports rainy/snowy/cloudy/foggy weather. P.P.S. Bad coordinates happen to most everyone sometime. They can be proof checked via GoogleEarth prior to publishing. Alternatively, they can be corrected with the "update coordinates" log type as opposed to archiving and republishing. Reviewers can help with coordinate changes greater than 528'. P.P.S. Vacation caches aren't a new idea for Reviewers. They have been dealing with them almost since the game began and as a collective, the Reviewers have just about heard and seen it all and eventually had to archive the majority over time. Reviewers have good reason to push back on cache placements far from one's home based simply on lots of past experience. The Georgia Reviewer may be pushing back until you find more caches to ascertain you are in the game to stay. There are many cases of cachers flying out of the starting gate, hiding lots of caches, and then moving on to the next app they find in their phone. Establishing a good track record of cache placement and maintenance close to home lays a great foundation for being thought capable of managing far away caches.

For the tenth consecutive year, Alaska offers a state geocoin for sale to geocoin fans via online sales. The geocoins are 38 mm in diameter, 4 mm thick, and feature a multi-color hard enamel obverse and a deep 3D reverse. The geocoins are trackable on geocaching.com and have a matching custom icon. The concept for the obverse of the 2014 Alaska geocoin was drafted by GeocacheAlaska!'s own Joel Vos (NeverSummer) in Homer, Alaska, during the 2014 pathtag design contest. The contest theme was Birds of Alaska. This design was not submitted as a pathtag design, but as an original in-house design for a geocoin. The fundraising committee, headed up by SSO JOAT, took the original pencil-sketch design and worked it into a mint-ready geocoin design. The Spectacled Eider is a striking bird that brings people from around the world to see it in our great state of Alaska. The entirety of the world's population of Spectacled Eiders calls Alaska "Home" for the winter. They spend from 9-12 months a year at sea, only coming to shore to nest and breed. From 1952 to 1993, there has been a 96% decline in numbers in the Yukon Delta region alone. So, in 1993, the Spectacled Eider was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and critical habitat was designated throughout the species North American range. Threats to eiders at breeding areas include ingestion of contaminants, particularly lead from hunters' expended lead shot, and predators. GPS is what helped discover the Spectacled Eiders in the winter! Until GPS receivers were attached to them, nobody knew where they went after departing their nesting grounds. Now that research continues to learn more about their lives, migration, and habitat, we can bring attention to this beautiful bird in Alaska as we Geocachers all recreate responsibly in the outdoors. The reverse of the coin is based upon the design used for the Alaskan geocoins produced in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013. It features a Sourdough cacher using a modern GPS to locate his traditional food cache in the shadow of Denali (Mt. McKinley), the tallest peak in North America with an elevation of 20,320 feet (6195 m). 150 of each of the satin gold and satin silver geocoins were minted. The geocoins cost $12 each plus shipping and handling with discounts available for sets. Click here to order!!!

It's my understanding the Cache Owner is the Land Manager of where the event was held. Spamming the event page will paint geocachers in an even worse light. All it takes is one anti-caching land manager within a jurisdiction to have geocaching throttled throughout.

Absolutely correct. It's really pretty simple... Every cacher who submits a cache checks two boxes...one that reads "Yes. I have read and understand the guidelines for listing a cache." Guideline I.2 of the referenced guidelines reads "You assure us that you have the landowner's and/or land manager's permission before you hide any geocache, whether placed on private or public property. By submitting a cache listing, you assure us that you have adequate permission to hide your cache in the selected location." As a result, to not have adequate permission and expose cache seekers to having to explain what they are where they are is disingenious at best and flat out dishonest at worst. Bottom line: If a cacher does not know who owns/manages the land s/he wishes to place a cache on, the cacher can't possibly know what denotes "adequate permission" and should not drop a cache there. "Know before you go."

Another alternative is to take cachers someplace new that isn't already saturated with caches. I generally make it a point not to place a new cache within a mile or more of the next nearest cache to encourage cachers to explore new areas.

A cacher on the Kenai Peninsula hosts an annual event that is so good that if quality points could be assigned to caches, his events would be the most favorited in the state. One of the features of the event is a thirty cache course that changes each year. Each cache is assigned a different number of points, depending on distance from the start, the difficulty of the field puzzle (if applicable), the difficulty of the multi (if applicable), etc. The team that finishes with the greatest number of caches, wins, and prizes are awarded to all members of the top three teams. Folks leave with only one event smiley and sometimes a couple more because there are a couple of "permanent" traditional caches in the park. Everyone goes home happy with a single smilie, some prizes, and lots of memories. The day that changes is the day I stop driving 150 miles to attend.

I believe its more than that.I heard a guy put around 30k on his truck just do the challenge. The state is huge for sure, but the counties are small. I need to add, I dont think the whole USA counties had been done since nobody finished the Alaska challenge. I'm currently at about 4000 miles driven for 90 of the 254 Texas counties and the mileage would be higher without the benefit of open-jaw flights into one city and out of another. The Alaska Borough and Census Area Challenge hasn't been completed yet because only eleven of the boroughs are on the road system connected to Anchorage and Canada. Additional boroughs are earned by flying to Southeast Alaska and hopping on and off the State Ferry. Finally, one has to rack up a bunch of additional airline miles to reach the boroughs in Western Alaska. I have conservatively estimated it will cost $20,000 in commercial and bush plane airfare alone to complete the challenge. I suppose if someone had a small plane they could complete the challenge for less cost, but incur a lot more risk since a lot of the terrain is nortorious for eating small planes or unwary pilots (there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots). The Alaska Borough and Census Area Challenge was published before the Challenge guidelines were written. It would not be publishable today as written.

GeocacheAlaska!, Alaska's statewide incorporated non-profit geo-organization may be found at www.geocachealaska.org.

This cache isn't as remote as people make it out to be, but I recognize that different people have different ideas about what constitutes "remote." There are several newer caches placed in Alaska that I consider to be much more remote or inaccessible than this cache due to technical rock and ice climbing, bush plane chartering, extended river float trips, etc., that haven't yet been found. SPOILER ALERT: for those who don't want the location demystified, stop reading now. 1. Do some homework about gold mining roads and trails in the Seward Peninsula. The winter and summer trail systems form a spiderweb of routes all over the tundra. Study GoogleEarth and other aerial photos of the area. Note where other rocky outcropping are located, especially in areas of transposed or slipped coordinate digits. 2. Fly commercially to Nome Airport. 3. Rent an ATV or hire local with extra ATV to ride about 85 miles up the Kougarok Road (see photo of Kougarok River bridge at that point). Take plenty of fuel and tools (including a metal detector) because there are no facilities out there. Don't go alone or with only a single machine. Alternatively, go self-propelled on a mountain bike for a multi-day epic ride of a lifetime. 4. Choose route carefully based on answers from #1. One may be able to get within 1 km or so of GZ on 10-11 miles of pre-existing road or trail and have an easy tundra walk to ground zero OR one may continue about nine or ten miles up the Kougarok Road until roughly directly abreast of ground zero and cross about five miles of open tundra (see photos) with optional pack raft for crossing the Kougarok River. 5. Come back with a smile on your face with or without a successful hunt because of the really cool adventure involved in getting there and back. The country out there is big, it's amazing, and a visit will never be forgotten.

+1. I've written nearly 700,000 non-copy and paste words (more than eleven adult-length novels worth) and posted nearly 4000 photos during the past decade. That doesn't count the words in TB moves and epic DNF logs. After all that effort, I don't feel the need to do it all over.

A GSAK filter set to eliminate caches with the word "Challenge" in the title would filter out the Challenges in a jiffy.

I completely agree. Logs of only "TFTC" or "SLTNLN" or "." or even worse "." and other variants are a slap in the face as far as I'm concerned, after I took the time to place an ammo can stocked with great swag in a nice location and compiled a cache page that provides local history and other information. I don't delete said logs as I don't feel compelled to mess with cachers' statistics and open myself up to a lot of drama. Besides, those kinds of logs say more about the cache finder than I would ever say publically, so I'm happy to let the rudeness stay on my cache page as a public testament. Some of my caches are approaching a decade in age, but if/when they develop maintenance issues or get stolen, I will most likely archive them because things have degenerated to "what's the point?"

Please keep telling stories about your caching adventures through your logs. Even when I hit a power trail I'll write something unique for each and every cache (though admittedly, I've never lasted more than fifty or so caches into a power trail before deciding there were better things to do). I'm able to do that by entering just a word or two into my field notes about a unique tree, rock, cattles, horses, moose, or whatever, that differentiated that location from other adjacent locations. Logs of only "TFTC" or "SLTNLN" or "." or even worse "." and other variants are a slap in the face as far as I'm concerned, after I took the time to place an ammo can in a nice location and compiled a cache page that provides local history and other information.

I've done it, too...