Jeep_Dog

I get to the right spot, at the right time, zipping along over a couple hundred miles per hour using GPS. My profile photo would be self-evident as to why.... I've also used GPSr to determine square footage and get measurements of various terrain, ranging between how many vehicles can I get parked in a spot to how many tents can I get in a clearing.

Oh great, another prophet on our hands. That's all we need, a geocaching holy war. Wasn't the near-jihad fiasco in central Texas bad enough?

Thanks Jeremy! I logged out and back in, and the posting was instant. I appreciate your time.

Are there server problems today? My found it logs are not appearing... They seem to take if I upload photos, otherwise, no joy.

Definately for your budget Garmin Etrex Legend. It is a more beefy cousin of the basic Etrex, and it is raved about on this thread.

The Geocacher U link there is an excellent explanation of paperless caching. I only converted to paperless a couple weeks ago. I took that article's suggestion that you don't want something too fancy, since we are often waltzing around in rough terrain, after all. So, I pulled out of a closet an old Sony Clie from a couple of years back. Nothing fancy, greyscale graphics and all, but with an 8MB card. I bought a body glove cover for it that allows me to carry it around in a cargo pocket and keep is somewhat protected from getting banged around. Now, since the sole purpose of the PDA now consists of tracking caches, and has very little "overhead" (eg palm applications), I find GC's suggestion of Mobipocket quite ample, and my experience, contrary to what some have found, is that this old PDA functions just fine using mobipocket (it is also a "big-name" application with quite a bit of support).

Location: Central Texas Unit: Garmin Etrex Venture Eats batteries: Alkaline: No discernable difference. NiCad rechargeable: Perhaps a 10% or so degredation in battery life. Accuracy improved: Yes 90% of the time Time to lock: 4-10 minutes. Accuracy expounded: on three occasions I noticed my GPSr acting erratically (pointer jumping all over the place even 150-200 feet from cache location). Shutting off WAAS got the GPSr to give better results and "behave" in all three cases. 90% of the time WAAS will improve accuracy from 15-23 feet to 6-10 feet, and helpful with really pesky micros out in big, wide-open areas (otherwise, with standard ammo can, not really needed).

The term "idiot" was tongue in cheek. Then again, even if folks were calling me an idiot, and I made mention of it, it would not be a result of taking it to heart. Believe it or not, I'm pretty thick skinned, and, literally, bombproof. Thanks for clarifying, though.

Here you go! Conveniently covered in the FAQs.

Quit stealing them! The quickest way to find yourself in ordnance jail!

... or, you can just tie your kids to your wife's back with bungee cords.

Very well. My real point in starting this thread was: Has anyone else noticed evidence our geocaching subculture bleeding over into a mainstream culture? I should have known it would go off track and have 1500 people tell me what an idiot I am for not knowing the term "swag" has been around for centuries, then folks telling them, no, that they got it wrong, it existed before the Big Bang, then replies to that that their definition of "swag" was wrong, then replies to that, ad naseum....

Swagged price, yes, I'm familar with. In this case, the "swag" referred to the actual items. I don't doubt the term came from somewhere else, since geocaching is only 5 years old. It is just, well, I haven't heard it used as such before, and I'm fairly well traveled...

While listening to Sirius Radio's Octane channel this morning, the DJ referred to going online to purchase "Octane Swag." Before geocaching, I had never heard of goodies being referred to as "swag." I couldn't help but muse whether or not this geocaching term is beginning to bleed over into mainstream culture. Has anyone else noticed evidence our geocaching subculture bleeding over into a mainstream culture? I find this very fascinating!

My two year old insists on walking these days. While letting her walk significantly decreases the number of finds we can do in an outing (due to her slower pace with those cute little legs, as well as the propensity to get off trail to explore), it truly becomes more enjoyable of an experience. She can usually hang with daddy for up to 2 miles, then she's ready for a brief break or even the fun of riding along. We use this Snugli Cross Roads Internal Frame Pack that has proven quite durable, lightweight, and relatively inexpensive. I really like the little kickstand that helps in putting on and taking off the pack with her in it as she chooses to walk-ride-Walk-RIDE AGAIN-GOTTA WALK NOW-I'M GOING TO DIE IF I DON'T GET TO RIDE! randomness a toddler can inject into a caching experience. I've been eyeing the Snugli Cross Country that looks like a pretty good pack, and is a slight upgrade to the Cross Roads. I have to say, though, for the price the Cross Roads keeps the toddler very well secured, and has held up very, very well. Other packs out there that I've put on to gauage the "feel," that also have lots of bells and whistles, also weigh more. With a 30 pound toddler and support equipment (water, snacks, first aid kit, cache swag) and the equipment all over in my outdoor shirt and cargo pants that add another 5 or so pounds, I'm into minimal additional weight. Although in excellent shape, why should I carry more weight on a trek?

I'd heartily recommend manufacturers' cleaning products. Bleach and other solvents can prematurely age the bladder. At 100+ degrees F, a bladder rupturing on your back is not a significant emotional event (indeed, it may even be somewhat welcome), but it certainly can be bothersome if not life-threatening in colder temperatures.

That old crotchety surplus store chap is either clueless, doesn't like women in his store, or is just plain lazy. There's plenty of ammo cans out there (thousands!). Lots of Ammo Cans! Adam Smith had something going with his economic theories. I don't know where you are located, CT, but the closer you get to a military installation (eg source), the more prevalent and less expensive the cans are. The link above can get you to a home page where a the closest DRMO is located, and surplus stores in that vicinity are certain to have very inexpensive ammo cans. For example, being close to the source, I can buy onsies and twosies off the shelf for $3.00 or less at a surplus store. Oh, DRMO is "Defense Reutilization & Marketing Office." The "DRMO count" simply refers to a pallet of cans, and the quantity is merely a function of their count- in other words, however many they felt safe loading on the pallet, and is not necessarily always standard.

Classified: One helicopter pilot geocacher seeks rich geocacher to seek helicopter only cache. FTF can go to the rich geocacher. (just in case this cache does get placed and someone wins the lottery)

Check the logs on the cache site. Comments such as: "Fun hike!" "Found this after a really nice hike." "..is still a rough hike to this thru brush left travel bug" "Great hide, good walk in, thanks..." "We bushwhacked to an upper trail that is a work in progress apparently and made it to the final location. Great spot for the final." "It was a fun hike. All was quiet there today... no problems." "Took awhile to find the ammo pouch and a pretty good hike to the cache too." are great indicators there's a hike involved. As mentioned previously, it is almost universal that a cache with a hike involved will generate log comments to that effect. (the above actual comments from my cache)

Sounds (pun intended) like a whale of an idea. I'd do a cache like this for the fun and just for the halibut. Any cache that has a porpoise for beating bass is worth doing. In regards to copyright, first if the music is created by the cache owner, nothing violated. Also, there's plenty of music out there that allows public distribution, as long as the artist and a way to purchase their music is made available (eg MP3.com). You'd almost have to do it this way (first cache having burned CDs) if you actually want cachers to listen for a stretch of the road. A kilted weenie like me would get the song, use a stopwatch to determine time from the first beat to the specified beat, and then put in the proverbial bagpipe music in the car for the trek and use time. Easier this way, since one could, after all, get distracted counting beats whilst driving (and into a nearby building).

Knowing my luck, if I lived there that cache would have been one of my DNFs, graciously found by a non-cacher without a high-tech gizmo to guide them.

PFFFFFTTTTT!!!!! Ha! There's a personal attack, too! In case that doesn't do it, this link to another, less autocratic caching site (www.texascaches.org) should do the trick.

Ok, I know how this will go. Someone who lives in Texas giving advice on snow travel?!?!? Bear with me, since I grew up in snow country, and lived in central Alaska for several years. Don't blame me that I'm snow deprived in my current location. After trekking around in snow for years, I've rarely come across the situation where snow shoes offered any advantage over a good pair of skis. Having that glide option is very nice for any downhill situation to save energy and make better time, and once skills are developed, going uphill is no harder or difficult than doing it on snow shoes. Yes, having the longer skis could be a pain closer in to the cache, but the extra time spent on maneuvering your longer skis is easily negated by the glide you gain and extra distance covered with the stride. So, I'd recommend a good pair of backcountry skis rather than snowshoes. I've got quite a number of miles under my belt with the shoes on (longest trek was a little over 25km), so my opinion is not borne of prejudice, rather, after experience with both sets of equipment when I reached this conclusion. Just food for thought.

Absolutely stunning photos! Blast you, plutnik, now I have to schedule a geocaching trip to Russia. From the photos, I think such a trip would be very rewarding. Ah, well, with all the controversy here in Texas, perhaps it is better to step out of the republic for a couple of weeks and geocache somewhere else...

I doubt anything has changed with the system. The satellites are built to encrypt the signals, and the encryption system is tuned to allow or disallow of certain pieces of information from being understood by the receiver. In response to some other posts, it is not a regional "shut down," per se. Rather, I would hazard to guess a streamlined system that would allow federal agencies to tell the satellites to begin encoding the signals, so that only devices with decryption ability would be capable of using the signals for navigation. Amen Jeremy. Getting a streamlined system to prevent potential enemies from navigating is something I would expect from a government waging a war against enemies that have demonstrated the capability to operate on our own turf.