Mtn Dog

I flew to Denver from Seattle a year ago last May and my GPSr worked great on the flight home. I had loaded all of the maps in between and could see when we crossed into Oregon and over the Tri-Cities & Yakima. I had five or six satellites in the northern sky and my 60CS took a while to lock in (like several minutes) but once it did it followed the rest of the flight home. Groundspeed was around 560 MPH I think. I didn't ask permission, I figure its easier to ask for forgiveness but I made sure to turn it off when computers, cell phones, and all other devices that affect avionics have to be off. I didn't use it for the flight to Denver because I was on a United 777. They already have GPS and maps of the route on each TV monitor in the headrest of the seat in front of you showing your progress in flight. You can switch from that to movies, entertainment, and other information channels then back again.

I might try the rechargeables then, I know they have come a long way in recent years. I grabbed the Duracell Ultras because I was already enroute to the trail, needed a bite to eat, and stopped at a Safeway on the way for both. I figured if I was paying a convenience price for batteries I might as well get something I remember works pretty well.

I have a three stage multi-cache with the third WP in the middle of a lake. The coords of all three WPs define a circle and the final cache is at the center of it. Once you have the WP coords you can solve for the center any of a number of ways to get the final. This can be done mathematically or using your GPSr. I have gotten many compliments on how well laid out this was and how much everyone really enjoyed it, from the WPs to the final. However, only 7 cachers have found it in the 5 months its been out. Others don't even attempt it because it sounds too hard. I may simplify the difficulty rating and provide more information to lead potential cachers down the path soon to get more interest (it's currently 3 1/2 stars). My challenge to you is to be more creative and less exhaustive in the stages to your final. There are millions of ways to define a point, some more elegant than others. Multi's can be very fun if there is a necessity and reason for each WP. I wouldn't go after 51 WPs for a multi. 10 is probably my limit if it sounds interesting enough. I did a fun one once that had 6 WPs and then a final but it followed a circular route, took no more than 90 mins., and had a rather rewarding regular cache for the final. It also took my daughter to a really cool place in our hometown she had never seen before (an abandoned helicopter landing pad).

What batteries do you use in your 60CS and why? I use Duracell AAs and notice I get about 20-25 hours running time with it. I typically run WAAS enabled which eats some extra juice and I understand you can play with the track log sampling to also help save power consumption. I bought Duracell Ultra's which they also now have for digital devices and changed them into my GPSr on the first mile of a six mile hike. I searched for three caches and hiked for over four and a half hours and the battery gauge never came off of full - which would have happened easily in that time with normal Duracells. I also remember these batteries lasting quite a while once before, like 8-10 hours longer overall. Anyone got a sense as to whether they are worth the difference in price? They cost about 20-30% more, like $5.49 for 4 of them (and less per each if you buy 8 or 12). BTW: My coworker has an older DeLorme with a black LCD screen that takes four AAs and he doesn't even get 8-10 hours out of his batteries - it's amazing how far these things have come!

Another update: The geocacher that I emailed placed the jeep in a cache the very next day! They held on to it for virtually a month but I guess the guilt got to them. No one would keep someone else's TB so why should this be any different? As an aside, there is one attraction to playing with the White Jeeps....the pull & go feature really terrorizes our Scotty Dog! She'll be glad when the thing moves on!

Update for Washington: I found 23 WJTBs across Washington by scanning the caches for the state, almost 6,000 of them! Several haven't moved in over a week. Most are in relatively hard to get places. On the positive side of things many jeeps are moving along and are beginning to log some noticeable milage. On the down side I've noticed a number of logs where White Jeeps were simply "traded" one for another. Also, the Travel Bug search for white jeeps reveals that many of them still have 0 mileage and it's almost the end of July. This may not mean much, quite a few of these are still in the hands of Jeep 4X4 which means they either haven't been released yet or are waiting in a cache somewhere ready to start traveling and haven't been discovered yet. That's how we found our first one. I found my second jeep yesterday. I had to hike several miles up over 1,000' to get it but I also got an FTF as well. I'll wait till Monday to take an August photo so I can submit another goal and then move it on again.

There are currently 5 White Jeeps that I've found listed in caches in Washington State. They are all in the mountains and only one is reachable by driving (with an SUV most likely). The rest are at least 6 mile hikes round trip! If you go to the Track Travel Bugs page and click on Advanced Search you can find all the logs for the Jeeps. I searched for "White Jeep" and came up with 5,015 travel bugs - the 5,000 from Jeep and 15 wannabes. I then scanned through them and found quite a few that had no miles logged on them yet and were still in the hands of the same user for at least a month or more! I e-mailed one of them and asked them if they were going to do what the Jeep's goals said (in the log they said they would move it along soon). They had over 2,500 finds and in their profile had the nerve to ask anyone if they wanted to "trade" Jeeps with them (they had 5). Can you believe this? A veteran cacher like that ought to set an example. It wouldn't take too many of us to pick a letter of the alphabet, find the White Jeeps that have been stagnating, and send a polite reminder to the current holder to move it along for others to enjoy. I'd be willing to help, for now it looks like I'm going hiking if I want another one....

Got the GPSMap 60CS Great receiver, accuracy is usually +/- 15' to 30' with even as few as 3 satellites. I've also had 12 birds on the screen simultaneously. Have US and south Canada on the mapping software - autorouting and address finding is very cool.