Sagefox

I found a travel bug that had been in a Washington State cache for over three months and during that time the Discover logs have been piling on, most apparently from European cachers. 18 discovered logs since it was placed in the Washington cache and an additional while the trackable was being brought to the states. Clearly this is a case of bogus logging but it seems like the trackable owner has encouraged this activity. The apparent bogus logs started suddenly in April 2014. Does Groundspeak want these situations reported? Do they lock down trackables where the owner does not delete or encourages bogus logs? I wrote this to several of the discoverers: What I have received so far is:

I have the macro installed and it appears to let me choose any GSAK database but just in case, I renamed my CM database to "default". I choose the default, run the macro and I get: Error in Macro at line: 16 FileRead File=$srcfile Error=> [File=] parameter is missing (Note: no spaces allowed either side the =) (error number: 631)

Yep. And the owner of that program is dedicated, full time, to maintaining and updating it. It's a fair price and well worth it.

I have always thought that reviewers should not be bothered with private mail unless there is something controversial that needs behind the scenes action. When it is obvious in the logs that the cache has major problems or is missing and the owner has not responded, typically for several months, the the risk is very low that anyone will jump down a throat. As I mentioned earlier, with rare exceptions no one, owner or local, ever comments when I post NAs for caches out of my area that I haven't visited and the cache usually gets archived because I read the conditions correctly. I find these NA situations when I am searching for individual caches to find before a trip.

Hummmmm... By my calculations your six minutes of freefall at 120 mph would put you approximately 48360 feet below the surface of the ground unless, perhaps, the ground were to stop your freefall quite suddenly. Now if you were to do a 180 mph head-down dive you could get much deeper!

I don't think NA posts are for local cachers only. Sometimes a cache is so insignificant in location or hide type that the locals don't bother with it. It can be tricky to post NAs without having been to the site. I have done it a few times over the years but only after carefully reading the DNFs or NMs. Those caches were always archived by a reviewer no fanfare or chatter from locals. I do this only when I have a good strong hunch that NA is needed. Your second example might qualify but I would probably not NA the first one without first driving by which you might be doing in the future. Probably not without an NA. Sometimes they do respond without NA but I suspect that is because they came across it on their own or someone told them about it. There are a lot of junk caches out there where owners have left the game or are not responsive and local cachers don't post NAs. Getting them archived from a distance, when appropriate, does not hurt our game. I have posted a lot of NAs over the years when travel-caching and I don't recall any cache owner ever complaining. They either fix the problem (seldom) or they never say a word and the cache gets archived. (Exception: a cluster of earthcaches (4) in my stomping grounds with gross errors and the CO ignored my comments for two years. CO did not make any changes after civil private mail and NM logs and only made corrections (3) or archived (1) after I posted NAs. He referred to the NM and NA logs as bullying and thought that someone who has never listed an earthcache should not have the right to post NM and NA logs. Earthcache owners are not in an exclusive club and have a responsibility to publish accurate information.) Anyway... I see no rush for you to post NAs especially since you will be traveling to that area and can verify the conditions. But on the on the other hand if your hunches are strong and the posted logs make it clear the caches are missing than it could not hurt to post NAs. Just remember though, you don't want to be jerking the volunteer reviewers around if there is a viable cache at the site. The DNFs could be because people saw one DNF and only did lazy searches after that.

I have kept a spreadsheet of all our caching activity for the past 13 years. Our dnf rate has remained constant and never varied by a full point: 7% of total cache attempts result in dnf when the cache is in place and findable. 10% when missing cache dnfs are added in.

Will do. It has always been quiet and sleepy when we've driven through Amboy but it has always been mid-day. This time I'm hoping to get a meal at Roy's cafe if the road closures haven't shut the place down.

Thanks for the tip. This trip is primarily for visiting significant history spots along the National Trails Highway rather than strictly caching. I am bringing a bike along so I can get to some places that might be blocked to cars. Power trail caching on a bike is a hoot!

A common comment here but I suspect abandonment happens independently of someone adding a log. The cache may have been abandoned long before the log was replaced. The question is not whether someone has abandoned their cache but whether the cache is viable. Replacing a log makes it viable. The next cachers will not know or care if the owner has quietly slipped out the back door because there will be a cache with a log to sign. If no one is interested in replacing the log then NM/NA will take care of it. I see no harm in replacing a log.

Yes, I was aware that this traveler could disappear but was not worried about it. This situation was just too far over the top and I was planning to retire the bug permanently rather than have those visits cover up the "real" travels. Fortunately, the holder is highly skilled with software and removed all the visits with lightening speed so that won't be necessary. I am reasonably certain that people who like the Visit All option don't realize that many people don't want multiple pages of visits or that some finders detest paging through tens to hundreds of visit logs to see where that trackable has actually been or if it reached its goal. My active travelers have a statement that nicely requests no more than a couple of visit logs per cacher with no threats of deleting logs. That request is almost always ignored. Most of our trackables do get hit with pages of visits since many cachers don't read the TB goals. Periodically I review our trackable pages and delete visit logs but this one would have been impossible for me to tackle.

Edit: Issue is resolved.

Edit: Issue resolved. And quite quickly too. Thanks.

Thanks for the link on the Edit Profile page: "Your changes have been saved. View your profile" I will be finding this little addition very useful.

My trip has been delayed about one month so maybe more road will be open by then. The SAGEFOX RV van only weighs 4750 lbs when loaded for travel so we would make the cut but I don't expect the bridges will be in place by then. I expect to be doing a lot of backtracking to get onto the road from different access points.

That was probably Roy's in Amboy which is about halfway through the route. We stayed at the motel in Ludlow but the pointy roof was probably Roy's. I just looked it up...it was the Ludlow Cafe., I think it has a cache in front of it on some miming equip. Yes, I've got that mining equipment cache in my bookmark. I remember the Ludlow Cafe building now that I've seen the photo. We've driven by it several times over the past 25 years but never stopped in. Maybe I'll stop by this time for a breakfast. Roy's has a different kind of pointy roof - very early 60s-ish.

Actually, it is quite a different issue. The husband and wife "team" are typically always a team and their account shows their team activity rather than individual accomplishments. Some couple-teams do a lot of separate caching and some only cache together. Either way it is easy to make the adjustment when viewing their stats.

That was probably Roy's in Amboy which is about halfway through the route.

It was a big rainstorm, especially for the desert. Goffs got two inches but Essex, in the power trail, is said to have had 5 to 6". With the road being closed along most of it's 109 miles the storm must have been wide spread. The bummer for me is that I will be in Goffs for the schoolhouse centennial celebration on Oct 12 and I was planning on doing extensive history stops along the NTH. I have a highly detailed book on the history of towns and homesteads along that highway and railroad line and I was going to stop at many of those sites with book and photos in hand and explore the ground. It was to include one night camped out on the NTH before moving on to Goffs. This was to be my great excellent adventure - a desert walkabout. Sure there are about 900 caches on that road but I was going to focus on history and benchmarks (historic markers) and then grab between 30 and 100 caches. (We drove the ET Highway last May, spent the night at the Little Ale Inn in Rachel and only grabbed 8 caches by car and another 13 on foot. We were on a different mission that trip. It could be a record for the most caches passed up on that highway! :o ) If the road sections are still closed when we leave town I will throw on the bike and see what I can do by peddling. I can access the middle of the power trail by an open north-south highway.

I am posting here rather than in West/Southwest because most of the power trail topics seem to be here and because people travel from all over the country to do PTs in California and Nevada. Bad news for anyone wanting to visit the National Trails Highway power trail (a.k.a. Route 66) in the near future. I received an email from the Mojave Desert Cultural and Heritage Association in Goffs, CA that most of this highway from Ludlow to Goffs is closed and that the Highway Patrol is ticketing anyone driving around barriers. Best check road conditions before heading to this trail. My experience is that when bridges are washed out on this highway they can remain out for a long time. Here is a link to San Bernardino County Public Works. Click on the Road Closures to get to a Word document that lists all highway section closures.

Hey, thanks! It's now on our profile. That looks slightly off for me in Firefox. Larry's looks perfect. Hummmm. I checked with two computers; one Firefox, one Chrome, and an Ipad and they all show the dnf box in the correct spot. Maybe you didn't mean me.

Hey, thanks! It's now on our profile.

You really don't understand age... but you will in the future! I am also 68 and I am about a 50/50 solo cacher also and I love it. This year I have gone places that no one of any age should go solo. Arizona forests, fresh bear scat on the long trail, mountain lion country with fresh sightings, a long night cache. And mountain lion meetings, bad neighborhoods, narrow log bridges to cross over raging winter streams. I don't do this because I am super cool. In fact, I am usually dealing with my fear levels, but there is a cache out there that must be found! You will be pleasantly surprised when you reach this age and discover that you don't feel as old as you thought you would when you were the age that you are now.

Me too. And I love the ape event every year and I love the monster hiding inside! FYI it's 2.3 miles of ice cold , wet love. Oops, I knew that. 2.3 miles.