Sagefox

Yep. Nuvi does the road work for us too. We did upgrade to a Map62 so we could have cache page info at hand and that has been very nice. I was very good at balancing a gps and pda together in one hand but it is more relaxing now with one unit and its much easier to load cache page info straight into either the Map62 or Colorado than it was converting and loading into a pda. During our long DeLorme Challenge runs in Washington and Oregon and our recent completion of all three California DeLorme Challenges we had two handhelds with cache page info using one as backup. Many, many DeLorme pages on the west coast have no cell phone coverage and it could be a loooong drive if a unit failed us on the east side of the Sierras or in the California deserts.

Clearly, people have always been far less inclined to post N/As on virtual caches. Many virtuals were abandoned by their owners years ago but the caches live on subject to armchair logs and there are many virtual caches with active owners that ignore armchair logs. A container cache, however, with DNFs piling up leads to NM and almost invariably to NA logs if maintenance is not done.

I appreciate the time and thought you put into this and I gave it an open mind, trying to make it work for me - or, more importantly, work for reviewers. I don't see how this will solve the problem of people's subjective ideas about what constitutes adequate Sites and Properties. I fear too many people will, again, submit less than adequate proposals and then tear into the reviewers for denying them. This, too, will create headaches for the reviewers who will not be able to verify the conditions. The snarky answer here would be "and how did that work out for you the first time?" On the not-snarky side, virtual caches were too easy to walk away from when the C/O's lost interest in the game. With a physical cache folks will start complaining when maintenance is non-existent and the caches eventually succumb to peer pressure and the Needs Archived button. Changing the title of those who review these caches will not lessen the grief they will be subject to. The very fact that these reviewers are specialists, which would be good for the cause, will likely result in more denials.

Does any more than this really need to be said? It was a nightmare. And the "new blood" suggestion does not take into account that however many new quidelines you can imagine might work for virtual cache "wow" factor reviewers will still get bucket loads of carp from cachers unhappy that their lame virtual cache was not listed. We have a Prime Directive. A geocache must include a container and a logsheet. There are the few notable and heavily discussed exceptions. We don't need another category of exception to the Prime Directive.

Why did you let them discover it if they didn't see the actual TB? I'm sure the Google bit is a scam but what's Google got to do with discovering a TB that one must personally see to discover?

Some people actually get excited finding benchmarks. There's a whole section of the site dedicated to them. And they don't even complain that the benchmarks don't count in their find counts. Did someone say "benchmarks"? Yep. I love 'em. Something to search for and they often contain short bits of interesting history. I really like that they show in my stats but as Toz said we don't need them in our find counts. Virtual caches to me are collector's items. I don't care now if they have wow or not because they are in a permanent state of grandparental lockdown. I enjoyed most of the virts we found but a lot were very lame thus supporting the need for the Wow Factor. When they shut them down I understood why. I would not like to see the return of virtual caches, Wow, or not. I like that we have a "Prime Directive" (container with a log at minimum).

A 10-year souvenir icon would be fun. And Premium members could receive one also when they hit 10 consecutive years as a PM.

I would love to have the parking coordinates. This is starting to sound like a lot of fun.

Thanks. I see it comes with exercise too!

Can you post a GC#. I'm sure we have met the requirements and if the final is in near Washington State...

Yep. They hit one of our early TBs also. I came here to see if it has been reported. It has so I won't bother "contact" at this time. Happy to see it is under control. Looks like these guys are hitting virtual caches too.

I agree. Many errors in cache logs and forum posts are unintended typos but many others are lazy shortcuts. I am thankful that teen texting shortcuts have not gained a foothold in cache page logging. The TFTC and TNLNSL cache logs don't bother me though. EDIT: I agree that language is important but I have never corrected anyone's bad use of it other than occasionally to ask for clarification or tactfully describe how their cache page description could be misinterpreted. If texting conventions start showing up in cache logs that might lead me to develop a tactful way of suggesting that standard American English would gain the writer a bit more respect from fellow cachers.

A rest!!! We will have NO new challenge plans for quite some time to come. We made seven California trips during the past three years. Prior to that we had about 1/3 of the big book, 1/4 of the Southern book and 3/4 of the Northern book completed. We visit California two to three times a year anyway so the geocaching was easy enough to slip in. Only one trip was dedicated to geocaching only and that was via a flight to Southern California and a five night stay.

Hey Jim, we saw your sigs in many California caches during our travels! We knew you were having some out-of-state adventures.

Thanks Abby and thanks, too, for connecting me with Craig for that GSAK help.

Last week we finally completed all three California DeLorme Challenges. Having previously completed the Washington and Oregon DCs means we have now cached in every DeLorme page of the US west coast. It appears that we are the first to accomplish this task. Perhaps this post should be in Wienerdog’s Congratulations topic but after so much work for so many years I… well, you know, wanted to say something about this great adventure and maybe it might be of some interest here. California has three Delorme Challenges because DeLorme originally divided the state into Northern and Southern books. In 2008 DeLorme dropped the two book concept and now publishes only the “California Delorme” that covers the entire state. The pages of the new “California” atlas do not align with those of the original two books and this creates some confusing intersections and overlaps. It takes careful planning to prepare routes and then keep track of the finds. Qualifying cache finds that are used for the original underlying books cannot be used for the new book so after years of prowling around the state we had to revisit some areas. My thanks to Jester for providing some GSAK assistance to help with the difficult process of filtering the California finds in order to run the GSAK macros that California cacher Hynr created to help folks keep track of their DeLorme finds. Washington State is unique in that Mou10bike keeps track of our page progress for us and provides those excellent lists and maps on the WDC page. WDC cachers are very nicely spoiled! This has been an amazing adventure. We’ve been caching in all three states since 2001 but we hadn’t committed to any of the DC challenges until 2008. I didn’t know it would take five more years but, then again, in 2007 I thought our chances of completing any one of the books were slim. I found it interesting to note that participation in the DC challenges appears to be greater the farther north the book is located: Washington 109 found Oregon 56 California Northern 35 California Southern 11 Golden State (the BIG book!) 11 Some reasons for this certainly could be that Oregon’s population is less than Washington and that the California books all include six-months of hot summer and low elevation valleys and deserts. It was 108 degrees in three different geographic areas of the state we traveled in last week (in October!) and during our May trip it was 95 most days. The Golden State challenge is roughly the equivalent of any two of the other DC books. All of the DC cache owners are very enthusiastic about their challenges as are the people participating. We got to meet with four of the five DC owners for some very enjoyable story telling. We missed Moose Mob – rats! Completing a DeLorme Challenge cache is a remarkable adventure. DeLorme challenges are very rewarding in that we get to see every part of a state. The west coast has some amazing geology and to be out on the ground in it and finding geocaches is a great joy. Northern California Southern California Golden State Oregon Washington

If there is no underground marker then I would log this as "poor condition" because the disk is still there. Destroyed, to me, means that the marker and its host have been removed. I would still log this as "poor condition".

I've kept them all but I'm not sure why. They are in a box in the garage.

What is a platinum member? Is it higher than charter? That is something that is not talked about. It is almost a secret society. What I don't get is why Charter Members are not allowed into the Platinum Society! That really miffs me.

Not much to worry about here. People lose interest or go inactive for different reasons but the game goes on. The tb holder has done enough and they should move the tb on as they please. You can't expect a travel bug to sit around in a cache with out someone moving it. Until the tb owner edits the bug's page or posts a note with some instructions this bug is free to move about free form.

I've found it to be interesting. I haven't spent time yet to figure out the highest and best use but I have found that I use the links fairly often. I doesn't interfere with my use of the page.

This is exactly what we do. I had never thought about anyone objecting to that arrangement. I can't imagine why they would. I have been to all but three of our found caches: I was 20' away from one found by my wife on a different day, another cache my wife and others found while I was 600' away finding a different cache. In a perfect world maybe... (I didn't really mean to say "In your dreams!" it just slipped out.) I thought this, too, early on. Especially when one team-sounding account name was unbelievably far ahead of everyone else. Turns out she was a single cacher on a major unprecedented tear. There have been many complaints about teams through the years but I see it from a different perspective. Locally, people know who the teams are and how they cache - typically life-partners or families. It takes absolutely no effort to adjust one's perspective to see and accept that these teams are simply displaying their joint efforts. Our find counts are a measure of how much fun and adventure we are having and it is always nice to see the fun that others are having through their find counts and by reading their logs. Breaking up the total finds into possibly three different accounts seems like a lot of extra work for no apparent benefit. The individual accounts will not give a complete picture of the activity of the couple, family or friends while the team account will show the exact amount of cache finds that team has. I believe that there is likely only a very small percentage of unrelated people who combine as teams intentionally to run up their counts. They would not get individual credit for all that work with that method. I know there are temporary teams formed for short periods during cache runs and sometimes they split up and find separate caches where all individual accounts take credit but I suspect this amounts to a very, very small percentage of finds in any one individual account. If there are some that do have an exaggerated find through this method, again, I suspect is a small percentage of the total of active cacher accounts. By making a small adjustment in perspective this perceived problem will vanish from our personal stress locker and will vex us no more. Poof!

You may already be aware of this but cottage that was used on that movie is not too far away from you just a bit south of Mendocino... ...IMHO, that stretch of coast from the Navarro river north to Westport is about the prettiest there is on the California coast and I was born in a town in the middle of it. The Heritage Inn is now closed... As to the town of Fort Bragg (Fog Bragg). I owe my life to the medical staff at Mendocino Coast Hospital YIKES!!! What am I reading here, the Northern California Forum, or what? I know where Humboldt Flier is from but I had no idea that NYPC knew about the Mendocino Coast. We are originally from the Seattle area and are now back living on Puget Sound again but we spent 30 years in what I call our "extended visit" to California. All the that time we lived in Mendocino County (Mendocino, Little River and Fort Bragg). We discovered geocaching during that stay and back in the early days I voluntarily maintained about 20 caches that visitors would place on the coast as well as about 50 of our own. When we newly arrived the Heritage House Inn was used as the setting and sets for the movie Same Time Next Year as mentioned above. I was working in Elk during that time so I drove by every day. They filmed the exterior sequences all during on visit. Every two or three days the cars parked at the inn were of a slightly newer vintage. It was cool to see it. Many years later the construction company I co-managed bid on the "new" four-plex unit but did not get the job. We suspected we were being used by the owner to keep their regular contractor on his toes. Mendocino County, larger than each of our two smallest states, was late in gaining a cacher population. There were only ever about five active cacher accounts for the first five years, or so. I took until our about fourth year (2005) before we could find ten county caches in a single run. Interesting to read comments here about our former home area. I guess I will make a separate post to be on-topic.

Perhaps I just found out why you want to post coordinates with the degree symbols. This partial quote from one of your cache pages: "Starting point N49.49.390 W119.41.067 ..." A better way to provide this information is by using the "additional waypoints" feature on the cache online submittal form. When you use this feature the additional waypoints will download along with the primary coordinates. This way folks will have the additional waypoints in their gps units without having to enter them manually. This feature is excellent for parking and trailhead locations - in fact, that is what it was created for.

Why do you need the degree symbol? Where are you trying to post cache coordinates that you need a degree symbol? GC.com form only ask for the numbers and a N/S and E/W letters.