Sagefox

It is not realistic that someone with 7k would log 1000 in this manner and if you discard the power trails it would be perhaps more like a few dozen. By making a generalization like this you end up misjudging and misunderstanding who those folks are. You might want to keep in mind that power trails and throw-down caching are only a part of what these folks have done and somewhere in those 7k finds are hundreds or thousands of traditional cache finds. Throughout their caching time they may find just as many, if not more, quality caches as anyone else whom you might think of as acceptable cachers. They just add this other stuff on top of those experiences. (Disclosure: We are not power trail or throw-down cachers.)

We have a special fondness in our hearts for our "old" 60CS (no X). Hardly seems fair to call it old or old school when it was soooooooo good to us for the six years it was the workhorse. We even bought second one, used, for $40 so we would each have one in hand... and then along came Colorado. I think I understand your method of caching and I don't want to discourage you from a system that, in itself, is a rewarding part of the game for you. At some future date you might find that you want more cache data at hand for caching farther afield and over a longer period of time than memorized pages are practical. It is a lot of fun to be able to read cache descriptions and especially log entries while at ground zero or before committing to a long side trip. The Colorado and 62 series are so easy to load cache pages into and you don't have to do anything to get cache names instead of gc numbers. Used and refurbished Colorados must be quite reasonably priced now since the 62 came out. I saw referbs for $187 two years ago. Used ones must be very reasonable. Anyway, just some thoughts to file away for some future amusement.

Spinner will give you a file with name abbreviations and it will give you a data file for a PDA if you use one for paperless caching. I use Spinner for cache names for our Nuvi and for when we use the Map60s.

I think it is better to explain how it should be done, especially when they are new. Peer support is good for this game.

I used to do a bit of skydiving in the 90s and really wanted to jump out of a 1950s Beachcraft twin, I don't know the model numbers. They were verey popular for skydiving back then but only a few left in service in the 90s. During my time the Beachcraft KingAirs were hot along with the de Havilland Twin Otters. I would LOVED to have visited your cache at this site. Sorry to hear it has to be retired.

The people who bought Premium Memberships on geocaching.com back then were the ones who trusted the site owners enough, and bought into the geocaching-as-a-hobby concept enough, to be willing to take the (albeit) small risk of a Premium Membership purchase. ...there were way, way fewer caches (and fewer benefits for having a Premium Membership), and then financially stick with it all these years. Yep. We were ever so happy to part with the money and keep on doing it over the years. Even a friend of ours who was on very low income was happy to send in the dough. Great times then and still great today.

Yep. That is the way foresters and conservationists keep track of trees too. We have a forester in the family and I went out with him a couple of times to "do plots"... nailing tags to trees so when they go back in ten years they can track the growth of the selected trees. It's not the nails or screws that are the problem, nails and screws don't hurt trees. Think about all those tree branches that break off every winter. Those breaks expose a lot of fresh wood but the tree has defenses to heal those wounds. As has been said here already and always is said when this topic comes up, it is the appearance of harm or disrespect that is the problem. Thankfully, it seems as though few people report these marginal and harmless kinds of cache hides.

Very cool sounding trip. Will follow the blog and then chat with you the next time we see you... possibly at the Longview Cache Machine.

We live next to a rails-to-trails where we have four caches and there were a total of about 10 in a six mile section. Last year someone placed 27 additional caches and I had some of the same thoughts as you have posted. None of my concerns proved to be problems. Our caches are not lost in the mix and have been found more frequently now that more people come to the trail. I never had this thought but it does not seem, at all, to be a selfish act. I'm not sure I could even recall the account name who placed these caches. The owner has been very responsive to the few maintenance issues that have arisen and wrote me a thank-you note when I posted some comments about a missing cache. I don't see this kind of evidence along our trail. All the caches are within a few feet of the trail. As to leaving "stuff all over the place" goes, even ten caches per mile is a miniscule amount of physical stuff. This was my biggest concern in the beginning but it seems to be a pretty quite issue after the initial shock. I have one of the caches on a watch list and there are not all that many folks out doing this suburban trail. It averages probably two to ten people a week and we live in a city complex of 125,000 population and are easily accessible by folks from Seattle and Tacoma. This is a bit harder to address because of the emotional nature of the concern. It's a commonly voiced feeling here in the forums so there must be something to it. I think Toz's comments gave a nice broad view of the power trail issue and why these caches are listed. Power trails are a relatively new direction in this social experiment (geocaching) and while it may seem alarming at first the local bike trail power caches seem to be quite compatible with our normal caching patterns. I didn't get around to doing our power trail caches until about six months after they were published and we are very active cachers.

Yep. This is the way I like them.

I love fake rock caches and wish there were more of them. It is good when they look just a tad bit fake so you can have that ah-ha moment when you spot it.

Hello m@m@ and welcome to geocaching! I think that is very cool that there is a cache just across the street from you in that big red wheel. Your "Found It" could be a record for a geocacher's first find closest to a geocacher's home, and possibly also for shortest time between initial logging on to gc.com and first cache find. When we checked out the gc.com website, way back in 2001, and discovered this secret society had place a few caches around our remote rural location we got quite excited and rushed out that afternoon for three finds a few miles from our home. But to find one right across the street from your house... that must have been quite a thrill.

Don't forget to tuck and roll!

Yikes! I've been busy the past few months and have not been reporting in here too often so I missed this topic. Well, I gotta say that my name is Ed, too, and I had a triple in 1997 and there have been no problems with that work. These guys are very good with this op. Best of luck and I will keep checking back.

A group of us are planning on finding 29 caches on the 29th and then attending a dinner event. That should help make up for missing this day four years ago.

I did a search but could not find a topic reminding folks to find at least one cache on Leap Day since the chance comes only once in every 1461 days. There are two types of cachers who will need to do this: A: Those who ARE filling out their Finds Each Day of the Year calendar, and, B: Those who ARE NOT filling out their Finds Each Day of the Year calendar but, as yet, are unaware they might regret having missed this day sometime during the next four years.

Yikes! I see that lucyandrickie quietly grabbed their 9th k. That's one hot find down there in Chile-land. Nice work!

Hummmm... The Narcissa character in the Harry Potter series might say something like this too. But, happily enough, by the end of the book series she came around and did something quite respectable. Wouldn't know. I have heard that there is a character with my name, but I've been using this name as an internet handle for 17 years. Just another thing that fans the flames of my annoyance with Harry Potter and its fanbase. Yes, maybe I understand where you are coming from. My name has been Ed for more than 17 years and it was Ed even before "Mr. Ed" became a television hit. (Drat them, how could they do that to me??? ) ... but you gotta come up with something better than "Harry Potter is gross and so is anybody who likes it." if you want anyone to rationally consider your feelings on this particular dislike of yours.

I get it. You are making a statement, not a rant. Hopefully my response will be viewed similarly. As you point out, some public agencies and perhaps some private companies become aware of geocaching and develop policies regarding cache placement. These agencies are the exception and are being treated differently. The others are simply in the larger group of entities that have not requested specific permissions. I see no need for reviewers to apply the same standards when listing these caches. I think concerns about cache placement should, wherever possible, be dealt with on an individual basis: cache owner integrity, reviewers' noses conditioned to sniff out problems with the individual listings, and secondarily, the cache searchers who can make comments or even report specific problem cache placements. That some entities request special treatment does not, in my opinion, mean we need to treat all cache placements with the same policies just for the sake of consistency.

Hummmm... The Narcissa character in the Harry Potter series might say something like this too. But, happily enough, by the end of the book series she came around and did something quite respectable.

That's because, in those particular incidents, your body did not provide an efficient path to ground through your heart or brain. A former, and still living, neighbor of mine once decided to throw a snapped 6900 volt, uninsulated wire off his wood fence because he thought it might start a fire. He figured that because he was wearing tennis shoes he would be safe... the wire stayed on the fence and he got flung across the yard. He was very lucky. (PG&E installed a new 45' high power pole within a week to move the high-voltage overhead wires only 5 feet so any future line-break would not fall on that guy's property.) But, it only takes around .01 to .02 of an amp to kill you if conditions are right. Your GFCIs in your kitchen and bathroom trip before the current gets that high. Check this out:

So sorry to hear this. The Puppers influence ranged even as far as Mendocino County, California back when we lived there. A, to this day, very difficult cache to find was FTF'd by you guys in early 2006 when almost no one else could. Friendly email assistance from you encouraged us to make that 3rd and 4th trip until Spark finally made the find. Our thoughts are with you.

Good work and congratulations!

Limiting creativity is a long way from "stifling" the entire game. But, then too, that post (not yours) was the most common of overreactions: Cache denied therefore Groundspeak has ruined the game. My error was in responding to it. The OPs long, drawn out, I'll fight you on any point of logic you can present (which I read 76.3% of) was not selling the point for me. But your concise example makes sense. I think I might go ahead and cast a vote.

This game has been stifled? I find there are plenty of interesting new caches being listed. Are you saying that the guidelines are intentionally encouraging only P&Gs and/or whatever you mean by simplicity? Are there not enough interesting caches being listed in your area? If so, can you show that is it due to the guidelines? I haven't yet seen how geocaching.com has stifled the game or, in this case, how if they don't allow caches described by the OP that the majority of those playing this game will suffer any significant setbacks.