[Searching For Caches With Interactive Fiction Backstories]

Some of the best in our area are put out by Geowomyn. She's done several series with original story lines where the cacher moves along with the story. Check this one out ... I think it's an example of what you are looking for.

 

Mayan Silver

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...33-8991fb2d55b7

 

(This page is the introduction, each cache is linked to the next and tells a chapter of Isabelle de Corazon Teresa's story.)

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Looks like it was a power outage followed by some bring-up/restore issues relating to a Microsoft update.

 

Here's a link to a GBA thread describing the issue ....

 

http://www.thegba.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=989

 

Thanks for the responses .... I thought it might be me/my computer! /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Anyone else having problems getting to GBA.Net today (Thurs, Jan 5) ??? Just wondering if it's my PC! /Lefty

[International Travel With Gpsr]

I've taken mine to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, France and Great Britain without any problems. Once I got stopped at security and got ready to explain my GPSr but (whoops) I had a small pocket knife the X-Ray had picked up instead. The security guy at SFO said they see GPSr's all the time. /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

I was reading through some old posts (bored I guess!) when I came across this post by Kablooey from March 2003 commenting on the mystical properties M&J might get as they passed certain find thresholds. They hadn't hit their first 1000 yet so little did anyone know at the time ....

 

Yeah, see, you're moving in the wrong direction. When you hit 1000, you should be able to find caches just by looking at the aerial map. When you hit 2000, you should be able to find caches just by using The Force. When you get to 3000, you'll be able to look at a set of coordinates and say "I know right where that one is. I was going to hide one there next week."

 

So enquiring minds want to know - Can you?

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

True Budd-RDC. The next generation (which I define as anyone younger than me! ) has negative associations with words like Feminist, Peace Activist and Environmentalist even when they share many of the values. Basically they've been tarred and feathered with the more extreme actions of those assocated with them. Interesting but not without historical parallels. There's a thesis there for somebody. /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Just look at the find totals and compute the mileage most of these people are putting on their cars for caching and you'll see the gas usage and air pollution alone disqualify them.

I must respectfully disagree with you on this one Rat.

 

If I were going to start a a search for a collection of budding environmentalists, Geocaching would be a good place to start. This is a group of people who have chosen to spend their free hours enjoying the outdoors over many competing interests. Most have explored a wide range of the area's outdoor preserves and encouraged others to do the same.

 

These values probably carry over into other life choices as well. While I haven't heard of anyone chaining themselves to a tree my guess is a good many Geocachers donate to the Sierra Club, are thoughtful in their commercial choices and look for environmental positions before going to the polls. I KNOW that a prominent reason many families give for taking up the sport is the desire for a fun way to expose children to the area's parks and open spaces. Getting young kids into the outdoors is hardly "anti-environmental"!

 

There are many possible definitions of "Environmentalist" but in my book any definition that disqualifies all/most Geocachers is much too narrow.

 

I do take your point on making wise decisions vis a vis carpooling etc. Caching in groups is a good thing for LOTS of reasons but one is certainly environmental conscienceness.

 

Respectfully, /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

For me a hike in some of the rural parks rewarded by a cache at a clear destination is enough and the experience isn't aided by a dozen less interesting caches along the way.

What makes these other caches less interesting? To me, a good cache is good regardless of density.

 

--Marky

Well, I tried to word that carefully to avoid saying things like "not yours of course!" to all of the great cachers on this forum. I like our game plenty as it is but recognize the small group of enthusiast I joined in 2001 has become a much larger game in 2005 that may require some "fine tuning".

 

To answer your question the "best" locations are usually grabbed first so the first 5-10 grab the good spots with later caches reduced to clustering around the unremarkable rest stop along the way unless someone gets creative.

 

Again, this is personal preference, I'm completely happy picking up 1 - 4 caches and enjoying the hike while someone else might want to pick up 20 caches along the way.

 

To some exent this is a side issue. What I'm MORE worried about is that Cache saturation goes beyond a personal concern when it becomes (or is thought to be) a problem for the local park authorities.

 

In the scheme I mentioned we become "self policing" and hopefully preempt the authorities stepping in with more draconian measures. So the M&J cache " Split Rock" gets listed as a rural cache and stakes that corner of Almaden Quicksilver out and we avoid a set of me-too caches like (the nonexistant) Split Rock 2, Rest Stop near Split Rock and Yet Another Split Rock. It also puts a de facto limit on the absolute number of caches in AQS. (Geesh I probably stuck my foot in my mouth here! Any resemblance to names of specific caches is TOTALLY unintentional!)

 

My thought was to recognize the different topologies (urban, rural and suburban) in a way that lets Geocaching becomes self limiting without someone trying to judge the quality of individual caches. Plus, it allows the cache hider to specify the topology himself so that if you think Almaden valley is Urban, go for it and you'll set a 0.1 mile limit. If the next guy thinks it's Suburban also fine - since his designation is stricter he'll need an 0.2 mile radius to hide his cache. With the modified rules the max carrying capacity of a region changes dramatically, a 1 mile square area can have up to 121 caches at 0.1 mile intervals but only 9 caches at 0.5 mile intervals.

 

Just a thought and I stand down from my soap box now.

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

My thoughts on this are still in their infancy stage so be nice!

 

I worry about the "power trails" forming in some parks. For me a hike in some of the rural parks rewarded by a cache at a clear destination is enough and the experience isn't aided by a dozen less interesting caches along the way. So ... I'll rarely get more than 2 or 3 caches on an outing even if I pass right by 7-8 others on the way.

 

This is my personal choice and others probably feel differently. What pushes this into a wider concern is the "risk" of overloading a park and upsetting the local authorities.

 

What if a cacher logged a cache as either Rural, Suburban or Urban and the distance restrictions were changed for each designation? Say Urban remained at 0.1 miles, Suburban at 0.25 miles and rural at 0.4?

 

Hair splitting perhaps but this could set a defacto limit on how crowded some of our nearby parks get without having anyone feel "singled out" by the rule change.

 

Bottomline, we do have to come to terms with cache saturation in some nearby parks sooner or later unless Geocaching participation starts to decline.

 

Just a thought ... don't shoot me!

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Unlike many of those outside of the Bay Area where caches are sparse, I've still got thousands of local caches (within 20 miles) that are available despite my 275 cache total. So gasoline isn't a huge factor for me - workload on my day job has had a MUCH more negative impact on my cache total.

 

Things might look different if you live in Montana. (or if your name is Marky or David!) /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Re: Caching in Ireland

 

Well, I've seen the inside of a few pubs and didn't have to go 30 miles to find them. In lieu of caching I'm expanding my Irish stout experience beyond Guiness to Beamish and Murphy's!

 

No car on this visit although I'm well used to driving on the "wrong side" of the road. I'm already working on a creative rationale for why I'll need to get a car on my next trip to Ireland but it WILL need to be creative. I'm not sure that my need to do early morning caching runs will make it by the travel auditors.

 

For this trip, Nazgul's micro dragon TB will just have to stay in the case and get a bunch of unlogged miles. /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

I'm visiting Cork Ireland this week on business and hoped to do a little caching while on the island. Believe it or not there are no caches within approx. 30 miles so it won't happen this trip. Geeesh .... and Cork is the second largest city in the Republic. I knew I'd miss the Bay Area.

 

On the other hand, the Murphy's and Beamish taste pretty good. /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

When they reach 1,000 we should give them an engraved red Swingline stapler.

 

But just THINK of all the "flair" they've collected. Way more than 37 pieces. /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Hey, congrats to TPS. Just be sure to put that cover sheet on your TPS reports.

 

They probably didn't get the memo. /Lefty

 

========================================

 

Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working….I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work - the rest is caching. – Peter Gibbons

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Calero is an interesting thought ... I haven't been there for years although recent logs mention trail closures.

 

Since a notorious family incident I'll never live down relating to a July excursion to Pinnacles, I tend to hike the Santa Cruz mountains in the summer and the more Eastern parks in the Winter. I notice that this Winter I've mainly concentrated on Almaden Quicksilver and Sierra Azul.

 

What do folks here see as the "Can't Miss" winter parks/caches for our last months of this glorious winter?

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Here are the dates. Lokks like Quicksilver is in April. Wonder if we could make it a CITO event and realy pull in some crowds to help?

 

I really ike that idea ..... I'm sure the cachers that showed up would represent well. It would be great to pick out 1 large projects per quarter and "sponsor" them as Geocaching events. It would be a great way to give back to the trail and park system that all of us love.

 

Do you think Jeremy and co. might consider a separate "Trail Days" icon?

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Sounds like the big park group we haven't mentioned is the Mid Peninsula Open Space Preserve that covers Foothill, Purisma, Los Trancos, etc. Anyone know how Geocaching sits with those folks or if they are open to community participation in their planning sessions? They would leave a big hole if lost to the sport!

 

I also like the idea of groups of us participating in trail days, etc. Wouldn't it be neat if a group of 7-10 Geocachers showed up at the next Almaden/Quick Silver trail day all wearing Geocaching shirts and ready to put in some serious work?

 

I'm willing!

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Copy of e-mail sent to Geowomyn .... Bad news on her excellent Ardenwood series. This stuff is depressing, I wonder if we've hit some sort of "critical mass" in the bay area where the game is awaking folks in authority and inviting such responses. Maybe we should come up with some simple guidelines on saturation levels within a park or region. Not that Geowomyn's series violated any of this. Depressing.

 

A portion of my e-mail reviewing the Ardenwood reaction.

 

I went over to Ardenwood around noon to eat a picnic lunch and pick-up a few of your caches in this excellently designed series.  While paying my $2 entrance fee the young Ranger manning the desk noticed my GPSr.  His comment, in politely official tone, "We don't allow GPS stuff in this park"; of course he meant caching as opposed to simply using a GPS device.  After realizing he wasn't joking, I questioned him on this in my best low key manner and was told that his boss had found out about the Ardenwood caches and that they would be removed because they involved digging within the park  and were not approved.  His comment, "My supervisor was pretty upset".  He also said that three caches had been removed and they were looking for the others.  I let him know that it would surprise me if any digging was involved given my experience with your caches and that I was sorry about their decision.

 

I did a quick search for "Moosic" and didn't find it, the cache may still be there but I wasn't going to look too hard today in order to avoid antagonizing the rangers.  I went on to eat my lunch and then returned to talk to the same ranger again after giving the matter some thought.  In my conversation I let the ranger know how Geocaching works and that your series had probably brought over 70 families to the park.  I also let him know that common practice was to make caches "minimally invasive" and that most of the Ardenwood caches were probably of the 35 mm log only variety.  I dropped off a couple of your Ardenwood cache printouts so they could see how well designed the series was and let him know that his supervisor could contact you via e-mail link from the cache web page.  I also let him know that normally a GeoCacher will remove their own caches if requested to do so by someone in authority as a matter of game policy. 

 

The ranger was polite but a wary and said he would pass on the info and cache sheets to his supervisor.  I  believe Ardenwood is part of the EBRP group which has had a couple of run-ins with Geocachers in the past although this was not brought up in our conversation.

 

Sigh ... Probably should have mentioned CITO and other positive things about Geocaching but it wouldn't have helped. The decision is being made above him and the impression this man's supervisor had passed on to his crew of Ardenwood rangers was uniformly negative.

 

/Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

I'm attending a company party in SF this weekend and <gasp> we found someone to watch the kids overnight. This is a memorable event and should be celebrated as it happens about once every other year.

 

Anyone have a couple of "must do" San Francisco caches for us to check out? We've hit "Sounds of the Bay" but little else in the city up North.

 

Thanks. /Lefty & wife - SANS KIDS

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Probably posted before but ...

 

For those interested here's the website explaining the "Earthcache" concept and listing all Earthcaches whether released or under development. Note that the National Park Service is a sponsor of this concept along with the Geological Society of America. They even offer small grants to promote the concept to GSA members.

 

Pretty cool that the NPS is involved given their skepticism to Geocaching in the past. No doubt the "virtual only" rule was a deal maker.

 

/Lefty

 

http://www.geosociety.org/earthcache/

[The One Ring To Rule Them All.....]

Thought I had an idea on some of the clues but, alas, the ring is well hidden. If anyone was thinking of the Powder House at AQS, you can cross it off your list now. STill, a nice hike on a beautiful day - life is good .... and at least the Nazgul haven't captured the ring. Yet. /Lefty

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

I had exactly the same experience at Skyline yestereday with the Oregon cache and SHhhhhhh .... . The needle was varying by over 0.1 miles! It eventually settled down but after a power cycle it was off by another 80 feet. It just wasn't my day and Nurse Dave's new caches were left for another day.

 

It's encouraging to hear that others were having the same problem. /Lefty

 

P.S For reference, my problems occurred at about 3:00 PM.

[SF Bay Area geocachers]

Agreed - the best weekend in months!

 

We spent a little time in Almaden Quicksilver ourselves, mostly hiking and enjoying the views, but of course we also picked up some caches. This wasn't the only interesting part of the weekend for Team KH&J, along with the good time outdoors I also accepted a new job on Friday thus ending 6 weeks of GLORIOUS unemployment. If one is going to be unemployed Christmas isn't a bad time for it. With my new employment I expect my caching numbers will go down ... along with the Christmas bills. So, with the bad much good.

 

Marky, I'm glad a fellow cacher didn't need to go through this. Although, the employment climate looks much better than it has for the last 5 years, the uncertainty is wearing. /Lefty

[The One Ring To Rule Them All.....]

Ok great wizards and brave rangers, reveal your secrets. I get the Legolas - Lets go Lego's connection after the fact but the Hannah's Coronation - Google Falls link is beyond the discernment of this simple Shire dweller. /Lefty

[Kauai Caching- Feb]

Enjoyed Kauai during our vacation this July/August and can highly recommend the "Sea Lodge Beach Cache". It's in the Princeville area and will help you find a "secret" and very little used beach after a short but steep hike from the bluffs above.

 

Have fun - We're jealous. /Lefty