SeekerOfTheWay

Hey, peanut butter jars aren't cheap! Lol I agree though. Ammo cans are the best! You can get them for $6 bucks a can at the geostore on the east coast of FL. They have an online store too. But shipping makes them come out to something like $18 a can. I use ammo cans in ares where there are controlled burns (like Myakka Forest). They survive fires!

Lol! It won't change. I've changed Miles From Nowhere to Englewood, Florida and it doesn't show up in the forums. When I look at my profile my forum title reads: Englewood, Florida. What gives?

I always have to poke around a while to find some of these obscure settings. So you're not alone. Go to your Account, and click "Edit" in your Profile. You'll end up here: http://www.geocaching.com/account/editprofile.aspx Edit the "Forum Title". Thanks. Adding my location back.

Large plastic peanut butter jars are great! Cheap, big and watertight. I have seen peanut butter jars covered in mud and in a puddle here but the contents are bone dry. Since then I now use them. I leave mine as-is but you can camo paint them too. You can fit a good sized log book inside and trade items if you want. I always fill with bleach and water and let it sit a few days. Then run them through the dishwasher. I hide them in the wilderness and haven't had any issues with animals bothering them.

I don't care about trading items either. The caches I have after a hike (1-8 miles) I leave an ammo can and a larger log book. I usually put a FTF prize in it but I don't fill them with trade items. My last ammo can I left a FTF, STF and a book in the can. Along with a bigger log and pen. But having a larger sized log book and a pen is nice on the hiking caches. A micro is a pain to sign, no pen, needs log changed more often and is just harder to find, no matter the CO description. Ammo can is perfect for remote locations!

I think this is really important too! I tell my hubby where I'll be and I post the coordinates that I'm headed to on Facebook in case something happens.

Ha. It took me years to build up my survival kit from experiences I've had! I hiked pretty tough trails in Colorado when I lived there and just added some Florida related stuff to my kit. Sounds like a lot I guess but it all fits easily into my day backpack! I like being prepared. Makes me feel safer. I cache alone in preserves and parks.

Yes! I really appreciate when a CO places hiking caches in a loop or along a trail that I can do in one trip. I'd love to do a trail of 20 miles and cache all along it.

Find more parks with caches! I'm vowing to not hunt LPC or guardrail caches unless I'm there and bored.

I always bring water, no exceptions! Pens First aid kit Snake bite kit Flare Flint Matches Fueled wood bits Tin foil Foil blanket Whistle Pepper spray Mirror Bells Chap stick Extra batteries BlackBerry Can opener Rope Tarp Tea Candles Bug spray Calomine lotion Swiss army knife

Wow, those are pretty long hikes! I'll check out the pages. Thanks!

The caches I've placed, are close to the vicinity (50 to 300 feet depending on which cache you search for) of "old forgotten forest trails" and in the vicinity of new established ones which lead to these forgotten trails. Part of the experience is for the cacher to discover the maps and use the resources available on line (see the first in my series No Name Lake, GC2CRZ1 where I listed links). As far as bushwacking, I love and use the track back feature on my GPS! That's a good idea, about leading to forgotten trails. I'll keep that in mind! I love the backtrack feature too! I used to get turned around so easily when I just had my BlackBerry app to cache. Now I can see an overview of where I am. Backtrack works so easily to get back the way I came!

My long hike caches are accessible by established trail. I don't have any that require bushwhacking. I like staying on main and animal trails myself because it gets creepy to me being out 3 miles off a path! But, I would (and have) found caches like that! So I'd hunt those, but not hide. Also, I needed permits for these forest hides and I think having them right off main trails helped them get approved. I'm not telling others to chop stuff down! Lol

I see your point and agree! I only use the word "hike" in my cache titles if the walk is more than a mile. Otherwise it's a walk or stroll. My first 3 caches in Myakka Forest aren't accessible by anything but foot (or horse). The one I just placed could be "cheated" I think and driven to down a service road. But I hope that doesn't happen. I can't control how folks get it though. I thought about saying that my FTF and STF prizes are ONLY for those that actually walked to the location and didn't drive... Thoughts?

If I can't find the actual cache I just log the decoy as found. Just kidding. But I do love finding decoys. They make me laugh and I figure at least I found something. Now, 3 decoys is about my limit. Any more than that I get frustrated. I found 2 caches and found 5 decoys at each! I gave up and DNF both caches. So, there's a limit for me. I prefer 1-3 decoys. Sometimes they help locate the cache.

My caching style has definitely changed since I started. I first went for all caches in my area, then got the hard ones in my area as well as rushing out for FTF. Now I don't care about FTF so much and I'm much more selective about the caches I hunt now that I've found what I like. I'm sure this mean my cache numbers will go way down. But I'll be enjoying hiking more!

Not if you like hiking or park/scenic caches. I want to get out of the car and walk. Road trips are saved for another week!

Agreed. It's frustrating wasting time looking for parking. Post parking as a waypoint or put the address in the cache page. I've done that with many of my caches and am working to update the rest. I always at least mention a street name.

I'm pretty excited about my latest cache waiting to be published. It's the longest hiking cache that I've hidden and the longest hike to a cache in my town. It's 8 miles RT and took me 2 hours and 20 minutes moving time to hike to and from GZ, which is a primitive campsite. The other 3 I have in the same forest are longish hikes too. How long are your hiking caches? In miles and time? I'd love to look at other hiking caches pages. Thanks!

Thanks for the list and the video. Good tips. I'm slowly building my hiking kit.

I grabbed a trail map last week that has the coords to a primitive camp site I planned on hiking to. Unfortunately, my hubby accidentally tossed it and there are no maps here at the trail. I'm about 45 mins in with no GPS coords to follow. I called the DOF and they couldn't tell me the coords. If anyone knows the coords for the Pine Straw Camp site I'd really appreciate it. It's in the Myakka State Forest in FL. I can email a PDF of the map if that helps. I have my BlackBerry out here so can check that. Chrisy520@gmail.com Thanks

Addisonbr pointed out in another thread that the triad caches had a lot of votes. I mentioned that they're also in a area where there are a lot of geocachers. I hope that we don't start equating popular caches (because it has a lot of votes) with quality. A decent cache in an area with a high density of geocachers is going to get found a lot more than a decent cache in an area with only a handful of active geoecachers. Since we can only vote for caches that we have found, a really excellent cache in a sparsely populated area could have a lot fewer votes than a decent cache in an area with a lot of geocachers. It will be helpful though to be able to look at a cachers favorites list. If I know another cacher also likes hiking ones, I can read their list and do those caches when I'm in their area! Pretty neat. How do we view a players favorites? I added all mine last night.

Abandoned caches or caches that the CO doesn't check on regularly.

These aren't the same type of lamp post with a skirt as found in many a big box parking lot. There's lots of reasons to not like LPC hides. This isn't one of them. An unproperly grounded lamp post is an unproperly grounded lamp post doesn't matter if it a city owned lamp post or a wally world lamp post. Both will kill or maim. A lamp post in a Wal-Mart parking lot will likely encounter a Wal-Mart shopper before it encounters a cacher. Are you suggesting we simply avoid all parking lots due to the danger of lamp posts? Why are Wal-Mart customers looking under lamp post skirts? I think eventually someone(s) will die or be really hurt by a LPC gone bad. There's just something about electricity that scares me. I feel safer driving to a cache than I do touching a metal pole that's wired. Just seems risky. Can't your heart be stopped by just a small amount of electric

Thanks for the links. I'm off of LPCs now!