calamitystrange

HA HA HA !!!! hilarious!

*whew* you guys are so serious! i thought geocaching was supposed to be a fun game. i am a newbie. i have some hides. i have one hide that barely anyone in my area has found and more people are watching than have DNF'd (obviously they DNF'd!) i would imagine, although no one has said so yet, that some of the more experienced cachers in the area that have looked and not found it- think it's a 'bad hide'. there are two things that make this cache hard to find. 1. there is no cell reception and VERY bad GPS signal where it is located. (nothing i can do about that) 2. it is a micro hidden in VERY good camo. because i am new-ish, and therefore not predictable yet, they just don't know what to look for. a couple of people i know personally have found it, because they were super persistent (4 times to the site) and because i assured them it was there. then no one else found it for awhile, so i went out to check on it. yes, there it was, but even i had a hard time finding it. like i said excellent camo! finally another person recently found it and she logged precisely what needed to be said "you can totally see it if you are looking at the right place from the right direction, but otherwise -- no way!" since then, i placed three more caches nearby- sort of leading to this area, to try and entice folks to come back out and have another go. is a cache that is "too hard to find" a "bad cache"? when it comes to this activity- i understand the frustration of DNF-ing. i also understand the accomplishment of then finding a previous DNF because i was dadgum well determined to find it.

i have often wondered that myself. although i agree, if you don't want the hint, just don't read it. there are a LOT of caches in the area i live that the hint tells you precisely where the cache is once you get to the location. for instance: "under bench, left end, magnetic" i prefer caches that are a bit harder to find, and the hint is more like a "clue" than a give-away. i am not passing judgement on how others make their caches, i just choose to make my hints a little less obvious, 'cuz that's the way i like it.

thanks for your input everyone. i totally agree about "if you don't want to lose it- don't put it out there" of course, and i'm not that concerned about the item. i'm not *that* sentimental. i was more shocked at the behavior of the finder- but i haven't been involved very long- that's why i wanted to hear what other people had to say. it's interesting to hear so many stories. i will just go replace it, and make sure if i hide one of those again that i mention the 'no tools required' bit in the listing.

thanks GGB. i just found those too!

i recently hid a new cache in a very neat and unusual container. it was a relic from my childhood: a metal, waterproof, match container, that had an unusual way of being opened. it required a certain method of unscrewing tension so that it could be 'flipped' open. the logs of the people that had found it were intrigued by it's unusual construction: "I think it took longer for me to figure out how the container worked than locating the cache. Interesting." "This container sure took awhile to figure out how to open and close!" "Finding it is half the problem. Opening it, the other half. Another clever little cache." and so on. this morning i received this note: "...we must have spent at least 15 minutes trying to open it. Eventually, I used a bottle opener, thinking I could put things right after opening it. Wrong! So, now the end is pried open and the cache could use some TLC. However, it securely back in it's location." and i am SO bummed. part of the beauty of geocaching is finding caches that are NOT simple to open and require some thinking. in the event a person has trouble figuring out how to get it open, all one has to do is read the previous logs to discover that, yes, it is possible to open this without breaking it. this is one of my favorites, and clearly, no one has taken a hack saw to it yet: Beulah Land i realize sometimes people might break a cache on accident, but this is an odd case. clearly using a can opener to pry back the metal was not what anyone else had done to get it open. is there some protocol here? please advise. thanks.

as a bit of a newbie myself- i am a reluctant responder. but i relate to your question, so here's my two cents: i live in santa cruz, california. i have an ATT=i-phone. i love the geo-app. it is awesome. however- cell reception in this area is notoriously HORRIBLE from ATT. i love my i-phone... nevertheless... i cannot count on it. i do a fair amount of my caching while hiking or mountain biking and already own a GPS. if i am caching anywhere but right in town, i lose cell reception on my i-phone - thus my app is useless. so i use it often, but need/want back-up, and i don't want to be restricted to cell reception friendly caches. in addition, sometimes on a difficult find (in town)- i use my GPS to double-check the location... sadly, the two are almost never in agreement. when my i-phone won't take me to the cache- my GPS will. (and, yes, you need a GPS to hide a cache. period. no way around it.)

ok- MAYBE -but i assume that you noticed NONE of those hides i linked above are hidden by a person named buckmeadows. and the person that IS named buckmeadows does not have any hides near this area- he is in southern california. ??

thanks for replying: here are four examples that all use the term. each of these (i've found) are in a container type that has been made to look like it either belongs there, or is "part of" whatever it is in hidden in or on. thus, i assumed that's what buckmeadows meant. not "camo tape" or a tiny hidden thing. not hidden in a tree.... but rather hard to find- because it is often right there in front of you - - a bolt, a lock, a piece of garbage- but you don't recognize it as a cache container. does that make sense? FROM BLAME BUCKMEADOWS: " but otherwise.....blame buckmeadows for this UDDERly evil HIDE!!" http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...0f-afeb95997e50 FROM BELLA'S OPPOSABLE THUMBS: "You will need your opposable thumbs to find this tricky buckmeadows container." http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...da-352e1f38fd17 FROM THE TIRED OYSTER: "Bring your get-up-and-go here since this buckmeadows container is one tough shell to shuck." http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...28-b7fab6ed9bad FROM FUN GUY: "You are looking for a sneaky buckmeadows container." http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...ce-1a9be168f725

i am a newbie. my experience thus far has led me to believe that a "buckmeadows" container refers to some sort of cache container that is literally made to look as though it belongs where it is- even if it's in plain sight. locks, bolts, parts of machinery, etc. however, i cannot find anywhere to confirm this- and have gone on to find caches hidden in the woods... made to look like they are "naturally occurring" (a fake rock for instance). this term is not listed on the terminology page. i have just hidden my second cache- which is in a wooded area and is well camouflaged "to look like it is naturally occurring" should i say that it is a buckmeadows cache? can someone enlighten me?? thanks.