B+L

A keg is looking like a real possibility, assuming a hale and hearty lackey is willing to don this contraption:

The snow melt should have calmed down by then, so the sturdy hiking boats are not really going to be necessary unless you get some really fierce thunder showers.

It was the right call.

Being Summer, we're not up for going in the rain/wet snow and/or no view. We're not out yet, but we're not convinced the weather is going to be all that great on Sunday. So, we're only weak maybes right now.

A sad illustration of the rampant buffoonery that passes for caching today: these fakers have over 60K in cumulative "finds" and only one person actually found the cache. A +25,000 "finder" sets the poor example and everyone else follows along. The final "finder" even thanks the absentee cache owner for "maintaining" a cache that has been missing for six months and goes on to say they replace the cache as found. Nice.

Hmm, we might just come out of retirement for this one and re-join you. We had a great time on the last one. We could get a pony keg of Rainier this time.

Didn't that deal end last September?

And then there's the additional Special Groomed Trails Permit for another $40. Fortunately, you guys are parking at Gold Creek where you only need a Sno-Park permit.

Yes, great idea! The last time we were up there we blew off most of the caches on the road because it was pouring down rain. The only problem is that we swore we'd never hike that road again (up or down), so I guess that means we can't go.

Better bring the hip waders. Cliff Mass says we are going to get some crazy amounts of rain between now and Sunday. 20-25 inches in the Cascades! And a lot of that will over the weekend.

Make sure you check with the Naches Ranger District before you go. 1808 (Deep Creek) was heavily damaged by flooding in 2006 and it was still not repaired all the way to the end the last we heard.

Your seem to have lost track of where you are. By "the forums", you actually mean threads such as The Stands in Off-Topic. Why would you expect anyone other than the people you hang out with there to get your so-called "new joke"? Out here in what you guys call The Dark Side, your insider jokes aren't going to quite so obvious, or amusing, and we find most doughnuts to be overly sweet and greasy.

I was more referring to Bill Lider's self-serving, breathless prose that prompted you to start this topic. Perhaps you'd care to enlighten those of us who don't play report button tag team exactly what is wrong with post 10.

We must have misplaced the special glassed required to actually view all that quality. It seems to have taken a backseat to quantity despite the best efforts to keep geocaching pure. The topic that never gets much mention in these discussions about virtuals is the arrogant, dismissive attitude. This note was described as a polite suggestion by the reviewer who authored it back in 2002 it to explain why they rejected a proposed virtual.

Good points, but it's also kind of ironic that the same argument you are making here against power trails was also used against virtuals. Not sure how the same argument would have been possible to use since virtual placements did/would not block a physical placement. The proximity rule used to apply to all cache types, including virtuals, plus people claimed the sheer number of virtuals would overwhelm the "real" caches.

That's all due to the wow factor being imposed, so the pain was self-inflicted. The argument about all the crappy virtuals seems pretty bogus when compared to the all the crappy traditionals and it's just getting worse. We used to be able to use geocaches as a way to find places we might not have found otherwise. These days we mostly do the reverse. We go to places we where we want to be and if there's a cache there, it's a sideshow, not the main event. Life's just too short to spend the time required to sift through all the dreck to find something good. Some people are happy finding them all (or at least claiming to) and that's fine if that's what they want, but we want something better. Good virtuals are fun. A lot of people seem to forget that.

I get your point just fine. It just has nothing to do with what I said. Your linked thread is pretty entertaining, so thanks for that. So, if threatening to quit isn't holding the game hostage, then it must be extortion.

PoochWirth, there are many big numbers cachers that actually have the integrity to find the caches they claim as found. But there are also plenty who are just going through the motions. Kind of sad really. When Groundspeak allowed some guy to log the ISS after a picture of him had been brought on board, they squandered whatever moral authority they might have had on this issue, so it's back to the basics: do what you know is right and then marvel at all the ways other people find to play make believe. They are the same people that cheat at Solitaire and they are legion.

You've completely missed my point. i'm just adding a little actual history to the mix to the counter some of the revisionist history we are constantly fed in these forums. Yes, the volunteers voted, but not necessarily the hiders and the seekers. What most people fail to take into account is how a small number of people have imposed their personal views of what caching is on everyone else. Telling other people how to play the game is allegedly an anathema around these forums, yet we only play the way we are allowed to play. If someone threatens to quit if virtuals are brought back. Let them. Thank them for their service and then give the a hearty handshake and a hale farewell. Holding the game hostage is a vile act and it should not be tolerated. Groundspeak will act if enough people get riled up about something, such as the challenge counts and the dropping of Google maps. I wonder if they would have brought back Google maps had some volunteers threatened to quit if they did.

Groundspeak is a listing site, not a _____. So we are told. Repeatedly. By the self-appointed mouthpieces who dwell here.

Good points, but it's also kind of ironic that the same argument you are making here against power trails was also used against virtuals. Speaking to a point briansnat made, the so called outcry against lame virtuals in the forums was pretty tepid. However, there are plenty of posts by some of the key reviewers (reinforced with their often undisclosed user accounts. Boo!, but that's another topic), where they opine that virtuals aren't real caches. Here is the original post where virtual caches were first proposed: Topic: Virtual Cache The idea gets a favorable reception initially, but the haters are not far behind. Here's a little tidbit from that thread about why Dave Ulmer left the game:

Can't say that I blame you. I'd do the same thing, especially after receiving the usual "this conversation is over" from customer service.

Don't be so trusting of your neighbors. That's how they catch you unawares. We caught one neighbor in the act of stealing some of our firewood. Another accepted a package addressed to us, opened it, and neglected to report it to Fedex. Our closest neighbor had a tortoise wander off. They put up missing signs all over the place and then two months later it showed up in a box on their front porch with a leg gnawed off. There was a note on the box asking if they were missing a tortoise. I happend to be home when the lady from the next closest house dropped it off. She kept it for two months and only returned it when it was going to need an expensive visit to the vet because her stupid little yapper dog tried to eat it. Nice. And that's on Peace, Love and Understanding Island. It's even worse out in the real world. Yeah, I know. But even if they did any of that, they are not going to disclose it to anyone other than law enforcement and that's not going to happen unless you catch the thief in the act.

The audit log could be an indicator, but by itself it is not enough to be actionable. It's like accusing me of being the robber of my neighbor's house merely because I happend to glance at it every morning on my way to work. There is very little Groundspeak can do about situations like this, beyond acting like they care.

The Washington Environmental Council sued (successfully) because they felt progress was too slow. As a result, The USFS acted to have the Monte Cristo declared a superfund site. ASARCO is in the hook to pay for the cleanup, at least on the public land. Bill Lider and the Sierra Club are now trying to delay and disrupt the process. The WSDOE is also involved and their feasibility studies aren't even scheduled to be complete until 2014, which really makes this topic kind of Chicken Little-ish. Here's the UFSA CERCLA (superfund) document repository, for anyone who really wants to know more: CERCLA Cleanup Projects