Rev Mike

Three times in my caching career I have accidently found caches. Two were active and final locations for local puzzle caches, and the other was an unapproved cache in New York state that was hidden, never approved, and forgotten. I actually thought I had gotten an FTF on a cache yet to be published. All three of those I found while preparing to hide a cache at that particular spot. - Rev Mike

USA Photomaps all the way. Both arial photos and topo maps (not anything great) at the click of a button. Even then I only really use it when the cache description says something to the effect of 5 star terrain, no trails, ect. I only really use Google Earth combinded with the kml files for a quick general overview of the area I am heading to and for a general idea where the caches I am after are in reference to each other. - Rev Mike

Yes... Woods are good.

Either way is just fine as long as you give it time to lock satellites and get a good accuracy. I personally would have it on along the way to the cache especially if you are in a wooded area because it is usually easier to keep a signal than to aquire on when under tree cover. Also, depending on just how wild the area is and how far you are going sometimes it is nice to have tracks stored on the way in to follow back on the way out. If it is an urban type hide it really does not matter. Hope that helps you out. - Rev Mike

Yeah. Chaoss Cops An Altitude is the longest vertical "hike" I have made for a cache. - Rev Mike

I see you are attempting to become part of NoVA anyway. Anyway your cache that I adopted up in NWPA is doing well. - Rev Mike

Yeah. I got stung 7 times over a period of an hour and a quarter spent looking for a 4 star micro right under a nest. Worst part the cache had been muggled and I had to take a DNF with all those stings. - Rev Mike

My quick list: A meth lab. A handgun. A large knife. Various drug paraphernalia.

You MIGO cachers and your micros... just kidding that is great. I will have to remember to put that one on my Michigan list of caches to do. Hope I don't DNF it. - Rev Mike

Well, the best FTF prize I ever got was beer. Sealed and kept cold in a swamp with a bottle opener and directions for first finder in the ammo box. Not going to say who did that or what cache it was but it was not on that would have been found by kids. Way too dangerous to be a family cache plus the hider had a good idea that I was coming for it. - Rev Mike

That is even better camo now. I would never guess that is an ammo box. - Rev Mike

Simple yet not expected are good ways to throw other cacher through a loop. One of my nastiest hides yet is a fake keyholder rock placed only six feet away from a lone tree in a field. There are no other rocks around. The cache is close enough to the tree that the GPSr takes you almost straight to it. Cachers are just so used to the tree as the obvious place that they never think to just look for a lone rock a few feet away. I had so many DNFs and phone calls on that on the first day published that I had to go out and check on it to silence that tiny voice in my head that believed it may have been muggled before ever being found. It was still there and remained unfound until I stumbled across a cacher looking for it in the park and gave him a couple nudges in the correct direction. Think simple... too simple. They don't expect that. - Rev Mike

Make them as small as is practical. As for those nano caches why can't the hiders ever take the finders into consideration? It is a pain to get the logs in an out of one of those and often gets damaged in the process. I have only ever used a nano once and it was only for coords to another stage of a multi as I feel is the best application of that type of container. I do like looking for them from time to time. - Rev Mike

Team NOVA was the name dicided onby the group of four PA cachers I used to belong to. I would advise against the team account. Naturally one person will end up logging all the caches to the team account and Pocket Queries will not turn up all the caches you need to find individually. I am not sure what type of cachers you are but I can say from experience that it gets old logging everything twice. Especially if you like to go for numbers. Say you get 50 caches one day that is 100 logs to write. What if you take pictures. What account do you upload them to. If you hide caches who has to maintain them, ect. It just gets complicated. That is why we all have individual accounts now. I logged the first 1000 caches twice. The team died at find 1K. That was just that. Just a consideration or two. Now the name should be the easy part.

Just like everything else in the sport/game they have their time and place. Sometimes it is down right fun if you happen to be free at the moment and bored. I was notorious for getting FTFs when caches were listed at around 3 AM. Heck if I am up at that hour I am just watching reruns of the A-Team anyway. There are pros to FTF caching: 1. Meeting other cachers. I can't think of how many times a group of new caches go out and I will run into a few cachers at the first one and we will just sit and talk cache for a while. 2. Finding the cache EXACTLY (most of the time) as the hider intended. 3. Bragging rights... BUT only on caches that should entail bragging rights (Wal Mart does not count for this one.) That is one time I am really into it. I love it when a cache pops up with a 3.5 or higher terrain and disclosures such as "special equiptment needed." In my opinion those are worth running out for. There are also cons to FTF caching: 1. The people who try to get them all - EVERY time. 2. The competition that arises - that can get ugly. If a competition does arise it should not be about how many FTFs you have. It should be about how many FTFs you had to earn. - Rev Mike

I will volunteer my profile and information. - Rev Mike