Lord Stirling

It is a guideline, not a rule. Reviewers may give some leeway if there is a significant manmade or natural barrier between the caches or stages. A cliff, a divided superhighway, an unfordable river all MIGHT qualify. The reasons behind the guideline are twofold. First, so geocachers don'taccidently mistake one cache for another. Second, to prevent oversaturation of an area. Most reviewers keep the latter in mind when considering whether or not to waive the 528 ft guideline. If the area is already cache dense, its much less likely that that any exceptions would be made.

should have looked at the date on the original post

Thank you. Being new to all of this I hadn't thought to check this and appreciate your advice. Unless the other Cacher pulls up stakes I'll have re-locate Its best to find all the caches in the area where you are placing your cache. That way you know where they are, especially if there is a puzzle or multi, which might now show up on a the closest search page. Short of finding all the caches, if you place your cache and submit the page, you will see a link in the middle left side of cache page that says "Find...." followed by several choices including "...all nearby caches". Click on that and it will show you if there are any caches nearby.

Neither. First you read the Cache Placement Guidelines. Then you place the cache. Then submit the cache page. Skipping that first step gets a lot of caches denied. ...and really read them. Don't just check the box saying you did. Yes they are long, but the 10 minutes it takes you to read them could save you the time and gas it takes to go out and move your cache because it was denied. I estimate that about 15 - 20 percent of the caches I review have issues that that prevent or delay their listing. Nearly all could have been avoided if the owner actually read the guidelines.

Hi, Though I'm not the reviewer for the area, I checked and your cache is in the queue awaiting review. I can tell you though that it is not likely to be published in its current location because its only 92 feet from another cache. The guidelines require at least a .1 mile separation between caches and this includes stages of multi caches. I'm sure you will be getting a note from your reviewer shortly informing you of this.

Hi, I do not see a submission in the queue under your username. Did you use another? If you take too long to fill out the form it will time out and you will lose everything. I think the time out time is around 40 minutes. Is it possible that this is what happened?

Fizzymagic gives good advice. The more information you provide the reviewer the better. If its a multi or puzzle, provide the coordinates of all stages and the final cache. If its on a rails to trails pathway note this. The reviewer is likely to see the old RR tracks on the maps. Which leads to another idea. After you've created your cache page take a look at the maps linked to on the page (Topozone, Google, Mapquest, etc...). You'll see what the reviewer sees. Things like RR tracks that are no longer be there, a school that has been closed for 10 years, a military base that was decomissioned and sold to the town 30 years ago. Many of these things still show up on maps and will lead to a delay. If you address them ahead of time it will speed things up. Put something like "The map shows the cache is on Smith Air Force Base, but the base was decomissioned in 1972 and sold to Jones County to be used as a park. Here is a link to an article _____ ". More is better than less. And above all, read the guidelines. Don't just check the box saying you did, really read them. It would avoid 90 percent of the delays. People would be amazed by how many submissions we receive that say things like "The cache is on a school playground so please don't search for it during school hours", or "Be careful of trains when searching for this one". Finally, check for nearby caches. I've seen submissions as near as 30 feet to an existing cache.

I take that back

A look at your profile shows 4 unpublished caches. 3 were submitted within the past 2 days. One was submitted earlier this month and has a question from the reviewer on the page. I can't if tell you responded to that or not because he asked for you to send him an e-mail. It also does not have the "Yes, this cache is currently active" box checked so it will not appear in the review queue. In other words your reviewer will not know its there until the box is checked.

Jay, e-mail sent. This is a good chance to remind everybody to use the new "additional waypoint" feature on your cache pages (see this thread.). This way cache owners have all of the waypoints available on their cache page and there is no chance of losing them. Thay can be made invisible to everyone but the owner and the site admins if the owner so desires. The additional waypoints facilitate the review process, so many reviewers are now asking that they be used. Doing so ahead of time will speed up the review process. It is not mandatory, but I'm fairly certain it will be down the road.

The photo below is but one example of many. The cache container, located at the red dot, was discovered by school personnel and triggered the evacuation of the school, and a law enforcement callout. There are many other examples, based on both accidental discovery of suspicious containers, and on observations of geocachers behaving suspiciously. After enough examples accumulated, schools were added to the list of "off limits" locations. But isn't also true that if the school wishes to place the cache as part of a project that they can do so? I've done one like that. JDandDD With permission of the principal. The janitor, track coach or head of the history dept don't count. I've had to turn down several teachers who tried to place caches on school grounds. When I asked for the principal's permission, they hemmed and hawed in each case, then gave up, or tried a spot away from the school. I guess they were sure the principal wouldn't allow it.

The answer is - it depends. School property is obviously off limits. Directly across the street probably won't fly either. If there is a public park across the street that might change things. .1 mile away in a city would usaually be fine because it probably a city block or more away, but that same .1 mile for a lone school in a rural setting might not be far enough. The general rule of thumb that you can use is that if searchers are likely to draw the attention of school officials or security, its not a good place.

I have listed about a half dozen caches that have been placed by high school and middle school technology clubs and outdoors clubs.

Topozone shows most SGLs. Its what I used, along with this website when I was helping out in PA.

Above all read the guidelines and I mean really read them. You would be surprised how many submissions we get where its plain that the hider never glanced at them. 90 percent of the time it's a newbie. When you get submissions that say things like "A nice walk along the train tracks, watch out for trains", or "Its in the schoolyard. Please don't search for this during school hours" you really have to shake your head.

Spelldog, I see that Keystone had asked for the coordinates of each stage, but looking through the notes I don't see where you provided them, nor do I see any additional waypoints. This appears to be the holdup.

I gave it a shot. Things were working a bit better. Everything looked fine from what I can tell, so its online.

In example 1 and 3 its most likely a reviewer error. I've done it myself and once I discovered it I felt that it would be unfair to the owner to archive a cache that was inadvertantly approved so I left it. In example 4 I don't see the issue. We're concerned about geocaches on this site and can't worry about what other listing sites are doing. The same thing happened in my area, where a terracache was placed 20 feet from an existing geocache (in a 14,000 acre park where there are only 4 geocaches all told). Who are we to tell them they can't place a cache next to one of ours? Same goes the other way too. Example 5 was probably done because the reviewer felt the area was saturated. Just because you're able to shoehorn a cache into a park already saturated with caches doesn't mean you should. I'm not sure what you mean by licking your wounds. How exactly do these examples hurt you personally? I don't get it.

REI is a good place to start.

Waterproof match containers are great. Inexpensive (88 cents at Walmart), waterproof and large enough to hold a log and pencil stub. They are usually orange, but a little camo duct tape can take care of that problem. I've sometimes seen them in green as well. Just Google 'waterproof match box' and you'll find dozens of online sources for them. Film canisters make lousy containers. I don't think I've ever found one where the contents were dry. The Nalgene cryotubes that Wandering Bears mention are also good for log only micros. I've found them on Ebay. A bag of about 25 for 6 or 7 bucks. If you PM me your address, I can mail you a few. I also like the bottle preforms that CR linked to. I have a cache in one.

I think that briansnat's answer was for posting an image to your own bug's page. But since you don't own any, I'm assuming you want to post pictures for a bug you have found. Go to the bug page and find your bug-retrieval log. Over on the right, click the "[visit log]" link. A new page will pop up with an "upload image" link in the upper right corner. Oops, that's what I get for not reading the question thoroughly.

I believe its caches hidden in the trunks of abandoned Volkswagens. Now for the serious answer. I don't know. Its probably a common style of hide in Germany, but not having geocached there, I have no idea what it includes. Many areas have popular, regional hiding styles. In NJ we have what some call "Highlands style" which is typically an ammo box hidden in a small rock cave or crevice. Florida style I understand usually means a cache concealed with palmetto leaves. I'm sure other people will be able to fill you in on thier regional styles, and maybe a German may stop in to clue you in on what German style means.

I've found a number of book and CD exchange caches. One popular idea is the Bookcrossing cache. Register the books in the cache on Bookcrossing.com so you can follow their travels after you've sent them on their way. A large .50 cal ammo box would be perfect for this purpose. As NFA mentioned, you might also want to bag the books individually in Ziplocs too.

As Keystone said, a variety of maps. The online maps are often inaccurate or out of date, but they are usually the only tools we have. For me, I mostly use Google maps, Google Earth and Topozone. If there are discrepancies then I'll check out Rand McNally, Mapblast, Mapquest and Tiger Census maps, as well as any online park maps produced by the land managing agency that I can find. Interestinly enough, looking at the area you are posting about, Highland Lakes State Park, only the geocaching.com map tells me its a state park. Google, Mapblast, Mapquest, Rand McNally, Topozone, MS Mapoint and Yahoo maps do not show a state park there. The Tiger Census map shows a park, but doesn't name it. It does show the same borders as the Geocaching.com map though, so that little white area on the north section with two caches does not seem to be park property. A few minutes of searching could not turn up other maps of the park.

Well one time I ...CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED... and I get an e-mail back from owner telling me that the tail was broken . It was the funniest thing that ever happened to me. I don't think I ever laughed so hard in my life. My wife had to come in and make sure I was OK.