AKStafford

I've always kept mine out of site, using my body to block a crew member from seeing it. It makes the time go by much faster. If ever challenged, I'd just play dumb. I've got a ton of experience doing that...

This started out as a beautiful night of caching. The view from where we parked above the beach is incredible. My wife and I came out here a few times early in our relationship. So, we come down the beach, and head into the woods when the arrow swung that way. Got within 40 feet of cache, and GPS was jumpy and didn't haven't much accuracy. No problem, that was to be expected in the trees. So, we begin the hunt. About five minutes in, with the GPS reading 20 feet, my wife goes "Ouch... Ouch... There's something on me..." I turn around, expecting a thorn, maybe a spider. At first I don't see anything, and then I realize we are in the middle of a swarm of extremely unhappy bees. Apparently we stepped on their home. I've only been stung one other time in my life, so the first sting was a surprise. The second sting hurt, and then I realized this wasn't going to stop, we had to get out of there. We started running through brush, killing the bees as they stung. I took between 12 and 15 hits, and the wife took almost 20. We stinkin' hurt. So, we are not going to log a DNF, because we didn't get to finish the hunt.

We ran into a bear at a cache near downtown Anchorage Alaska. I grew up around bears in Southeast Alaska, and on Afognak Isand (near Kodiak), so I wasn't too worried... See our log here...

We were out caching yesterday, and remember a cache in the area that we didn't have the coordinates for. I vaguely remember the general location, and a little bit of the description. A few minutes of searching and we had it.

The biggest thing is to have fun. I live out here in Wasilla, and I've see we've done some of the same caches there in Anchorage. If you are planning on going to the State Fair in Palmer this year, there is some cachers planning some geocaching games during it. Go here for more info...

I've had coins and bugs that I've placed in caches disappear... It sucks when it happens, but due to the "decentralized" nature of geocaching (meaning there's no way to make everyone follow the rules) it's going to happen. All you can do is mimize the chances by placing them in caches that are less likely to be muggled or easily accessed.

We had a special guest speaker at our church, speaking on a Saturday night to our Young Adult group. Before hand we were hanging out, and had recently discover Google Maps, with the satelite views. We were looking at people's home, when Daren (the guest speaker) told us to go to geocaching.com. He had heard about it and done a few caches. We dropped in our zip code, and there were several caches nearby. That night at about 11pm, he asked if we wanted to hit it. Being Alaska in the summer, it was still light out, so 4 of us went out. The mosquitoes were HORRIBLE, but my wife bagged the cache in minutes. She was hooked! The next day after church, we hit fiver or six more. Now we are at 220, and try an go out at least 4 times a month.

We have a Garmin ETrex Legend. It's a few years old, but works great. If you are looking to buy a used one, they work great. I've found some good prices at amazon.com.

How did you get the moss to stick? I tried something similar using spay adhesive, but it didn't stick too well.

I've at times revisited a previously found cache because we were letting a family member or friend who was new to geocaching find it. Sometimes on those, I'll post a note (instead of logging a find), mentioning my visit and that all was well with the cache. I've done that just to let the cache owner know I was there...

Problem solved... Coin owner contacted me today with apologies for forgetting to activate it. Now I can "find" as normal. Thanks for all the replies!!

I was wondering the same thing... We didn't trade for the coin, but we did leave a Travel Bug. We typically try not to take a trackable without leaving a trackable. But this clearly wasn't a fair trade in this case. If I had known that it was an unactivated coin, we would've left something comparable in exchange...

We hit 8 caches last night, and grabbed a coin from one of them, although I'm not sure which one. When I went to log it, it said that it wasn't activated yet. I went back through the logs for the caches we found, and realized it's not listed in the inventory for any of them. It's a square coin. On the front is a picture of Signal the Frog, riding a bike past a windmill. On the back is says The Netherlands, World Geocaching Series 2, 2006 August 1st-31st. So, is this a trade item, rather than a trackable? Do we activate it? Do we pass it on without activation? Any help?

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Hmm.... Not a bad idea to include a life-line number. The Alaska Cache is a pretty basic cache; but still, I'd hate for someone to come all the way to Alaska and not find it. I have included my cell number in the hints.

In June of 2004, we had a special guest speaker at our church. Before a Saturday night service we were all hanging out, and checking out stuff in Google Earth. He had us look at his house in Oregon, and then told me to go to www.geocaching.com. He had done a dozen or so caches, and had his GPS with him. After service (at about 10pm) we headed out to hit one in a park about 6 miles away. At the time it was one of the few in our area. Being in Alaska in the summer, it was still light out, and the mosquitoes were horrible. The cache was .3 miles down a trail system, and my wife was the one who bagged it. After church the next morning we hit 3 or 4 more in the mountains behind town, and we were totally hooked. We are on find number 155 right now. The guy that introduced us has only done a handful since then. Cache on!!

This is our second winter of caching here in Alaska. I'm usually wearing shorts and running shoes. My wife at least has on jeans, but usually selects flip-flops or fuzzy slippers for her foot wear.. It makes winter caching more challenging. I've been in snow hip deep before. What's bad is when the wind has been blowing, and built up drifts. I carry a little extra weight, (okay, a lot of extra weight...), so I tend to break through the top crust. The broken top crust is like broken glass. My shins stay lacerated all winter, and most of my socks are stained with blood. Our coldest cache was 20 below zero in Fairbanks last year, near the Chena river. We've also done an hour hike through hip deep snow to get to a cache, only to realize the whole hike we were paralell to a nice snow machine trail just 50 feet away. We walked out that way in just minutes. Alaska and caching... A match made in heaven. Unless you are looking for the Spud Cache... then the match was made someplace a lot south of heaven...

I recently had my GPS on an Alaska Airlines flight to Phoenix. Wasn't sure if it was approved, but I just had to try it anyway. The flight went soooo much faster being able to track the progress. Seeing my speed at over 400 miles an hour, and 40000 feet in altitude was just too cool. So, wrong or right, it's fun.

Okay, not sure what this one is: TPLF. Any help... It was recently posted on my first and only cache hidden, the Cache Across America-Alaska cache.

Add my vote to Erik88l-r. He approved my first cache in a matter of hours!! Cache on!

Let me take another chance to say a large thanks to Blue Power Ranger for organizing the 50 State Multi cache. I know it was no small task...

I recently got permission to place a cache on privately owned park. First I sold the land manager on geocaching, then sold him on me placing a cache on their land. Contact the gentleman who turned you down, and see if he'd go out caching with you. Offer to buy him lunch after two finds. Organize the local cachers to do a clean up day, or paint all the benches, or buy a new piece of playground equipment. Serve your way in. Just a suggestion...

Wow! What a great place for this cache to represent Alaska! Thanks for seeing this through! AKStafford is the best! Many thanks to erik88l-r for the quick review to publish this cache.

I just hid my first cache (yea!!) Included in it was a laminated page. One side was the stash note, the other side explained that it is part of the Cache Across America series. I figured the more info, the better.

Finally!!! Alaska is hid and published and good to go!! Cache on!!