GPS-Hermit

I agree it should not be any where near a school unless the school knows about it and keeps up with it as an educational tool. The bomb squad should know about the game and check the co-ords as a regular part of their job. They probably don't want to be bothered with it but it could help them relax at little.

We always talk about safety - Just thought the newbies might want to know what can go wrong as compared to what they THINK might go wrong to get ya hurt. So HOW are people getting hurt while caching. Alot of people think people or snakes will be what is going to hurt them. I am guessing not. Lets hear it! From you or what you know happened to others.

Just curious - What org do you know of that uses this method and recommends it.

I don't think the 20.00 price is going to work for me - I try to keep the cost way down - time I spend less than ten dollars for cache container and 15.00 or so on quality swag I feel my cache needs to be a good. Another 20 for something hard to hide without discovery. I guess people will steal them and I am guessing cold temps will rob the battery. I want any GPS to find my cache and increase the enjoyment as high as possible for as many as possible. However I have always wanted to continue the search on a multiple if one stage was plundered. Not willing to give up my 76CSX for any GPS.

You don't even have to contact the reviewer. Just uncheck the box that says the cache is ready to go, and the location is locked up until you activate it or until the reviewer thinks you've waited too long. There's really no reason to lose a good spot while you work on setting up a nice cache. (Although it has happened to me too. At least twice. But I have to acknowledge that it was just through laziness on my part. I am kicking myself now! But I'm desperately trying to keep my spirits up great idea - didn't know I could do that - thanks so much for a great tip!

You might want to comment on your listing that you want commented logs and encourage them to say something - if you plant the thought in their brain it might stick for the rest of us as well. I tell them to log cache related comment only so they know to say something meaningful. I think it helps.

The longest for me has been about an hour - I never time myself but get frustrated sometimes at my abilities to find a cache. This usually happens when the signal is all over the place and after many approaches I just can't get the GPS to settle even close to a search area. I look anyway but not hopeful of a find. One cache that is not even hard, I have returned to on 3 separate occasions and have never found it. So maybe my answer on this one is 3+ hours cause I am still trying to find it, and still getting bad signal in this one place.

Also open the battery cover and clean the battery terminals on battery and GPS just to make sure sitting around is not the problem. Mine only takes a minutes or so to get the satelittes but my car GPS has taken much longer. They do work on the satelites - if no luck repeatedly turn the GPS off and back on again. See if it is trying different satelites while making up it mind. If not change batteries to ones from a store instead of desk drawer. I have a battery tester at home and it is important not to mix batteries of different power drainage. Mine works long after saying it is empty. Anyway the power needs to be right for the GPS to function correctly. The GPS does have to boot up and can glitch during the process - so just try again. See if it works any different with the usb hooked up to Laptop and getting power from the USB.

When I don't know what to rate a cache - I just guess at it and ask the finder to make suggestions - which they will anyway. request each to post the rating they feel appropriate for the first 20 finds and see how it goes. A 4 for terrain and a 4 for difficulty sounds like a good starting point on this one. Caution not to climb when wet while wearing grease coated sneekers.

Bolting to a tree would be a violation of being nice to trees - nails don't always stay either. I agree with the use a dead tree for the bird house.

You need to mention the weight in the listing so those with bad backs can avoid it - if it is really that heavy, it also need some method to handle it without droping it on a boby part and ending up in th ER. Keep in mind your caches can be young or old - very much so!

When it comes to safety - one of the biggest real concerns is - just getting lost or getting hurt and no one to help. a bad ankle could be bad enough to disable you from walking. Wear hiking boots and be VERY careful where and how you step. Remember if you get hurt bad the person with you may not know HOW to go for help. Avoid falling off rocks trees or any wooden slippery surface that would cause you harm. Bee nest can be in places that would cause you to jump carelessly to get away from them. Learn to follow your track accurately - I had to do this once and was lucky enough to do it correctly the first time. Study your maps at home and learn what is around you and take the map with you. The small screen that is zoomed out may not help you enough. Don't cache close to dark if you need to go far. Take a compass and use it. Always hike with a LED headlight. Much better to avoid problems than to deal with them. Been GCing for 8 years and never had a problem with an animal or person. Been scratched, cut, knocked, stung, bug bitten and have fallen down, many times. I've been very lucky in the falling department. Don't be falling down - that is how ya get hurt.

Two things bothered me alot - some things I just learned 1. Manually putting in the co-ord numbers with a rocker button - I meant to scroll right and I scrolled up and incremented the current number (without realizing it) which ended up with a useless co-ordinate. 2. The arrow jumped around when I got close and I wanted to walk right up to it. 3. Forgot to cut it off and tracked myself all over the state. 4. convert co-ord in other formats - still frustrated 5. Starting to late and it gets dark quicker than I could find the cache. 6. Avoiding Briars and PI 7. Avoiding Muggles - wasn't will to wait or come back 8. Trashed containers 9. useless trade items 10. Can't get a signal here in the holler!

When looking as a newbie - pick one a ways out there - away from other people who might see you searching so you can take your time. while talking to yourself - ask yourself, if I was hiding it where would I put it. Look for unnatural arrangement of rocks and sticks and bark covering up something. Look for it to be under something and be careful to not touch a big ole spider while looking - get a stick for help. Could be in a tree hole, rock hole, or just covered up! Do NOT put your hands in holes where you can't see and feel around for it, you may have to pick stuff up and look under it. Always replace what you move around. You will get better and enjoy the outing as much as the hunt.

I feel I have an obligation to the owner to keep the cache from being discovered so it will not be plundered. I also believe muggles come up with some pretty strange explanation for my searching behavior and will continue the search or report it. So if I see muggles everyone is better off if I just leave. I do occassional invite someone to know, but not very often.

After you log YOUR find not someone elses - at the end of the log you will see an option to upload a photo! She will see it if she is logged on - but you will not.

It is time sensitive - he is waiting for an answer and to do the right thing. People get into and out of Geo-caching for job or health related reasons. Archiving the cache is a good thing rather than not maintaining. Bringing it back is fine for everyone and keeps the log and comment of others in place which can be helpfull. I say bring it back unless it is terribly difficult to do. The owner knows where to put the cache quite accurately. The years would not matter to me - the continuing of what was already started. This also keeps FTF from occuring again and old cachers thinging I already found this one. I don't like to find the same one again if I can avoid it.

I would change them and keep current. The searches for caches show where they are in relation to you which is meaningful and helpful when deciding if you will find one close to another.

I believe the program you are using will do fine with the advice given above - I use it all the time and it does great.

I like it all - if a park has multiple caches - Hike or Bike is great! For country side viewing finding 5 cahes in the same area is fun by car assuming it is way to far to walk them all. Sometimes I truely find out alot of stuff just driving to a cache in a remote area.

I would send the cache owner an email and request instructions. No reply no interest! Try 3 times and give up! No point in you being more interested in the cache log than he is. We have all helped with remote CO - especially when the cache is really fun. So thanks to you for helping and be proud of it - regardless of the owners interest is.

If it was mine, I would not care as long as you posted that you found it. If the CO deletes your log then he has made his case and 'YES' you need to return. The CO may ask you for an email saying where you found it. If it is easy to return just do it. If not, log it with opologies and promises not to repeat and see what happens. That lets others know you goofed but the cache is still there. Since you are new - I will say "Always read the listing and a few logs as well" before finding a cache - get use to things so you can always sign the Log. It is an honor for all to have you sign, so take pride in it and enjoy the game. Not reading the listing can cause all kinds of dis-appointments. There is good stuff to read in those listing so enjoy that as well as the cache. You are doing great - do not dispair!

Just send them an email and be very nice about it. Explain what a spoiler is, that worked fine for me when I had the problem. If you don't mind some words on your cache listing, you can say Photos: Please do NOT show pictures of the exact cache location. Most people know not to do that! So it will not come up much. Only twice for me since 2002. Good Luck!

A Lame cach is any cache where you thought - well this is stupid! Take me somewhere and tell me about something neat - anything will do! I don't like caches that a blind person could find, or in a place with no interest right near the road. I am in it for the discovery and will avoid the cache just because it is beside the road, if it is muggle prone, and the logs never say anything good about it. Give me a hike, a veiw, some history, interesting tree, battle ground, nice rocks, more trails to discover, bike riding, I totallly love loop trails. I love wildlife areas. I also love to trade so make the trade items interesting.

It is a treasure hunt! - it just does not have an expensive treasure - unless you get your car broke into, or fall out of a tree, or say doctor can ya cure this PI real quick, this snake bite hurts, and I fell off the cliff and broke ma leg, what happened to my pants - they just tore, oops lost my GPS, got arrested for trespassing, fell in love with another cacher, ran out of gas, got lost! Still having the time of my life! There is a ton of discovery about it - I guess that is the part I like best! No - I would not call it a sport - even though I have come home totally whipped!