Kite and Hawkeye

I have noticed at my cache site that all the weeds have been trampled leading up to the cache ... I don't think there would have ever been enough traffic there to trample all the weeds with out my cache being there. Are you planning to move the cache? In my limited experience geocaching I've never actually seen anywhere with significant trampling, but that may be because the areas around here aren't very weedy/grassy, so there's little to trample. There's only one cache I've seen that made me uncomfortable due to its placement; it was in an area that clearly stated to remain on the trail, yet it was unreachable from the trail, and though the cache page said 'no bushwhacking' there's no way anyone could reach it without breaking the brittle branches of the bushes in which it was hidden. I tried to be careful, but couldn't avoid everything; in retrospect, I shouldn't have attempted to retrieve it. It's hard to resist, but the guilt just isn't worth it.

My dog could smell a rawhide bone hidden in a closet under some boxes through its wrapper (hey, it was her Christmas present). I would recommend against it.

We haven't received notification of any new caches in the area for three or four weeks now, and I'm quite sure that there have been caches placed within a hundred miles of here in that time. The option to receive this mail is still checked, and I'm getting other notifications (logs from caches I'm watching). Is there something wrong with the site, or is this only happening to us?

We just completed the First Contact cache. At the first waypoint was an encrypted message; once we figured it out, we knew where to go next. The type of message was related to the theme of the cache. Figuring out what sort of message it is and how to decrypt it is part of the challenge, so I can't get too specific - but I really liked the idea of having a theme and working your puzzles into the theme. It made for a memorable cache.

Now that Hawkeye and I have found about twenty caches, I'm getting really interested in placing one of our own. Cache saturation is pretty high in San Diego, and I want to be careful to do something different/interesting. We live and work near a college campus that has some interesting places; there are two caches already on campus, about a third of a mile from one another. I found a site I like that's .7 miles from the closest cache. After that, though, I got ambitious, thinking it might be fun to do a multicache, because I know another interesting feature on campus that could possibly hide a microcache with coordinates, and I could tie the two together with a theme. The problem? The microcache spot I have in mind is very close to this cache. The cache in question is somewhat unusual in that it's inside a building. The coordinates given are for the front door; the cache itself is hidden in a book on the 8th floor. The micro spot I'm looking at is outside the building, and highlights an area that you'd never encounter when looking for the existing cache. But, if one's looking at the two sets of coordinates, it seems that the caches are only about 250 feet apart. I wouldn't persist, but I think the spot I'm looking at is really nifty. Plus, it'd just be the first stage of a multicache. What should I do? Would you expect the cache to be rejected if I submit it as-is, because it appears to be too close to the other one? Should I spare myself the heartache and just go for the single cache?

Prices here for GPS units are sky high... well above the average anyway. Plus I have to drive an hour to get it (at the local super-walmart). No way, I will just wait till the price comes down... then I will tackle the hard ones They can be ordered online, y'know.. often more cheaply than local stores. You can get a yellow etrex from Amazon.com for $99, free shipping, no tax.

Yesterday, I found a cache that was hidden under a discarded tire in some scrub brush in a park. There were a few small sticks covering the hole in the tire(!). Hawkeye (holding the GPS) was pointing out the general area; I (farther back) said, "Oh, there it is," when I spotted a large out of place object. Two steps closer, I felt very foolish for having actually pointed out a tire.. and a second after that, realized the cache was tucked under it. From the cache description (it said to leave a marker where you found the cache, and move away, then use your marker to properly re-place it) I got the feeling that it wasn't originally under a BIG OL' PIECE OF JUNK that caught the eye from a distance. For one thing, it seems a bit dubious to put a nicely camouflaged ammo box under a very un-camouflaged object -- it's like putting a big day-glo flag on the site. We were concerned that some park maintenance person would eventually fetch the tire for disposal (the cache was close to what looks like a heavily traveled path), and thus discover the cache, too. It's an old and venerable cache that's been through quite a few changes in its lifetime, and we didn't think it was our place to change anything, so we re-hid it precisely as we found it and sent a note to the maintainer about its current state so he/she could decide if it was okay. I certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable altering the location at all. A couple of weeks ago, we found a *very* well-hidden cache, covered almost completely and tucked in an out-of-the-way spot to boot. We took pains to restore the camouflage, with the opinion that we didn't want the next person finding it any more easily than we did (after we spent half an hour wading through poison ivy and getting scratched up and were on the verge of giving up before we finally located the cache)! v

At least where we come from (San Diego), all the caches are in a sea of poison oak because the stuff is growing absolutely everywhere. The only uninfested cache area I can think of would be on the sidewalk. We've been wading through the plant life for a bit over a month now, and haven't come down with a rash yet, simply by showering and washing our clothes when we get home. I don't know if we're unusually resistant to the stuff, or lucky, or what, but even when we only clean off hours later nothing happens (and yeah, I'm sure it's really poison oak we're walking through). Occasionally one or the other of us gets one or two little bumps that itch for a couple of hours. That's it. Though if we get too cocky about it, I'm sure the oak will have its revenge.

Is it fun for you to see the pictures? I think it would be (but the novelty might wear off after a couple dozen cameras). If you find it interesting and it's not a financial burden, keep doing it. If you're only doing it for the visitors, and you suspect they aren't bothering to return, then consider scrapping it. I've only taken my picture once at a cache, and I'd be somewhat curious to see it but I'll probably forget to look in the future. Anyway, I bet it was a pretty horrible shot.. I'm not that photogenic under the best of circumstances, and this was after a hike :/

Is it fun for you to see the pictures? I think it would be (but the novelty might wear off after a couple dozen cameras). If you find it interesting and it's not a financial burden, keep doing it. If you're only doing it for the visitors, and you suspect they aren't bothering to return, then consider scrapping it. I've only taken my picture once at a cache, and I'd be somewhat curious to see it but I'll probably forget to look in the future. Anyway, I bet it was a pretty horrible shot.. I'm not that photogenic under the best of circumstances, and this was after a hike :/

I do like the idea of separating terrain difficulty vs hike length, though more than that I really appreciate descriptions that voluntarily include some specifics on distance and terrain that the star ratings can't indicate. I was at terrain 2 cache the other day -- we parked a mere hundred feet away, but the cache was on a plateau of nearly vertical six-foot-high climbs on every side. I have achilles tendinitis and barely made it up. A one-star cache with a quarter-mile walk but a steep, slippery, rocky hill at the end is a lot harder for me than a two-star cache with a long, flat walk -- but there are days when I don't have the time or energy to hike two or three miles. I say the more information, the better. The rating system will never be ideal, since it's inherently subjective. I also recently saw a cache with two-star terrain and three-star difficulty; the description said, "we increased the difficulty to three because of the thousand-foot elevation gain." They incremented the wrong measure, but at least they did include the information (which warned me off!).

I bought my girlfriend a yellow eTrex. My #1 gripe about it was that it didn't show co-ords in realtime as you moved around... My yellow etrex, purchased about two months ago, can indeed show coordinates in real time as you walk around. I don't have it with me, and I forget exactly where this information is (mentally trying to push buttons and watch screens, but it's not working), but I know it exists.

I bought my girlfriend a yellow eTrex. My #1 gripe about it was that it didn't show co-ords in realtime as you moved around... My yellow etrex, purchased about two months ago, can indeed show coordinates in real time as you walk around. I don't have it with me, and I forget exactly where this information is (mentally trying to push buttons and watch screens, but it's not working), but I know it exists.

So there's something I don't understand... http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=28238 It's listed as a traveling cache.. but it's not a cache. It's a stuffed duck. Isn't that, er, a travel bug without tags? It'll never have coordinates of its own, or be hunted on its own, since it will always be inside another cache. I don't understand, then, why it's listed as a 'cache.' Is there a "traveling cache" category? Is this usually what it means? I finally got my head around virtual and locationless caches, but this is a new one for me.

I'm happy with my yellow eTrex as well.. but I keep holding the !@@#$ thing in my right hand. No matter where I hold it, I keep getting the 'page' and 'enter' buttons confused, which can be highly annoying when you're ready to enter something and accidentally switch pages instead. But it works, and works well, and we've found about a dozen caches with it. It's also by far the cheapest unit I came across.

I'm happy with my yellow eTrex as well.. but I keep holding the !@@#$ thing in my right hand. No matter where I hold it, I keep getting the 'page' and 'enter' buttons confused, which can be highly annoying when you're ready to enter something and accidentally switch pages instead. But it works, and works well, and we've found about a dozen caches with it. It's also by far the cheapest unit I came across.

Well, the cache with the snakes sounds like it is currently dangerous, and I'm not sure it's unreasonable to say it should be moved or temporarily disabled until the area isn't infested. The spot probably was perfectly fine when the cache was placed, and the other one doesn't sound inherently dangerous. I've waded through poison oak, scrambled across slimy creeks, and skidded down canyon slopes without thinking that the cache itself had any problems -- though I've occasionally thought that it deserved another difficulty star while trying to pick my way down a rocky slope without landing on my rear (well, it was listed as 1/1!).

Well, the cache with the snakes sounds like it is currently dangerous, and I'm not sure it's unreasonable to say it should be moved or temporarily disabled until the area isn't infested. The spot probably was perfectly fine when the cache was placed, and the other one doesn't sound inherently dangerous. I've waded through poison oak, scrambled across slimy creeks, and skidded down canyon slopes without thinking that the cache itself had any problems -- though I've occasionally thought that it deserved another difficulty star while trying to pick my way down a rocky slope without landing on my rear (well, it was listed as 1/1!).

The only food I've seen in caches so far has been wrapped hard candy, but even that is too gross to eat. There's always dirt on it. Don't bother leaving candy in caches. Really. Someone was apparently leaving candy canes in caches a while back (I'd hazard a guess that they've been there since Christmas, obviously) and I found a filthy broken one last week -- the only thing I've ever removed from a cache for its own good. Oh yeah, I did find an apricot leather in a cache last week, too. I asked Hawkeye if he wanted it, but he was grossed out from the "how long has that been there" factor. I told him I'd read the log and it was only a few days old, but he still wasn't interested. Someone in another thread asked about Coke cans in caches. There are various reasons that sounds like a bad idea, but on top of that.. ew, warm Coke.

What are the 'rules' on how to move a travel bug? I've yet to encounter one, but I'm curious. Is it cheating to give (or even mail) the bug to a geocaching friend to move it along? Should you try to keep the movement 'natural,' and drop it off at a cache you were going to visit anyway? Maybe I'm confusing travel bug etiquette with that of georged bills, where I'd feel guilty or wrong deliberately saving a george dollar to spend on vacation a thousand miles away just for the sake of taking it somewhere interesting.

I think that http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=21533&AID=21533&Nocache=0.4054376 is the cache you were looking at. There's a thread about it in the "survey says" forum debating its legitimacy as a cache.. looks like it didn't make it.

I just got a yellow Garmin eTrex and found my first cache yesterday. I was quite pleased with it and had no trouble, even under a fair number of trees. While paging through the stats at the back of the manual, I saw that it said it had an accuracy of "3-15 ft with DGPS corrections, 49ft RMS." Now, I know I don't have an Optional Differential Beacon Receiver, whatever that is, but if accuracy is no better than 49 feet without it, why do I go outside and see "Ready to Navigate, accuracy 18 ft"? [This message was edited by Kite on June 26, 2002 at 09:33 AM.]