Kite and Hawkeye

Huh. Of the seven "mystery" caches we've found, only one didn't have a cache at the coordinates listed. Most seem to have been designated "mystery" because they were themed. Seems a bit under-utilized.. I'd love to find a good puzzle cache. Not sure I have the creativity to place one, alas. I have a hard enough time imagining where to place a regular cache, and then someone puts one in my backyard and I slap my head saying, "Why didn't I think of that??"

We have a yellow etrex (a few models down the line from the high-res Venture) and find the screen resolution just fine; if one neither has nor wants maps, it's more than enough. I'd recommend the yellow over the Venture or Geko, actually, since it has a slightly larger screen than the geko and sells for <$100; we've used it for a year and a half and like it just fine. The Venture sounds like more GPS than you need here, and even the Geko 201 costs more than the yellow. You get WAAS for that extra money, but many people don't find that particularly useful and/or can't get the WAAS satellite most of the time. A non-WAAS GPS generally has about 20-foot accuracy anyway, which is fine (we've found 300+ caches with that kind of accuracy, and for non-geocaching purposes it's more than adequate). Also, the Geko seems to have rather short battery life. If you expect to do much geocaching, you'll probably want a data cable, though, which will add to the price, and at that point it might be just as well to move up in the etrex line a step or two and buy a model that comes with the cable.

quote:Originally posted by The TriVans:What should you do after you've emailed the cache owner, but haven't received any response? This is the case for a cache I know of that hasn't been found in 3 months and has 4 consecutive "did not finds" in the log. Post a "should be archived" log, or wait for someone who's definitely found the cache in the past to check up on it. If the people who haven't been finding it have more than a handful of finds apiece, I'd just suggest archival.

quote:Originally posted by Bobkat92 & the 3 Bears:- I plan to sell these geocoins for $3 each (that does NOT include shipping). If a person wants these geocoins shipped to specific address, I will charge them an Express Mail fee & the cost of a bubbled envelop (depending on how many geocoins they order). Something the size of a geocoin (or even several geocoins) can easily be shipped First Class for about a dollar. Express or Priority mail would be VERY expensive ($3.85 for Priority, $13.65 for Express). I want to buy a few coins, but not that badly.

The old can-type icons didn't really look like caches, but they were more distinctive than the new ones. These look like bricks. The Evil Ghost virtuals are funny, but I think the "no box" circle 'n stripe icon worked just fine. I don't have anything against using a box shape, but the icons as they stand are lacking a bit of polish. If you want to make something look like Tupperware, I'd say steal the Leprechauns' avatar (hamster optional). The cookie jars looked a bit classier -- the art was nice and smooth. These shoeboxes look considerably smaller than the cookie jars did... a little bigger, and they might be easier to interpret. I liked an idea someone had before, an ammo box with its lid ajar. The orientation of the two boxes in the multi icon makes them pretty obscure when shrunken to map-icon size. When they first appeared on the map pages, I thought they were buildings.

To have all three off by the same amount is a little odd, but 30 feet is within the normal range of error. Your GPS should give you an estimated position error when it's locked on; 15-20 feet is typical under open skies. The hider of the cache had to contend with a similar amount of potential error. As a result, few caches are found right where your GPS is pointing. I'd expect a little more variety in your distances, but see what happens after you find a few more caches.

I wish when substantial changes were made, something would be said on the announcement board at the very least, or preferably a notice would be sent to all of us who signed up wanting to be "the first to know" about new things on the site. Many of the changes have been for the better, but they've NEVER been explained to the masses who don't hang out on the forums.

I'd emphasize that it's like a treasure hunt, the boxes are hidden and you have to figure out where they are. You hardly ever just walk up to them. Plus, there's a certain amount of error, so you're really being told, "Okay, somewhere near this spot there's a hidden box. Find it." The fun is in being clever enough to figure out how it might have been hidden, spotting a few rocks out of place, things that ordinary people walking by would never notice. Geocaching is like knowing a secret. I like that part. I'd take your friend on a hunt for a cache that you know is well-done, cleverly hidden, a bit of a challenge. Don't want him to think "Okay, so Geocaching is when you chuck a piece of Tupperware under a bush."

We picked up the X5 and like it. Haven't, um, actually gone night caching, since, but we've used it around the apartment and walking by the beach at night, and it seems like a nice little light.

I have a homemade first-aid kit, in a tiny backpack-shaped bag. Neosporin, bandaids, pocket knife, various wipes (antibacterial/anti-poison-oak/plain wet wipes), tweezers, and a small selection of medications (advil, allergy med, imodium). After a year of caching, it was pretty obvious what we usually needed on the trail, so I just consolidated those things into one small bag.

It's not a bug; you can't change the coordinates of an existing cache more than a little without having to contact an admin to get it re-approved. Same reasoning as being unable to change cache type; they don't want people submitting a regular cache in one place, and then deciding to change it to a virtual a mile away without anyone having veto power. This does probably mean that grandfathered traveling caches are going to be a pain to maintain.

They were frozen for quite some time; things I posted yesterday evening are now showing up. I tried to show some restraint and not double-post, but I didn't realize 12 hours was an appropriate amount of time to wait! Oops :/. Thanks for cleaning things up.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a sizeable cache near the ocean... Sunset Cache by Team Gingka or Fly Away With Me by Ruscal are probably large enough, but they're both on the bluffs, not really down at the water's edge. We haven't actually found Gromit's Runaround, but it sounds like it may be what you're looking for.

I keep getting a "page you requested is unavailable" error when trying to post a new topic. If I try to re-post, I'm told that what I'm submitting is identical to a previous post. But my original post, the one that generated the error, does not show up. I'll feel very foolish if there's simply a time delay and it'll show up twice in a few hours, but that doesn't seem to make sense; my ordinary posts show up right away, and I got an error, not a confirmation. By that logic, this won't go through either, but I've gotta try...

We've already got a yellow eTrex, but I'm curious about models with mapping capability. How much map can one get in 8MB or 24MB of memory? What would it take to hold, say, the entirety of San Diego county? I'd care about having as much detail as possible -- the smallest streets, topo maps. Come to that, how well can one even see a topo map, on a GPS screen? Can you load both street and topo information, and if you do, do you get to select which to display at any given time? I know topo maps are often indifferent when it comes to keeping up with street changes. The higher-end eTrex models apparently have finer resolution on the same size screen as the yellow; is the print then very, very tiny?

We've already got a yellow eTrex, but I'm curious about models with mapping capability. How much map can one get in 8MB or 24MB of memory? What would it take to hold, say, the entirety of San Diego county? I'd care about having as much detail as possible -- the smallest streets, topo maps. Come to that, how well can one even see a topo map, on a GPS screen? Can you load both street and topo information, and if you do, do you get to select which to display at any given time? I know topo maps are often indifferent when it comes to keeping up with street changes. The higher-end eTrex models apparently have finer resolution on the same size screen as the yellow; is the print then very, very tiny?

Yellow eTrex, about a year and a half old, 300+ caches found with it, no problems. In very hot weather, the rubber grippy ring gets a little slidy, but I wouldn't really term that a serious difficulty.

Isn't 'changing' a regular cache to a virtual without getting permission not okay? Since it's now impossible to edit the cache type, a number of people local to us have simply decided to add in the description that their plundered cache is now a 'virtual' and people should log it as such. Usually these sorta-virtuals have little or no verification, and aren't things that would have been approved as virtuals originally. Maybe this bridge is interesting enough, and maybe the plundering of the cache proves that it's not possible to have a physical at this location, but still, shouldn't they run it by the admins and get the type changed? At that point, when there's actual verification in place, you can either log it as a virt on the day you were first there (presuming you got enough info to verify it as a find), or revisit and get what they're now asking for. I find the pseudo-virtual tactic annoying, because these still show up as physical caches in searches. I assume the reason for not being allowed to edit cache types is because TPTB want stronger control over virts. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, but a mis-typed cache is just a bad thing. If it's called a regular cache, it should be one.

I am very lazy; it sounds like you have to manually enter your stats to have them show up on that site. I like to know stats, but not enough to submit 300 finds. The information exists in the geocaching.com database already, and it'd be nice if we were given an easy way to access it. I really don't think that stats=competition=nastiness, and I don't know why the powers that be are so negative about them. All the geocaching 'rivalry' I've seen has been very friendly, and though there are scattered instances of people 'padding' their numbers or making false logs, those things upset me more because they offend my sense of integrity than because I care that Team X's logging their own cache four times might put them in 427th place instead of 428th. I am simply curious to know where we stand, in our state, or in general. I would like to say "wow, there are three thousand geocachers with more finds than we have. That's a lot of geocachers." What's the worst that could happen? I'd be motivated to get off my butt and find a few more caches in hopes of moving up a notch? C'mon. The most common use of numbers I've seen is to congratulate people when they hit nice round ones.

I'm surprised that they'd close a park for fire risk; typically, where we camp, if there's a drought such that there's signficant fire risk they forbid campfires and smoking in the park, sometimes even turn off the camp showers to conserve water, but they don't ban people altogether. But if they did, yeah, I'd stay out. Closed means closed.

I saw a Thermos cache. After a year outside in weather-less San Diego, it was cracked and the inside was filthy. The owner replaced it as soon as he found out, but don't expect anything plastic to last forever.

I really like the latest designs, though I think the asterisks are confusing. It's not clear what they represent. I don't think the town of Eureka is that significant to geocaching, and I'm not sure what the second asterisk marks; the geographical center again? It doesn't look like the center, but I've been wrong before. Really, I'd prefer the coin simply represent the whole state and not mark a particular point on it. Very nice looking, though. The new fonts and textures are pretty sharp.

Hawkeye and I always cache together, unless there are significant reasons not to. When I went on a trip, each of us logged a cache or two alone, and when he sprained his ankle I snagged a FTF without him, but only because it was practically in our backyard. We're obviously not competitive with each other, except that sometimes we have a day where one or the other of us finds all the caches. We have only one GPS, so what usually happens is the person with the GPS is still reading off of it, and the other one's actually hunting, and finds the cache first. We try to trade off when the person not finding any caches gets tired of it. It might be interesting to have two units someday, but it's not a pressing concern. And I would say that perhaps it has improved our relationship; it's something fun to do together, a shared interest to talk about, etc. The more of those, the better. I'd say our interest in the sport is pretty well matched. I'm a bit disappointed how many guys' SO's aren't into caching or even dislike it.

Nice page, but I think "needs archived" is a bit... grammatically challenged.

quote:Originally posted by allanorn:When I was planning a cache trip, I came across http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=28593. Apparently they placed an ammo box a little too close to the airport and a cacher was seen rehiding it and taking off. I don't know... I think it would take something larger than an ammo-box-sized explosive to harm the airport from there. There are closer caches. Heck, there's a micro IN the airport now (I do not pretend to know how that got approved). I think the real problem was simply that it was in a populated area, and it got noticed. Ammo boxes don't make great urban caches. This one was actually on an island in the middle of the road, and you could hardly be discreet when fetching it. But I expected it to be plundered within days, not bomb-squadded a year later. My least favorite cache container is the PVC pipe, though. They just look ominous. And I can never get them open. I completely agree that the rules and guidelines are spread out too much and too difficult to find. A piece here, a piece there, I know I saw a rule about somethingorother SOMEWHERE around here... consolidating tham and making clear what's set in stone and what isn't would be very helpful.