Mudfrog

My observations, and the reason I started the thread, is because of the overwhelming abundance of microcaches placed in silly locations these days. I don't expect every cache to be to my taste and I certainly don't expect every cache to be non micro in size. Microcaches do have their place. But it's easy to see that people will become bored, some quicker than others, if all they come across is the same ole teensy stuff over and over. Heck, I know a few once hardcore "number's hounds" that have given geocaching up completely after they figured out for themselves that those big numbers weren't doing a thing for them. The original premise to put thought and quality into a cache hide needs to be brought back. It's a shame that geocaching has become just another "game app" and that the focus on quantity has become the mainstay these days..

The issues I had yesterday were actually happening about 40 miles north of Lumberton. But after looking at Google Earth, see that the distance to Fort Polk from either location is about the same,, around 80 miles as the crow flies. BTW,, my unit is the GPSMAP 76CSX, not a 78. I did just go look and found that there was an old update that I guess I had never installed. Not sure what I"Chipset Type G" is or does, but I downloaded and installed anyway. Tried the unit out afterwards, first time today, and acquisition happened pretty quickly. Turned the unit off for a few seconds then back on and had satellite acquisition almost immediately. I'll keep testing to see if things are back to normal.

My 78CSX has been acting screwy the last couple of times I've used it. Sometimes it would acquire satellites just fine and then at others, get stuck on the acquisition screen. I'd have to go to the menu and tell it to acquire in a new location to get it to work. Have never had to do this in the past. It's probably my unit acting up but who knows, maybe something has changed with signal transmission itself. I doubt there is an update for my old unit but I'm going to check after I post this.

I agree with you, especially what you mentioned in your first paragraph. I personally believe that the phone app is a main cause and if it is, don't think there's much that can be done to curb it at this point. As for my query, there were a few different hiders but the majority (76 out of the first 100) were hidden by one person.

I've read many of your posts and it's obvious you have some great caches in your area. You, and it sounds like others, really put some effort and thought into cache placements. I'd definitely loved to do some caching down your way. Yep, I'm envious for sure!

I too like challenging hides. A good camouflaged micro hidden in a way that makes me scratch my head is great. Yes, I might be surprised but I'm fairly certain none of the caches in my query fall into that category Most are placed along side county roads where you hop out of your vehicle, sign the tiny logscroll, drive on to the next, and repeat. They were placed to up find count. There are a few in cemeteries which are sometimes interesting, otherwise it's pretty much humdrum city. As far as finding caches I like, sure I filter. Unfortunately, not many results come up when I do. The query I just ran is a good example. I'd have gotten one result if I had filtered for regular sized caches.

We're planning on heading up for an Event tomorrow so I decided to run a query for caches around that area. The query pretty much covers rural countryside with a couple of small towns thrown in. To my surprise (well not really), almost every cache was micro in size. Out of the first one hundred, 20 were listed as being small and 1 was listed as being regular in size. Upon reading some of the descriptions, it turns out that all but 3 of the listed smalls are actually micros (hints say bison, magnetic, tube, etc,,). The 1 showing as regular does state that it is an ammocan. The overabundance of park and grab type microcaches are one of the reasons my Family has slowed so much with our hobby. Except for number's hounds, I know there are others that feel this same way. If so, then why have so many park and grab type micros been placed? Yeah, I know they are cheap, they're good for numbers, and there are places that only they will fit. Even so, I would think that if people did prefer larger, then they themselves would, at least sometimes, place larger. So why don't they? For now, these goofy little things are overwhelming to say the least, and imo, are one of the reasons geocaching has slowed. Hmmm, think I'll see about placing an honest to goodness life sized regular size geocache this week so that the few people visiting it can experience one up close.

Geocaching as a whole has come to a crawl in our area as well. Caches are slow to be published these days and when one does come out, no one gets in any hurry to get it. Not sure the reasons others might have but for me, it's because there's no challenge getting a FTF these days.

The FTF game can be a lot of fun if there are others in the area playing to make it challenging. The important thing is that no one should take it too seriously. Being FTF is simple and unless someone is out to cheat, is normally easy to figure out. All ya gotta do is be the first one to the cache site to find the container and sign the log. Yes, your signature is first in the logbook but there are times when it might not be at the top. For instance, if the logbook pages stick together and you inadvertently sign your name on the 2nd page. When we played the FTF game some years back, we always made a quick look through the logbook to see if someone might have signed in a less obvious place. Never saw it happen around our area but I have read here in the forums where some have tried to be funny by signing on the last page to throw others off. Even read once that someone signed with ultraviolet ink in an attempt to cause angst.

This above! Published at different times or all at once probably ain't gonna make much difference. Honestly, an attempt to try and foil a regular FTFer seems a bit silly to me. Cachers who want a FTF sometimes need to up their game to get it. I used to play it and believe me, I had to be ready and fast if I wanted to be first. We used to have some good friendly, no drama competition in our area back in the day. Making it to ground zero first was a challenge and a big part of the fun. Thankfully, no one (as far as I know) purposely slowed up their game to make it easy for us or others.

OP, you do know that it's the finder's responsibility to maintain power trail owner's caches, right? You were totally wrong not taking care of those caches when you went to find them. Shame on you! Kidding of course. I'm not sure why so many PT owners have that mentality.

At first, I thought you were serious Clark. Looked at the page and was trying to figure out why in the world it seemed intimidating to you. But then I saw your fine print.. That would be a fun cache to go after. Sick, it isn't! The Leap does look like fun for sure. Doesn't look dangerous at the leaping point but I'm sure just getting to it is a real challenge. I'd be chomping at the bit to check into it if it wasn't so far away. Maybe one of these days...

First person to actually make it to ground zero and meet the requirements of course. Just like with traditional caches, the person that actually makes it to ground zero and signs the log is the first person to find the cache. Doesn't matter if he logs online a week after the next person comes along, he's still the first to find..

I got harassed, pretty much called a liar, on a cache that I owned a while back. The reviewer insisted that I was trying to skirt listing guidelines. I got back in his face and we got things straightened out, but he never did admit he was wrong or offer up any kind of apology. I realize he had probably seen and put up with all kinds of carp from cache owners but it still wasn't right for him to jump to the conclusion, before contacting me, that I was trying to pull a fast one. Korichnovui, I may be wrong but I doubt many reviewers share emails like yours did. In my opinion, that was wrong and shouldn't have taken place unless consent was given by the reporter of the perceived problem.

Who knows? That cacher may have been denied permission at that location by one person but then you came along later and got a yes from another person. From what you said, it sounds as though the cacher used one of the options at his disposal to help make sure everything was ok with your cache. I imagine the process went something like this Cacher emailed reviewer with his concern, Reviewer looked over the cache listing and then contacted you to double check, You responded back to the reviewer with a "you had permission", And the reviewer said "Ok, Sounds good, Thanks!",,,, or something similar. I don't see anything here that should a have made you feel sad or small. As has been stated, there are cache owners out there that get very defensive and downright upset when someone expresses a concern or says something about their cache. Letting a reviewer know about a potential problem is a good way to get things straightened out. It also helps alleviate some of the drama that might arise if a cache owner is contacted directly.

Honestly, there may not be a problem with any of these caches. You doubting that permission was given does not mean that permission was not given. You really need more evidence before immediately assuming something's wrong. At the same time, there's a decent chance your spidey senses are correct that one or more of them aren't adhering to guidelines. Talking to the cache owner with concerns might be a way to clear things up but if you're hesitant doing that, you can contact the reviewer to let him or her look into the perceived issues. As far as the bridge cache, there is a restriction mentioned in the general guidelines. I believe though, this restriction is not set in stone. I would say it depends on a few factors such as the bridge's location, how busy the traffic is, and/or maybe the region of the country.

I sure agree with you here. No matter what someone, a company in this case, does,,, people are going to complain. Groundspeak could give every geocacher here a free premium membership for a year and there'd be complaints. We should remember, this is a free promotion that doesn't even have to exist in the first place. I realize that geocaching souvenirs are fun for many. But, is it really a disaster if a person misses out on one? Does getting or not getting one make any difference in that person's life? I really don't understand the fascination with souvenirs but even if I did collect them, I wouldn't become disgruntled when a promotion came out that didn't fit my schedule or was too challenging for me.

Thought I'd add,, The person I know that did it was very open about it and didn't mind letting others know about their technique. In their mind, it was a good way for them to complete the challenge. Just like the OP here, I'm fairly certain they weren't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. I do have to wonder though, if they may have thought about it later and realized their technique didn't make a lot of sense.

I've seen people do all kinds of crazy things to make their stats look better. One of the silliest was the quest to log at least one cache a day to complete a 365 day challenge. I know at least one person that'd find several caches in a day but save some to log on days they didn't go caching. Didn't hurt me any but it still gave me the opportunity to give them the ole eyeroll when they bragged about completing the challenge. To the OP, you can do it the way you like. Just keep in mind that it may look funny to you later because you'd know it wasn't really your 1100th milestone. If stats are important to you, and you want them to be accurate, then you should probably just log it in the order you got it. Use this as a learning experience to plan ahead for your 1200th milestone.

Bizzyb and I had the opportunity to stop by Barney's museum a few years back. Was a great pleasure meeting and talking with Barney for our approximately 2 hour tour. It was definitely a memorable and favorite caching experience for me. I knew the time would eventually come for him to pass but it's still a shock to get this news today. Our prayers go out to his family,,, Rest In Peace!

I sure miss the old map that geocaching dot com used to use. Was nice back in the day when a single click of "view larger map" link brought up the cache centered and all the other nearby caches. The cache owner does say that most of the caches are park and grabs so I would at first lean to calling it a power trail. But then it has been posted here that there are a variety of hides, container sizes, and challenges. Also, the cache owner's statement to please not throw down and to log the DNF as appropriate is definitely a plus for the argument not to call it a pt..

No doubt there are others that think the way you do on this but I would guestimate that y'all aren't the majority. Nothing wrong at all with going at it that way , especially if it's been a while since the caches were found. One situation I can definitely see it. I took my less than one year old Daughter caching when I was the stay at home dad. Logged a few caches under her name and I have a feeling she'd start fresh if she got back into caching.

Exactly! Her son found the caches with her and therefore has a right to log them under his own name. I can't imagine anyone saying to himself, I found those caches a while back but I'm gonna start fresh and either forget about them or go find them again.

For me, the hunt begins when I press "go to" with the intent of finding a cache. A DNF gets posted when, for whatever reason, I don't come up with that cache. I do make sure to post in my DNF, the reason I didn't find it. That way, when someone reads my DNF log stating that my car broke down before I got to ground zero, they won't panic and think there's something wrong. Doing this doesn't hurt a thing and helps me keep up with DNFed caches I might want to go back and try for again someday. OP, I'm sure you have but, make sure to read the logs to see why they were posted as DNFs before taking any action. Also, I'm sure that you have actually looked for these caches but if not, then you probably shouldn't worry about them at this point. Yes, a string of DNFs does give an indication there's something wrong but unless you've gone out and actually looked for the cache, you really don't know anything for sure. Personally, we've found many caches with DNFs on them, many of them low difficulty rated caches.

I grew up messing around in the woods and have had ticks, redbugs, mosquitos, spiders, snakes, you name it, get on and bite me. Very rarely do I ever use any kind of repellent. I get ticks, I pull them off using my finger nails. If one gets embedded, I pull off what I can get and let my body do whatever it wants with the rest. Having said that, I'm sure there are areas that have a higher percentage of disease carrying ticks and I wouldn't blame anyone for taking precautions in those areas. The area we're in, , I'm fine going about my camping/geocaching/hiking business without applying chemicals that I'm sure can cause ill affects down the road.