junglehair

Someone logged one of my EarthCaches in New Zealand on June 22, with a date visited of February 22. I waited a couple of days, but didn't get an email from them with the answers, so I sent a gentle reminder message: I try to be nice because I know sometimes it takes a while to get caught up on all your logs. Or sometimes I screw up and accidentally delete and email I meant to keep. They seemed to be new cachers too, with only 50 finds. They did send a response to my email with answers to the questions, however it appears that the answers were obtained through internet research, and not the information I was looking for which was written on the signs along the trails. Perhaps they lost the paper with the answers on it since they were logging it 3 months later and scrambled to come up with something to answer. Perhaps they were not familiar with the logging requirements of an EarthCache being newbies and all. I suppose there could be several good excuses for this, but that was not relayed in their email to me. I also noticed that they had logged traditional caches in California on the same date they logged for my EarthCache. Of course, that's possible too if it's a couple and one was in NZ while the other was at home. They only had two finds in NZ - both EarthCaches. One on South Island on Feb 21 and mine on North Island on Feb 22. They have since added photos to their logs for the EarthCaches, making it a bit better I guess. So now I don't know what I should do. I really hate to delete someone's log unless I think they are really just trying to get away with something. If it's newbie mistakes, I'm willing to let it slide and just offer advice on how to log these in the future. Maybe I'm just too nice. Maybe they went there 10 years ago and now noticed there was a virtual EarthCache there, so thought they'd log it. I suppose I should email them back and ask them what the scoop is. I don't want to discourage new cachers, but something doesn't seem quite right with this one. Curious to know what other EarthCache owners would do in this situation.

Hey, I collect signature items, and I'm in your area (at least for now). Mind you, I'm selective about which signature items I trade for. I would LOVE to find one of Bitten's clay dragon chips, but Winnipeg is probably too far to hope to find one in a cache here, not to mention being on the other side of that passport-requiring border. My favourite signature items are poker chips, wooden tokens, custom pins and any hand-made item like your chain-link balls. I don't collect the calling card type sig items though. I probably have a couple hundred items in my collection now.

-duplicate post

I used a Garmin eTrex Legend for years and never had that issue. Very strange. It almost seems like it is treating the waypoints as a route, so as soon as it reaches one stage of the route, it switches to guide you to the next stage. Sorry, I can't offer too much help off the top of my head. If there is a restore to factory default setting somewhere you might want to try that. I know the default settings work well for geocaching. I do have a Legend still at home, so if someone can't answer your email here, you can email me with the list of steps you are taking to find a cache and I'll see if I can reproduce the error later.

I have a Garmin Oregon 550 and use the field notes feature to log my finds. I noticed that sometimes it puts in the wrong date, and today I realized that it is using UTC time. When I look at it in the list on geocaching.com, it shows the correct date, but for any caches that I found after 6:00 p.m. (My time zone is -6 UTC), it uses the following date when I click the Compose Log link. Has anyone figured out a way to fix this?

Thanks for starting this thread! I never thought about updating the firmware on my Oregon to resolve this, but it will be a great help. It would have been really great during my vacation to the 4 Corner states in the US to have the EarthCaches stand out on their own. I'm going to update my firmware tonight!

After reading through this entire thread, I wanted to add a side-comment here. As a Board Member for our local geocaching group, I recently met with Park Managers to discuss guidelines for placing caches in our provincial parks. They were leaning towards only allowing virtual caches in the parks. This seems to be common among land owners. A virtual cache is low impact, so why not allow those and reject traditional caches. Now I am a big fan of EarthCaches, but I would really hate to see traditional caches get phased out by public lands in favour of only virtual(Earth) caches. Fortunately we were able to convince them that there is a place for traditional caches in provincial parks as well. I'd just be careful about extolling the virtues of EarthCaches too much when you are speaking to land owners or that might be the only type of cache you'll have left to find. As for the guideline changes - I am happy to hear that we will be able to submit EarthCaches on the GC site now. For the other issues - I'll wait to see what the final changes are before commenting on them.

Wow, that was easier than I expected. The set has been sold already.

I have decided that I am going to sell my collection of approximately 300 geocoins. I stopped collecting in 2006, so many of the ones in my collection are probably difficult to come by these days. Many of these are activated, but some are not. I will transfer ownership of all the activated coins. Most of them are trackable, but again some are not. All of them are owned by me and none were stolen from caches. Before I go to the trouble of listing them all individually, I thought I would see if anyone was willing buy the entire collection. I am asking $1,000 US for the set. If the set is sold as a whole, I will include my Moun10Bike coin (ver. 3). I will also include an unactivated JungleGarmin coin. Otherwise, those coins will not be sold individually, so please don't ask. Please contact me if you are interested. I will then send you a complete list of the coins included, and indicate if they are trackable and activated or not before you make your final decision. If there are no takers in the next week, I'll post a list here of all the trackable coins and try to sell them individually. Here is a short list of some of the coins included that might be of interest: New Mexico 2005 - 2 coins, 1 activated, 1 unactivated GeoWoodstock III (unactivated) GeoWoodstock V (activated) GeoWoodstock VII (unactivated) Most of the State coins made before 2006 - most of these would be activated Midwest GeoBash 2005 (unactivated) Team Badger (activated) The 4 puzzle piece coins of the geocaching logo (activated) Bikini Bottom Feeders (activated) Check my profile for a more complete list of the activated coins I own: http://www.geocaching.com/profile/default....26-5740f940a231 I am keeping less than 20 coins, so most on the ones in my inventory will be part of the set. Please do not contact me with requests for individual coins at this time. Thanks, Sandra (aka junglehair)

My Crew from Waterloo geocoin will be travelling to Ireland with me in a couple weeks to have it's photo taken with a real pint! I'll post photos as soon as I can. Keep an eye on TB2CCWH.

Hey Chilehead, While I can't say that I agree with your idea, I do understand where you are coming from. I prefer to monitor my own caches though. Some of my favourite hides, I would like to see live on rather than have some newbie come in and put a micro in its place. Some of my caches are less memorable though, and often I'll archive those after a while - especially if they happen to go missing. So I like the idea of recycling some of the locations with new hides, but I hate the thought of this being an automated thing. I'd rather see a Cache Maintenance Month declared. Get people to go out and visit their caches and perhaps start thinking about archiving some to make room for new ones.

My spouse? I'm getting a spouse for Christmas? Is it possible to get the GPS without the spouse accessory (Otherwise I might have to share).

I use gmail as well, so perhaps they did have an issue. Thanks for the response.

I logged into my geocaching account this evening and received the following message: You need to validate your account. If you have the validation code from the email we sent you, visit the validation page, otherwise you can send a validation email. I haven't changed my email address or anything recently. In fact, after receiving that message, I checked my profile to make sure someone hadn't hacked in and tried to change the email address or something. My email address appears to be correct, but I never received an email regarding the validation. Anyone else seen this?

I definitely think EarthCaches are cool. I placed the first EarthCache in Manitoba (Dunes Day - GC12902) back in April and now we have 5 including my new one on the Manitoba Tyndallstone (GC12TPF). Dunes Day requires a 7 km hike through sand dunes to find the answers to the questions. This is a protected area where no physical caches would be allowed, but it is also one of my favourite locations to hike in Manitoba. The Manitoba Tyndallstone EarthCache can almost be done without having to get out of your car. It is also wheelchair accessible and could be done on foot or by bike if someone chose to. As I am not a geologist, I rely on information from Wikipedia and other sources to add the educational component. The WOW part of it just comes from the fact that they are things that I find interesting and I hope to share with others.

When I had only a few finds to my name, it seemed like a shame to spend an entire day finding caches and then only be able to claim one smiley at the end of it all. Now that I have found many caches, the smiley count is no longer that important to me. Now I like knowing that my find count is accurate and legitimate. Before I did my 1000th find, I went through all my previous logs and deleted any of the so-called "bogus" finds, so now I only have one log for any given event no matter how many temporary caches I found that day. However, that's just the rules that I like to play by. Like most things in life, I believe people have the right to decide for themselves how they want to play the game.

Sorry to hear that you got mugged and lost your GPS. This story is particularly scary for me since I was faced with a potentially dangerous situation this past weekend in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Here's a copy of what I posted in our local MBGA forums: I was out this afternoon scouting locations to place a new cache and decided to check out the little park off River Avenue that I've passed by many times. I think it's called Fort Rouge Park. Seems like a nice little park with play structures for kids, and picnic tables and benches scattered about. First of all, I walked down to the river level to look for potential hiding spots in that area. This is almost a 3 tier park. There's the upper level with the play structures, then a middle level that is just a grass field, then the river level. There were a couple groups partying down on the middle level (remember this is the middle of the afternoon), so I decided that perhaps it would be better to stick to the upper level. I figured if I placed a cache here and warned people that it was not recommended for night caching, then it should be ok. So here I am wandering around the upper level of this park and checking out some of the lilacs and other bushes for potential hiding spots, when I hear what sounds like a dropped case of beer nearby. I stand still hoping that who ever that was doesn't see me. Well, next thing I know, there are two native guys getting ready to sit at the picnic table right beside where I am standing. The one guy asks me what I'm doing there in the bush. I replied "oh, just looking around". Then he asks if that's a radio in my hand. I'm thinking it's probably best to let him think that, than to tell him it's a $500 GPS unit, so I said "ya". Well, then he starts asking if I am some sort of security, or if I'm a cop, or what exactly I think I am doing hiding out in these bushes. I laugh it off and tell them not to worry, I'm just enjoying the lilacs in bloom. So then they ask if I mind if they sit there and drink their beers. Sure, no problem - it's a free country (although I imagine that open liquor in the park is not legal). So they sit down and pop open their cans of Lucky beer. I tell them to have a nice day and try to go on my merry way. Well, not so fast - now they want to chat. They suggest that I sit with them at the picnic table because I'm making them nervous walking around (looking for my quickest exit). So I agree and sit down to chat with these guys. The one guy introduces himself as Russell, but the other doesn't offer up his name. Russell mentions that freedom is the best thing in the world then tells me that he just got out after serving 6 years in the joint. That's apparently where he met his nameless buddy. He asks me if I can imagine what it's like to be locked up for 6 years. I tell him I really can't. So he explains to me what it's like, and what you need to do to survive in there. He asks me if I've heard of the Manitoba Warriors. I told him I hadn't. He looked at me in disbelief and said "You've never heard of the f'n Warriors???" His buddy asks me if I just crawled out from under a rock in that bush (ha ha - sense of humour I see). So then I got a lesson on some of the gang activity in the city. Apparently the one that didn't offer up his name is a captain of the Warriors with his own crew and everything. He showed me the tattoo on his back to prove it. Russell is just an associate (I think that was the term he used), but being friends with a Captain (even though he's not on his crew) means that people pretty much leave him alone. As far as I can gather, these two guys met in the joint and are now friends for life. There was certainly a lot of "I love you man" comments being exchanged between the two of them. They asked me if I'd ever smoked crack, and I told them no. So then they asked me if I wanted to as he's reaching into his bag of tricks. I told him no thanks. He said "it makes your head f'n ring", so I asked "and that's a good thing??" Note: this is the 2nd time in a week that I've been offered drugs while geocaching. Oh, and I also got to hear about their fun and exciting Friday night down on Main Street. They ran into some guy that owed the Captain money. It's all about the money you know, so he had to show him he meant business. The Captain grabbed the guy and apparently stabbed him 4 times in the back until Russell stepped in and told him to back off. Then he told the other guy to take off before he gets himself killed. Gee, what did I do Friday night? Sat around my apartment drinking margaritas with a couple of friends. Well, my new friends finished their beers and had to go make a phone call. They told me that they respected me for sitting there and chatting with them. Especially being a white female and being alone - they were surprised I didn't run away in fear. Russell picked one of the lilac blooms off the bush nearby and handed it to me saying it was a gift from them. Man, do I ever lead a sheltered life. Needless to say, I chose not to place a cache in this park

I like this new feature, but it doesn't appear to be working quite as I would expect it to. The title for this new section indicates that it should list events that will take place in the next 30 days. However, it lists the "will attend" logs that were posted in the past 30 days. I had one event drop off my list because I posted my "will attend" note more than 30 days ago, even though the event has not taken place yet.

It seems the codes for both the Australia and New Zealand (Kiwi) coins were added to the sleeves. I went through the pile of plastic covers I have and actually managed to find the numbers I needed.

What a pain trying to track down activation codes. I finally went through my coin collection and decided to activate the coins that I hadn't previously. I managed to track down all the activation codes except for two. Anyone know where to get them for Australia and Kiwi geocoins?

I started with an eTrex Legend and I still think it's a great unit. In fact, I still keep it around as a back up in case something happens to my Garmin 60cx. If you can afford more, the color screen units are nice. But in my opinion, for and entry level gps, the Legend is a great choice.

I happen to know that the coin shown above was designed by Vargseld, who also designed the New York State coin. He has since been banned by geocaching.com, therefore I'm fairly sure that any plans for producing this coin have been dropped.

My condolences to Tony's family and friends. When I was living in Rochester, NY, there was a group of us there a few years ago that decided to drive up to Canada to attend a geocaching event in Southern Ontario. 1701eh and CheeryO's were the first two cachers we met at that event and I remember them giving us a warm welcome. I was fortunate enough to meet Tony again at a few other events in NY and ON. In fact, I made the certificate that NYGO presented to Tony at the pub night in NY where he celebrated his 1000th find. I have since moved back home to Winnipeg, MB and was out caching during the long weekend when I opened a log book and found 1701eh's name in there. Apparently he was visiting Winnipeg in July where he logged his 2000th cache find. He will definitely be missed by the geocaching community and everyone who knew him. My thoughts are with his family during this difficult time.

Wow - I had no idea some people were still waiting for this coin. I received mine almost 5 months ago now! And that was after waiting what seemed like an eternity for them. How many people still have not gotten their coins?

I would like to be added to the list for 1 please.