Ben0w

Nur wenn die Steine mitgebracht und anschließend wieder mitgenommen werden. Ansonsten ist das Entnehmen von Dingen oder Verändern in Naturschutzgebieten selbstverständlich verboten. Mit "Needs Archived" bin ich sehr zurückhaltend. Ein offenbar inadäquates Versteck inkl. Naturschutzgebiet würde ich damit noch nicht melden, denn wer weiß, vielleicht hat der Owner ja doch die Erlaubnis, wie auch immer, bekommen? Das vermag man praktisch nicht zu erkennen. Ich kenne mindestens einen Cache, in dem sich hin und wieder beschwert wird, dass man Ärger bekommt, wenn man den Privat-Weg zum Cache geht. Es gibt jedoch einen etwas weiteren Weg, der völlig legal nutzbar ist. Einen "Needs Archived" gibt's von mir dann, wenn der Cache wirklich nicht so gelistet werden sollte, wie er's ist. Das habe ich bislang nur einmal mit einem relativ neuen Cache gemacht, der vom Grundstückseigentümer wegen mehrfachen ungenehmigten Zutritts auf seinem Land an die Polizei gemeldet wurde, die prompt den Behälter entfernt hat. Eindeutig ohne Erlaubnis platziert & Dose sicher weg -> needs archived... Ich schreibe ansonsten lieber eine entsprechende Anmerkung ins Log (Found, DNF, Note), wenn mir was am Cache nicht passt. Dass ich ihn dennoch gefunden habe, macht mir da nichts aus, denn wie sollte ich sonst wissen, was mit dem nicht in Ordnung ist? Außer, es ist von Anfang an erkennbar, dann lasse ich ihn eben ungesucht liegen. Mein Erlebnis mit der Polizei bestärkt mich darin nur - das wäre wohl anders ausgegangen, wenn für mich von Anfang an die Cache-Location als ungenehmigt erkennbar gewesen wäre.

I use GeoBucket on iPhone. If i remember correctly, it is available for iPad also, including usage of special constraints there. HTH

Ein iPhone (hier: iPhone 4) reicht gerade am Anfang völlig aus. Hauptproblem ist die Akkustandzeit. Eine Powerwanderung mit 8h GPS-Betrieb macht es nicht mit, aber eine Suche von ca. 2-4h locker. Wenn man Akku spart, indem man es nur bei echtem Bedarf anschaltet, dann auch länger. Mit einem KFZ-Anschlusskabel kann man bei entsprechender Wegstrecke zwischen mehreren Caches die Akkus gut laden. Ein externes Akkupack oder ein Solarladegerät könnte auch hilfreich sein, habe ich selbst jedoch noch nicht probiert, kann man kaufen. Gegen Witterungseinflüsse habe ich mir einen Brustbeutel zugelegt, durch den das iPhone auch bedient werden kann. Beim Fahrradfahren praktisch, da kann man auch mal so schnell draufschauen. Manchmal spinnt jedoch der elektronische Kompass. Hier hilft Ortskunde, gutes Kartenmaterial oder ein echter magnetischer Kompass. Ein Nachteil gegenüber einem guten GPSr ist die Empfangsqualität. Die Genauigkeit des GPS-Signals ist bei guten Empfangsverhältnissen völlig ausreichend, verliert aber schnell an Qualität, wenn es etwas schwieriger wird. Gerade in dichten Wäldern oder natürlich auch Gebäuden bzw. Tunneln lässt das iPhone schnell zu wünschen übrig. Hier kommt man aber auch oft in die Falle, dass das eigene GPS-Signal ggf. genauer ist als das desjenigen, der den Cache versteckt hat. Diesen "Versteckfehler" muss man hin und wieder mit einberechnen. Vorteil des iPhones ist, dass man (bei Internetverbindung) einen schnellen GPS-fix bekommt (weil das iPhone bekannte Accesspoint-Standporte referenziert bzw. auch die Satelliten-Referenz direkt geladen wird anstatt aus dem GPS-Signal langsam ausgefiltert). Dann kann man auch mal schnell recherchieren oder die aktuelle Cache-Seite aufrufen und nach weiteren Hints (Spolierpics, in Logs o.ä.) suchen. Wenn ich mich auf komplexere Serien vorbereite, kopiere ich mir die Cache-Seiten inkl. Spoiler und ggf. Hints vorab per Cloud (ich nutze einen anderen Anbieter, aber das ist Geschmackssache) zur Offlinenutzung auf das iPhone und habe das dann dabei. Meine installierte Geocaching-Apps auf dem iPhone (alle kostenlos verwendbar): GeoBucket (lädt die Daten aus der Groundspeak-Datenbank, allerdings bekommt es bei Basic Membership nur Tradis mit Basis-Daten geliefert, Für den Rest siehe das nächste Tool: FreeGPS) - Vorsicht, die aktuelle Version braucht ein iOS mind. Version 5. FreeGPS (freie Wegpunkteingabe mit Map in verschiedenen Formaten, hier kann man auch die Koordinaten zu Multis und Mysteries etc. selbst eingeben und sieht sie dann auf der Karte), GCTools (Berechnungen und v.a. Koordinaten-Tools), iGCT (Decrypting-Tools), GPS Data (raw-Information aus dem GPS-Chip), Coordinates (Koordinatensysteme), outdooractive (topographische Karte), ViewRanger (Kartentools), navfree (Navi auf Basis der Openstreetmap), Commander Compass Lite (Profi-Kompass) Zudem half mir auch schon "Taschenlampe" oder "Licht" zum Aktivieren der Kamera-Blitz-LED, wenn's mal dunkler wird und eine richtige Taschenlampe fehlt (geht natürlich auf die Akkus). Für den einfachen Tradi reicht das genannte "GeoBucket" alleine völlig aus - gut für die ersten Caches zum Testen. Oben geschriebenes gilt natürlich im Prinzip auch für andere Smartphones mit GPS-Empfänger, nur gibt es da dann vermutlich andere Apps. Eine Premium-Mitgliedschaft bei Groundspeak ist zum Cachen nicht nötig. Das ist zwar dann etwas aufwändiger als volle GPX-Dateien inkl. aller Informationen aus der Premium-Membership zu verwenden dafür aber kostenlos. Zum Ausprobieren reicht es also allemal. Wenn man mehr in die Wildnis geht, sollte jedoch ein einziges iPhone nicht alles sein, was man als Navigationshilfe mitnimmt. Gleiches gilt auch für ein einzelnes GPS-Gerät. Das dürfte aber für einen Neuling noch nicht in Frage kommen bzw. wenn man auch ohne Geocaching Wander-/Bergerfahrung hat selbstverständlich sein. Meine ersten 20 Caches habe ich übrigens mit einem normalen Auto-Navi gemacht. Das ist sehr frustrierend, weil es nicht nur einen kleinen Hack zur Direktkoordinateneingabe erforderte, sondern auch nur vernünftige GPS-Daten anzeigte, wenn man schneller als ein paar Stundenkilometer ging. War manchmal etwas nervenaufreibend. HTH! EDIT: Schreibfehler ausgebessert.

It's considered rural here ("tractor" and "hay fork" are usual tools for the land owners here, I've had luck, since they usually have guns, too). Oh, the stories here are about the worst hides. Thankfully I already found more good ones. But it's true for caches of this specific owner. We already had mail contact and he didn't hesitate to argue with me in very bad mood/language. Well, it all will strike back: since I meanwhile know his full name I can and will point all future police investigation to him. Maybe that teaches him to hide in better places - even if it may not teach him to hide better caches (or stop hiding at all). At the moment I'm just ignoring caches from this specific owner. And yes, I already walked away from other caches where I felt bad about something. In the specific case there was no sign (other than the owners name and a history of strange log entries) that this cache could be a real problem. It was free & legally accessible, the description sounded interesting. It just happened that there was some private fishing ground in the creek nearby and the land owner is a very distrustful old man, obviously getting nervous about the increasing traffic there and just waited for the next suspicious looking person...which happened to be me. Turned out that the cache owner obviously hadn't thought very carefully about the cache location or even asked for permission. It was a pretty lame cache, too: promised to be a "high-tech cache", but just was an old laptop case in a stinking plastic bag thrown under a bridge without much cover, the logbook stucked into the tiny battery compartment. This cache formerly was a multi, where the stages didn't work either. On request of previous cachers the owner finally changed it into a simple traditional. It is listed as "regular", but in reality is at maximum a "small" (only fitting the logbook and maybe small/flat swag in the CD-drive compartment of the former laptop). Even the "high-tech" bonus number clue was not working (no cacher had found it yet, all had to use brute force coordinate determining or a telephone joker). A "somewhat special" key on the laptops keyboard was indicated to give away the (alphabet) code for the bonus cache. The only key with something special clearly was the "o" (glued down) - but the resulting coordinate is wrong (points to a totally empty spot on a field nearby, I was there). The correct code is another letter, which simply isn't marked or anything else, so I think the owner just made a big mistake in his own formula. Doesn't matter, since with a little thinking about the logic calculation constraints you have only about 15 coordinate results, from those only one points to a possible hiding spot. There I finally found the bonus cache. In shorter words: it surely qualifies as one of the "worst hides ever" I found. The side story with my police encounter doesn't make it much better. [EDIT: Just for the record: I've just got a very friendly email from the cache owner, feeling sorry for my hassle with the police, promised to contact the officer and sorting things out. So at least he seems to be somewhat reasonable and caring.]

OK, I did my fourth (X) and the fifth cache (Y) from this owner. You need an obscure bonus number from X to determine the position of Y. Obscure in this way, that it is absolutely unclear, what vodoo is really behind the bonus number. There is a absolutely unique number coded into the cache X, but this doesn't work. All finders of Y tried brute force (which works, since the formular is pretty lame and shows only one real probable cache hide) OR contacted the owner or a telephone joker. But that is not all, what collects them into the "bad hides ever". The landowner spotted me from his house far away as I tried to get the bonus number, came over with his tractor and a hay fork and interrogated me about what I'm doing on his property. I denied doing something illegally (the place is open directly from the street, so technically access is allowed). He didn't accept, since he has a small fishing area near there, which is totally private. He accused me of illegal fishing (I even don't like fish) AND filed a charge against me! So, recently I got a visit from two police officers...just for visiting a lame cache. Thankfully one of them happens to know Geocaching and had a good laugh about the thing as I explained the background, so I most probably will come out of this case without any bruises, but it still is a real annoying thing. By the way: I already got an insulting mail from the owner for my increasing disgusted notes on his caches. Yes, I can ignore his caches and now I will. But they always will have a top ten position on my list of worst hides ever.

Happens and is fun. First time I met other cachers they passed me on the way to the cache, in a hurry. I had time and enjoyed the walk, but immediately identified them as geocachers. On GZ they were already searching for the cache and just seemed having found it, when I came round the corner. It was obvious that the boy warned the girl - she tried to hide herself in the bushes and he tried to act totally unrelated to the place, covering a regular sized container in his hands. Totally funny on the whole way to them, since I already knew what they were. After my coming-out they were clearly relieved. The situation was really weird: a couple walked to a spot with some trees, the female suddenly is missing, the male just does as he always was a single and has some business just standing there on the street. Could have been a totally other impression to a random muggle. Then there was the cache I already had found: I spotted a good friend of mine obviously searching something there. So we found out we're both geocachers but didn't know this from each other until then. On another cache I already gave up when on the way back to the car I met another cacher. He convinced me into looking again, and I showed him the best access path to the area and a suspicious spot where I thought the cache had to be but didn't found it, mostly due to the fact I didn't want to disturb possible wildlife. He dared to looked closer and got it (turned out to be a fake wildlife spot, so no real damage done)! So this encounter at least earned me a "Found it!". Recently I met a friend of mine, totally randomly on the same T4 cache. None of us knew that the other was going for this cache, having to swim & dive in a lake, at the same day and time. Another similar thing: a place where I occasionally work just changed location and now happens to be just on the other side of the street to a multi stage. I sometimes spot obvious geocachers in "full stealth" trying to solve the puzzle there (I already have). Nice view.

Hier in der Nähe gibt es ein altes Industriegelände, das abgesperrt und entsprechend beschildert ist, aber dennoch von ortsfremden Sprayern bevölkert wird. Die Einheimischen gehen dort nicht drauf, denn sie wissen, dass dort ein Haufen Giftstoffe im Boden versickert ist (seit zig Jahren wird hier nach einer Lösung gesucht, bislang erfolglos). Die "Gäste" könnten das auch wissen, wenn sie die Schilder lesen würden... Caches gibt es dort keine, zum Glück sind die ansässigen Geocacher wohl verantwortungsbewusst genug.

Es gibt aber eventuell auch einen anderen Weg, der legal ist! Ich hatte dies bei einer Art Lost Place Cache, der offensichtliche Weg war vom Eigentümer mit "Privatweg, Betreten verboten!" und "Vorsicht, bissiger Hund!" sowie eigener Ansprache von Besuchern deutlich als unerwünschter Durchgang gekennzeichnet. Trotzdem logg(t)en immer wieder Cacher fröhlich, dass sie das ignorieren und dem Hund bzw. dem Besitzer entwischt sind. Dabei gibt es mit ein bisschen Suche und Nachdenken einen völlig legalen Weg seitlich an dem Grundstück vorbei, der eigentliche Cache ist an der Zielkoordinate frei & legal zugänglich. Das treibt zwar den Adrenalinspiegel in die Höhe und mag seinen Reiz haben, aber das hat mit "GeoCaching" an sich nichts zu tun. Mitdenken ist keinesfalls verboten und man sollte sich nicht nur im eigenen Interesse, sondern auch im Interesse der ganzen Cachergemeinde an moralische sowie gesetzliche Regeln (und dazu gehört auch der Naturschutz) halten. Wenn ein Cache an einer verbotenen Stelle liegt, kann das mehrere Ursachen haben, z.B.: der Owner wusste nicht, dass es verboten ist (und damit beim Einreichen des Listings falsche Angaben gemacht, als er versicherte, die Erlaubnis zu haben) der Owner hat Verbote ignoriert (und damit beim Einreichen des Listings falsche Angaben gemacht, als er versicherte, die Erlaubnis zu haben) das Verbot kam nachträglich hinzu Wenn man das erkennt, dann kann man den Cache auch ignorieren, bevor man sich selbst in Gefahr bringt, ob körperlich oder juristisch. Wäre ein Knochenbruch oder eine saftige Geldstrafe einen "Found it!" wirklich wert? Zum "Befähigungsnachweis": Grundsätzlich gilt auch beim Cachen, dass es jedem prinzipiell mal frei gestellt ist, sich so dumm anzustellen, wie er möchte. Dazu gehört aber dann auch, die Konsequenzen zu tragen. Wenn das nur ein paar Hautabschürfungen sind, hat man vielleicht sogar noch Glück gehabt. Wenn man in der wilderen Natur unterwegs ist oder Klettereien über 2m Höhe macht, dann muss man sich eines erhöhten Risikos einfach bewusst sein und sollte dem im eigenen Interesse begegnen (Ausrüstung, Ausbildung, verlässlicher Partner, Kommunikationsverbindung, Hinterlassen der geplanten Tour, ...). Bin mal gespannt, wann ich den ersten Geocacher kennenlerne, der sich beim GC schwerer verletzt hat. Da wird bei manchen im FTF bzw. "Did found it!"-Rausch sicher zu viel Risiko eingegangen, ggf. aufgrund mangelnder Erfahrung/Ausbildung auch leider unbewusst. Das tut aber hinterher genauso weh. Keep safe! EDIT: Klar, alles schon passiert, siehe Link im Eintrag zu GC12PZE (Oktober 2011), zur rechtlichen/moralischen Seite passend konsequent auch dieses Log dort.

Bringing a dog is a good way. Mine likes to sniff in odd places anyway and that's often exactly where the caches are. So you have a good excuse to stay there, letting the dog explore the area and take your time to look out for the container. Just be sure to not let it pee or more on the cache... Meanwhile, if she knows we go caching, she gets excited and falls in geo-fever. Recently she even found the cache first, so I'm hoping the dog is a trained cache-finder soon. Kids help as well to explain a bit, why you're inside a bush. Unless he/she tells you in loud voice in front of all muggles "No, I don't want to pee anymore!". Dogs don't say this. But all in all I go with those that say, you're a lot more ignored than you believe. Just do your search in a confident way, like knowing what you're doing and they simply let you alone. They may wonder, but it's forgotten soon. Actually, it's fun to sit in a local bistro here, licking an ice and watching all the geocachers in "full stealth" looking for the nano with bad coordinates just in plain view from the restaurant.

Like this. I'm a medic in EMS. Last week working a medical call I had to wait a bit on the radio for dispatch organizing a target hospital while my partners were with the patient in the house. So I used the time and opened my smartphone to check for caches near that location - didn't find one near enough for a quick look, though. Think that counts.

That's true for a cache, but not for a travelbug or swag items. She's able to put anything in a cache, as long as it's somewhat family friendly (which a book for 12 year olds seems to be) and if it fits in. The latter would be the main constraint, beside beeing somewhat water proof. A paperback or even larger may exceed most cache sizes in one area. So it's no legal problem but a practical problem. A kind of travelbug (including tracking code) can add some mission to the book, but even if given away as normal trade item it could work. To the original poster: Find some geocachers who are willing to turn your book into a travelbug (reimburse their costs for that) or simply place it in a cache as swag. Or become a geocacher yourself and find some caches, using them for spreading your book - it will take some time then to find appropriate caches with enough size and climate for a book, though. BTW, for the character: it would be only real "geocaching" if the searching is done by GPS technology plus if she can log the find physically and online. Try this by brain power!

So, I logged it today in the morning. Not only it's an uninteresting spot in full muggle sight on an unimpressive standard railway bridge (!), even the container is just a simple plastic box with a wet logbook inside, in full view from the street bottom. The coordinates were way off (meanwhile corrected, but still not very good). The best you could say about it: it's not a plastic bag and it's not a micro/nano but a small (one TB already missing). The same owner just placed another cache on a tree in a children's playground (!), just beside a garden, where the inhabitants already got suspicious after three visits, according to the last log. Oh, dear. Quality caching is something other.

A co-worker told me about some cool caches in the station's area, totally ignoring the fact that i was a muggle at that time, wondering a bit what he talks about (having heard about it before, but never paid much attention). He explained nothing more. Maybe somehow he thought I simply had to be a geocacher. I looked the whole thing up on gc.com and was surprised finding one in 2 minutes walking distance from my house. It was a bridge over a creek we used to play as kids, so reading the hint "zntargvp" I immedeately knew where it has to be - and there it was! A small container, including some swag items. Few days later I just checked the website for more local caches and saw a new one, coincidental just published at this very moment. A very nice multi, and I made the FTF. This soon turned into a whole family hobby from then on, even the dog is fully involved.

Well, in fact, I was criticizing yours. This thread is not about getting the cache, my motivation to do it or the game itself, it is about bad caches. The cache in question IS a bad cache (I gave the reasons) and I still have the choice to do it or to not do it. If I want to log it I will have to wait for a busy street to become quiet (or invent some other stealth wizardry) AND to climb the bridge...most probably I'll give it another try (the "inventing stealth wizardry" would be the most interesting part, I guess). You, Sir/Madam, don't have to, sure. No offense given or taken. Thank you for this side discussion. Now back to "bad cache" stories: I have a different one in mind - a totally lovely place with a "lost object" (a large steel device from an abandoned stone mill), but in a sandy area with fantastilliards of ants. Big ants. Aggressive ants. And it was a micro. Most cachers see/feel the ants not before but just when searching the object for the container, they get aggressive on the intruder. Then it's too late - the ants are fast and crawling up on you. Some even jump from the object to your chest and face. There are a lot and the whole ant covered area is around the size of a large baseball field, you have almost no chance to flee before you're eaten. It still icks me when thinking of that cache. In winter this would be no problem, but in summer it gets really scary. So, technically it's not a bad cache itself and the location is wonderful (in fact, it is within top 5 of my favourite caches, now in hindsight), but at the time of logging I guess almost all summer cachers curse on it (they do it in the log entries...). (EDIT: Oh, just noticed that "wining" is written with an "h" -> "whining". Sorry. See, no problem with criticizing my English. )

No kidding! You don't have to do any caches. Sorry, if not fluent in english grammar as this is not my mother tongue, but the condition simply is "if you want the cache you have to climb". Other way round: if you (or me) don't want the cache, you don't have to climb. And I agree: you (or me) don't have to do any caches. But if I want, I will. On this particular one, I still just want for some reason, after another try I might not want any more. However, I reserve the right to wine about a bad cache even if I still try to log it or already logged it. If you want to discuss my personal right to wine, then that's a totally other topic...I may have not much finds yet, but I enjoy the game for some time (even in a team with another account, this adds up some other finds) enough to appreciate every single cache, that leads me to an interesting place and is not a wet plastic wrapped sheet of soggy paper. Now OK for you? Let's go on wining about some bad hides in this topic.

Oh, just remembered another bizarre one: an official street sign on a private owned house in a passage between a busy shopping arcade and a residential zone. The "cache" was a piece of paper tucked behind the street sign just with a small stripe of tape. To get the log paper the street sign had to be ripped (!) off the wall, hanging loose in it's screw holes. Even if it was intended to screw the thing open, this would not be possible since the screws actually didn't really hold the sign anymore - they just hang loose in the holes. I looked around a lot for the cache (carefully because in full sight of a lot of muggles) until I accidentally touched the sign and it came down in a cloud of cement dust, surprising me and surrounding muggles. However, I quickly spottet the log sheet behind it and managed to sign stealthily while putting it back in place. Was archieved some weeks later.

I have to drive by this spot in a neighbouring city two or three times per week, so an ignore list doesn't help much to forget this d*** thing... Something has to be said at this point: Thankfully, my own home town has no real bad cache, cache owners here seem to have some distinct sense to hide good caches and find good spots, even respecting nature. Only one nano has a bad attitude - it's in plain sight of the street authorities office window (and I don't think the owner works there) plus within full view of a crowded restaurant on the market place, there are muggles even at deep night any day. However, the place itself is worth a cache (statue of a very famous daughter of the town). Here, the real problem is the "trading" and TB/coin "collection" habit of some cachers. But that's another topic.

My first foul experience: a micro hidden in a small wood totally full of trash. You would need several trucks to trash out. My find was by pure luck. Poor: a lot of plastic bag wrapped boxes of all kinds, some would even make it far better without the bag. Bad: a plastic milk bottle, wrapped in a blue plastic trash bag and just thrown in the woods - I don't suspect animals to carry it there because it was exactly on the coordinates position. Worse: "Cache" without container, just a plastic cap (for hole cover?) and a rusty nail (intended to hold the log?) hidden in a hole of a bridge's lower edge. The log was a nearly unusable mess of wet paper with rusty stains from the nail. You would think, someone hiding a cache in a bridge over a river may be aware of the presence of water. Tried to dry it a bit in the sun, but had not enough time and it wouldn't have last long anyway. Next logs confirmed. All those had some more or less distinctive sightseeing points at least. Recently a new owner installed a cache with an inappropriate container (due to the first few loggers) which just is on a totally uninteresting railway bridge over a street and you have to climb one post in full sight of the passing cars. On several tries I never had a chance to do this unseen and most probably I will try it only once more and then finally give up. I think I can wait until this one is "archived out" of my homezone...