dartymoor

Reading some of the logs here, I'm amazed that you're splitting hairs over procedure when it's very clear most people who did it felt scared and didn't enjoy it. What would it take for you to put your ego to one side and admit this was a bad idea for a cache - somebody getting killed doing it? Good call, Reviewer.

I trust the terrain ratings have been adjusted appropriately?

Is it considered 'bad form' not to write your log chronologically? Ie, unroll fully, find the right page, and then sign? Personally, as a CO, I couldn't really give a monkeys, but perhaps other COs feel differently, or other cachers following might want to see if someone's ahead of them on a trail. Yesterday I was doing it a lot on a long trail. Quite a few logs were damp, so I felt it was risky unrolling the, but to be honest, a large percentage I signed on the outside of the roll more for speed than anything. The rules don't specify where you have to sign, only that you must. I just wondered if this might induce tutting?

Name before date? Oh dear. Do you hang toilet paper so the next sheet hangs against the wall too?

Love it!

But who says what is a reasonable number? 370 caches to maintain is a large number, and one I would personally find very hard to do. Yet in North Devon, kevham1 (with ceekay1) do exactly that and to a very high standard for a number of long trails and individual caches.

I'll forward it to the Devon geocacing facebook group, as well as the Dartmoor geocaching forums.

Motivated somewhat by your replies, I did take one of my dogs with me last saturday on Dartmoor. He was fine, and the few sheep and cattle we encountered didn't cause any problems on either side. Unfortunately, the next day Luna was very quiet, and had developed a nasty twitch in his face, and an arching of his neck so we took him to the vet. Vet unsure, but he thinks Luna picked up something nasty from a tick bite - he had two on his eyelid. Antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, and several days of sickness but he seems to be picking up now. So that was one negative I hadn't even thought of!

I got threatened by an untended Rottweiler who kept trying to get behind me on WDW, and again, very glad I didn't have my dogs or there would have been the mother of fights. As it was I had to stay in the field until eventually the farmer's wife came out to fetch it, and she had little control! (That was one of the two very messy scrapyard farms) Hunters Hike is an excellent, if bracing, walk - and yes, cross one sheep field, rest is clifftop or woodland. Sheep might also be in the quiet lane judging from the mess.

golfchick - I finished Parramble last saturday, and that northwestern loop was what prompted my question. North Devon smells of cow muck for one rather obvious black and white reason and there were a lot of livestock there. One lovely stretch of woodland of about a mile at the furthest northwest where I really did miss my dogs, though. Not a soul about, it was perfect. I do prefer the woodland ones, but they're mostly a little on the short side for my tastes. I like a good walk of about 8-12 miles and that seems to mean either Dartmoor or a farmland walk in Devon. I like both, but...

Charlie sounds a lot like one of my old collies (sadly put to sleep a week ago) who was fantastic to take walking - never got in trouble, never disappeared, was always there. Also a collie is able to resolve most stile-related problems without my help! Maybe I just have the wrong sort of dog for geocaching now...

That's a really good example, and something I hadn't considered. Presumably it must have some uncleared NM flags by now? I think I'll continue judging each on its own merits - although ones that age are few and far between.

I quite like a bit of stickoflague! Okay, maybe not as obvious as Dr Solly found, but it saves time and I cache mostly for the walk and scenery than for the fun of digging around and looking suspicious for 15 minutes. For caches where the hide itself is part of the surprise or task, no problem, but for a normal or trail cache, better to find, replace and move on - and I've no problem being given a hint by the previous finder in a way that only a cacher would spot! Bit of pine bark amongst deciduous trees, sawn log, wrong type of stone, stones "put" somewhere. Most people walk along not looking at stuff like this, especially adults, and considering how often some caches are found - and each find involving somebody searching for something that's hidden in a very localised area, it's perhaps more surprising they're not muggled more often.

This is a subject that's come up in a local forum and I would appreciate a wider input. Many cachers will replace logs and dry out caches, even replace containers when they encounter ones in need. I've done this myself and continue to do it (and as a CO myself, I'm always grateful for those who do it on mine!) - but I'm wondering if it's always a good idea? Yes - it'll save a CO a long trip for maintenance, but if the CO has abandoned the cache is it good to artificially keep a cache going that is unloved by its owner, or the owner has given up caching and will neither fix nor remove the cache. My current thinking is to just do it for CO's I know and are active, and not to for people who own few caches or who have been inactive or who have a low find count (Sorry to generalise, but most abandoned caches seem to be from the <150/200 group). I'll raise a NM and follow with a NA if not attended to, to create space for another new and loved cache that will generate new interest from local cachers who have either found the original or not gone there for a reason. But is my thinking right? What do others do who've faced this dilemma?

I own four dogs, all German Shepherds. One is too old, one is too aggressive with other dogs - that leaves two whites that I can take out walking. Yet... I very often don't - at least when doing the long geocaching trails and series that I have been mostly doing lately. In Devon, these trails are mostly through farmland. Although I love walking with my dogs in forests and the moors, I don't take them on these kinda of walks any more. There are usually stiles, mostly non dog-friendly, and after lifting 8 stones of happy, muddy and wriggling GSD over them a few times (One 6 mile loop I had to do this about 20 times - including INTO a flock of sheep who were very interested and wouldn't go away!) I get a bit tired. Sheep and the possibility of means I have to keep them on a lead almost all the time. Other dogs, loose - typically around farms - are often more aggressive to GSD's than most breeds (I have a theory about ears, but this isn't the place!) and usually their owners aren't around. Cows take a strong and sometimes dangerous interest in dogs. (On hot days, having to take sufficient water for them too!) All these points combined mean that taking a dog changes from being a fun, companionable addition to a chore and sometimes means lengthy detours and increased danger to them, livestock and myself. So I mostly leave them behind. I've even found myself sometimes doing it when walking on Dartmoor since recent years have had a significant increase in the sheep and cattle grazed. I'd be most interested to know what other dog owners think - I see threads in here where people always take their dog, but not from folk who leave theirs behind and I'm wondering if I'm the only one?

I think you'll find that for many cachers, logging and writing about their experiences, is every bit as important as the actual act!

From memory, a single flowering ragwort can produce 120,000 seeds which are both extremely fine and travel huge distances, and extremely robust and will survive many years dormancy. It's very bad this year - I don't know why, but poor land husbandry definitely plays its part (perhaps shifting agricultural patterns?), but I believe weather does too - possible the extra wet early summer activated seeds previously dormant? It's endemic and very robust, and very difficult to clear; and if you do, it only takes one person nearby (or not that nearby!) to be lazy and they'll just re-infect all land downwind. Control is traditionally by digging it up, but if in flower the seeds will stay dormant in compost so those who are really determined will burn it. Catchall herbicides work on large areas but then the weed dries up and becomes tasty, and it also doesn't destroy the seed. Horses, cattle and other herbivores will eat green ragwort if there is nothing else to eat, but it is unpalatable until dried as others have said. It destroys the liver and is cumulative - a little one year, a little the next - all adds up until you have a very sick horse. I work for a horse charity, and liver damage through ragwort poisoning is a very common and chronic problem. It's also poisonous to humans! Studies show that it will get through the skin, but in a way that isn't too dangerous (excreted within 48 hours), but hand-to-mouth is a real risk, as is contact dermititus.

Sucks, but to redress the balance of human nature a little, I recently found a letterbox on Dartmoor that had been out since the early 90's, two yards from a geocache which itself had been out for several - without being stolen and without any maintenance, the logbook, although full and a little damp, was an interesting read. Both were ammocans.

I've had that issue too with my 450. Through experience I *always* verify caches are there before I leave the house now! (Unsure if a filesystem thing as the files are fine on the flash drive of the Oregon, it just ignores them until the file date changes and forces it to do a rescan)

This is my biggest annoyance with the PQ system, that 1,000 cache limit. Might have been okay in the early days, but density is such now that it means you need multiple PQ's for even a small area, and that means you end up with many duplicates after downloading the same caches which overlap. I wonder if this 1k limit will ever be revised? 5k would work for me since that's the limit of my gpsr...

There's a series called "Somewhere on Dartmoor" which has the coordinates of each cache hidden on a TB. As pointed out, it's kind of similar. Yes they go missing, but so do bits of cards in caches, and with some caches being full of geolitter how would you make them stand out? And if they're untracked, how do you know when they've gone missing?

Funnily enough I was pondering that the other day, wondering if anyone had done it, but being able to pick up a TB whilst walking through a car park seems a little too easy, except I know they'll always be so rare as not to be worth trying!

Yes - definitely! That's why I've gone for branded, even though I know I may be paying more, I figure in the long run it'll be about the same. I had this issue with walkie talkies for work - replacement battery packs (which were just four AAA's taped together and a plate on the back) were costing upwards of £12 each, and only had rubbish 600mah cells. Switched them for decent AAA's and now they're lasting 2 or 3 days instead of just one. I've now bought seven of these. At the lower end of smart chargers but do the business - I've seen this model with other badges on too. Seems quite a reliable and prompt seller too. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fast-Smart-Charger-1-8-AA-AAA-NiMH-batteries-LCD-display-Vapextech-/370612099986

Sorry, I'm not a parent (And I know that statement alone will make some parents think I'm unqualified to hold any opinion! "Oh, you wouldn't understand!") and may be speaking out of turn, and I've tried to understand as best I can from this the problem. It's a fair question to ask but a CRB is not a free thing (It's supposed to be for volunteers, but I've yet to find an umbrella agency that'll do it without an admin charge almost equal to the full fee ), so there would be a cost passed onto Groundspeak and then to us if it was adopted. Where does this approach stop? All members of this forum, for example, having to be CRB'd in case an unsupervised child reads it, or posts in it and is approached by private message? It's been mentioned as a risk that a reviewer "may" contact a child privately. Isn't this a risk from all communications on the internet (and IRL) and shouldn't a parent be monitoring all such contacts as a matter of course? The internet is an amazing thing, but it's taught me some very negative things about human nature and I can't imagine letting a young or even early teen child have unfettered access or their own private email address. It must be quite scary to be a parent but if internet access wasn't controlled for a vulnerable child, I would imagine geocaching to be the least of the potential problems.

I wrote this for another thread, but it got a bit longer and would have hijacked it a bit, so thought I'd plonk it here. I know some will disagree, I may be wrong about some bits, but this is based on years of experience rather than a wikipedia article I once read. So read with scorn or interest, ignore by all means and I could very well be wrong - but these things work for me and I've got a fair bit of experience with them. Smart chargers are best. Fast/slow - if they're dumb they'll damage but it may not be enough to matter a great deal in practice. I don't profess to know all the ins and outs (tbh, although a lot of people spout information like they do, it's a hugely complicated subject) Mine cost £15 and will scope its charge to service each of its 8 batteries at a time. At the end, it'll drop to a maintaining trickle charge. Some batteries it'll do quickly, some slowly, depending on their characteristics. Also, I happily ignore all advice to "Make sure it's flat before you charge it" or "Don't let it get totally flat". That's good advice for car batteries, but life's too short to care that much about AA's. Manufacturers lie blatantly about capacity. Like AAA's that have "1450 mah" and AA nicads with "3750 mah". Lies. Whilst I've had some excellent unbranded ones from the likes of dealextreme, I've also had some shockingly bad and even some which were suspiciously light, so I cut them open to find half the cell was just empty air! So nowadays I stick to branded, specifically Duracell and generally from 7dayshop (cheapest reliable supplier I've found). Still get the odd dud cell (I bought 140 rechargable duracell AAA's last month, 3 were duff from the start, not holding any kind of charge. I can live with that.) Carry spares! Rechargables degrade in different ways. Some are predictable, some just flatline after a few minutes. Also mark your batteries somehow so if one was duff before and you're not totally sure it was properly charged before (my wife has a habit of occasionally putting drained ones back into the charged box!) then you can check next time. I carry a pair of nicads and a pair of alkalines as spares, the latter do seem to last longer unused. Consider gadgets. I carry two GPSrs, android phone, camera, torch and an mp3 player when walking. With the exception of the phone (for which I also carry an emergency AA charger) they all run off AA's, and the mp3 player (with high energy music to get me up that hill!) AAA's. That means I can carry fewer spares and be able to swap them out. Also, you can buy more AA's anywhere. If your camera's lithium battery goes flat you have to go without or carry its charger. Although there's a great trend to standardise chargers for gadgets now, that doesn't help you in the middle of a moor (Although I am watching solar chargers with interest, I haven't found this summer has yet made me rush out and buy one!). Make sure they can't short out - batteries and keys in a trouser pocket can lead to a very warming experience! Lithiums packs are great, but restricting. You find yourself moulding your life around the need to recharge them, and if you're on holiday or roaming freely this can be a major faff. Even if they are usb-rechargable, it means a certain system you need to adopt. You can still get good pocket digital cameras that run on AA's, seek them out!