Path Pacer

You have weird cache experiences.

Useful things like camping or hiking stuff. Go to REI, Bass Pro Shop, or Cabela's and look around. (Remember, no food.)

Of course! Why didn't I think of that? I've been wondering for years what all those people sitting there in their cars were doing. Thanks!

This is a depressing thread to read, but I'm glad I'm not alone. I've lost two of my trackables to stolen caches (although my geocoin might have been stolen before the cache was).

I don't get the numbers thing. A few days ago I decided to do a run of caches along a local road to kill some time. I didn't realize they were a power trail (are power trails marked as such?). After finding the second container dropped by the side of a telephone pole in the tall grass, just a few poles up from the first one, I thought, "Are they all like this?" I looked down the road at all the telephone poles and then headed on home. To each his own, I guess, but it seems a bit mindless to me. Is this just to get online numbers? Maybe I'm missing something.

Wow, it sounds like there are some nasty cachers out there with an unhealthy obsession. Logging in the back to hide you were there first? Waiting a day or two to log it online to fake out others? What kind of mentality would do that? I'm glad we don't have any of that around here (that I know of). I live in a fairly remote area so I'm usually some distance from a new cache. I'd probably play the FTF game if I could, but it's not practical from here. Still, it's nice to get the prize sometimes. I got a $10 gift card to Subway once.

Me, too. It's funny; you start caching thinking it's about one thing, only to find out it's really about something else.

Why not try taking your mom to an event cache? She can meet some of the local cachers and maybe form a better opinion of them. Approach other attendees with kids; parents are attracted to each other like magnets. Maybe you can bring up the problem of having no one to cache with then.

I ran into a muggle problem today. I needed to drop off a TB and thought this ammo can on the way into town would work great. So I come around the corner and there's a car parked there with this guy just sitting in it. They do that there sometimes; I don't know why. Then, when I'm returning home, there's a group of homeowners hanging around nearby. I would obviously attract unwanted attention if I got out of the car right in front of them. Needless to say, I still have the TB.

Well, if I did, I don't anymore. I guess I expected them to play by the rules since they are paying for it. Stupid of me.

Make sure your geotour has more than the required number of caches. I'm waiting on completing a tour right now because two of the necessary caches are disabled and there aren't any extra ones I can do instead. I'm hoping the cache owners will get around to replacing their caches eventually so I can finish up.

Why would they put it back? And why wouldn't they take everything? The sad thing is most of the people who've logged a visit were premium members. Still, I suppose it only takes one bad cacher to ruin a cache.

Hurts, doesn't it?

I worry more about kids than I do adults. I went for a cache under a rock along a popular trail a couple of months ago, sat on the rock like I was taking in the scenery, then slipped it back when no one was looking. When I looked back from my car, two kids were checking out the area I was in, but the cache was so well hidden, they didn't find it.

You're rubbing a sore spot with me. I recently put out a medium-sized cache with about five decent items in it, only to check on it a couple of weeks later and finding just two left -- and nothing else. I was very disappointed in my fellow cachers.

There doesn't seem to be a way to access the geotrails. If you click on the link from the map, you just get sent to the geotours page, where it isn't listed.

I'm the same way. I prefer a container big enough to have stuff in it. The harder it is to reach, the better the stuff, usually.

Thanks. I found the NGS page earlier. It was a bit of a learning curve, but I think I have it figured out. I've also bookmarked that other page. I tried to find a few today, but it's not as easy as geocaching! The things aren't where they say they are.

I have the same problem. If you expand out enough, they disappear, but that's not very helpful. We need a setting that turns them all on or off.

You can delete it, if you like. I got the information I needed.

Ah, thanks. I looked for a Benchmarking forum, but I didn't dig deep enough.

I'm thinking about starting benchmarking, but what I can find on geocaching.com is a little hard to use, mostly just a list of local benchmarks. Are these mapped out anywhere like the geocaches? Can you download the information onto your GPS? All I can see to do at the moment is make a waypoint for it and print out the details. That seems laborious. Is there a better way? Thanks.

In small towns, businesses become part of the community. They often support local events and people consider them part of the flavor of the place. A cache may be placed there just because the locals like it. I'm not sure that would apply to a town big enough to have a car dealership though.

I used to pick up trash in my neighborhood before I ever started geocaching. Found a $100 bill once.

Good luck. It's always annoying when someone else decides your trackable is better off with them than it would on its mission. Maybe they think they're saving it, but personally, I call it theft. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about it except frown.