Luckless

I've seen people post disclaimers on their cache webpage stating that anyone who chooses to look for that cache agrees to hold the property owner blameless. They look for the cache at their own risk.

Oh my, the first thing I thought of when I read "geocaching calendars" were Groundspeak lackies dressed in skimpy outfits in sexy poses. Who'll be Mr./Ms. February.

Any further mention about FTF cachers is just fuel for the fire. (As an aside- the FTF cachers in our area are pretty loveable- there's good and bad and you can't say for sure if FTF cachers are causing you problems so best not to say anything that can be interpreted as such.) If you have not contacted the people at Groundspeak you definitely should. Let them handle this. This behavior, threats about destroying caches, certainly seems to be against geocaching policy and needs to be dealt with by them.

Someone asked me to look after their vacation cache. Told them I would need their permission for placement first. Didn't hear any more.

I was having the same problem. Fixed it. Thanks so much.

Mine is that way too. Forget the arrow. Have to use the distance to waymark reading. Interesting to follow this thread and see all the innovative things I hadn't heard of.

I carry extra batteries. I also have a compass on the oft chance my GPS just dies. Don't know how much good that will do me though. No thanks. What if the batteries go dead while on a hike in the forest? Not too many trees have electrical outlets. I like being able to just reach in my pack and replace the batteries. Not so good for night caching.

The vest is cool.

I was changing out the batteries in my GPS and thought why couldn't my GPS have a rechargable battery like a cell phone? Ooh and maybe a built in camera. My niece's digital camera has a crank so she can charge it by cranking, wouldn't that be great for my GPS when I'm out in the middle of the woods and my batteries go dead. SOLAR POWERed, yeah!

This reminded me of someone doing CITO with other cachers who found several "meth labs" in bottles. They related what had happened and warned us of this danger at an event we had. You do not want to mess around with that stuff. They didn't touch the bottles but left the bottles for the police to take care of. It's something to be wary of because such drugs could be in containers that could be confused with cache containers.

Dr. Phil likes to ask the question, Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? A right fighter will howl and yell and go to any extreme just to be right. They may very well be right too, but the cost of insisting they are right can be very great by creating division, unhappiness, physical abuse (in this case theft), etc.. Is it worth it? There is give and take in this game and sometimes you have to focus a little less on being right and do what will help create calm to restore your own happiness and peace of mind and, if possible, foster and mend friendships. You have been given some good advice here. Just tone it down a bit. It's hard to have an argument when only one side is arguing. It may not seem fair (right) but most people will tell you the way to handle spoilers in this game for the most part is to ignore them. Eventually the problem does go away. "Be the change you want to see in others."

My Dad was a teacher. When I was little summers meant camping and running all over state parks with my dog. I always liked hiking, but as I got older I became more and more scared of what was out there so I stopped going. When I started geocaching it reminded me of those fun times camping and how much I loved being outdoors, really loved being outdoors. There's something about looking for a geocache that makes me just want to go out and find it. Sure I'm still scared but I don't care so much now about the four legged things that can eat me or the snakes or the weirdos. I like to find all of the local caches, but lately have been avoiding looking for the few that are located center city that involve lots of muggles milling about or the possibility of running into security. I'm not stealthy and so I avoid these, or in this case avoid them for as long as I can. I still want to get them so that I have all of the local ones. I love caches that take me somewhere cool that I've never been. I used to do one cache at a time trying to make it an adventure by exploring the area nearby, but when a local cacher started to archive all his caches it became apparent that I needed to do as many as I could in one area, because you never know when they might be archived. I missed out on some of his caches that I wanted to do by only doing one at a time. My caching partner loves looking at old buildings and historical places. Usually our trips are built around interesting old places she can explore that includes lunch at a local establishment. No McDonald's or Burger King for her; the place has to have local "atmosphere". I like caches in parks and on trails I didn't know about. I also love to do bird watching while caching too. I'll try hunting any type of cache (well maybe forget the dangerous 5/5s). My favorite kind of cache is one that is a little clever so when I find it it makes me stand back and say "All Right!" When traveling I'll do the micros by the side of the road because of time constraints. It's just nice to get out and stretch my legs and think about something other than driving. When time isn't a problem I'll skim through the listed caches in the area where I'll be to see if there is something interesting. I prefer something interesting rather than looking for something just because it's there.

Just had someone (weren't cachers) say they stumbled onto the first stage of my 10 stage tourism cache. They say they decided to do it - made and logged the find.

Can you share your experience? I guess we feel like if maybe we're not alone it will be easier to deal with? That sounds a bit selfish because we don't want anyone else to experience having their caches stolen by another cacher(s) but it would be 'comforting' in a weird way to know that there are others out there who can relate to what it feels like to know that your caches are being stolen by other geocachers. We had some caches and ammo cans go missing this year. Most of these were very involved puzzle caches. Doesn't seem like anyone, but a cacher (or maybe someone who accompanied a cacher) would know where they were. Doesn't seem like someone just looking to steal a cache would bother to go to all that trouble to find them. I could be wrong. The owners feel like someone is targeting them.

You're not alone in experiencing that. It's crappy when it happens.

AH HA, finally found the brochure after clicking every link in this thread. A little off topic- I can't help but feel that universal health care (like they have in Canada)would help activities like geocaching because the landowner couldn't be sued to pay for the medical costs because the medical costs would proabably already be covered.

I have some large old metal food storage chests/ice chests with lock down seals that I keep thinking I might use. My friend uses the old wide mouth thermoses. They have nice tight seals on them (not the ones with glass linings). Sometimes you can find the thermoses inexpensive at secondhand shops (salvation army) and rummage sales.

I'm a big fan of marking geocaches that could be confused with something else, like a fake electrical box or a fake sprinkler head. I've seen some very clever ways that people have marked their geocaches. I'll admit I've poked around a few places I probably shouldn't looking for a cache (won't touch an electrical box unless I can tell it's fake). I've been toying with the idea of using four very small dots of paint- each a color found in the Groundspeak geocaching logo and each positioned the same way. By painting this on the cache containment object people could be assured that they've got the right object before poking through other things that maybe they shouldn't be poking through. Because the dots would be very small it shouldn't take away from the challenge.

I'll guess 412-oops that's been taken- then I'll do 413

So sorry to hear that about your son. I know some parents on this forum make a practice of dumping out the contents of a cache onto a piece of cloth and looking through it before allowing their kids to handle the stuff.

Well I kind of like that idea for 12 12-12-12 day events. I like the idea of maybe having a different organized activity at some of the events. I wonder if people would be interested if they were located in out of the way places (middle of the woods)so there'd be a challenge to finding and logging them all.

When I camo a cache with leaves or sticks or moss or something like that it seldom stays affixed. With me it seems to be the norm for that kind of camo. Now I try to make trickier hides and do without the camo.

We've had posts like this before. I agree that carving/ nailing into a dead tree (never ever a live one) isn't going to hurt a tree (it's going to rot anyway) and if you do it small enough no one just walking by is going to notice. But I see the point of those who are against it. It's best just to say no to the practice to avoid any posibility of someone abusing nature. My family used to go camping in Filmore Glen state park. It was a beautiful little park. There's was a swimming hole fed by a waterfall. You could take the trail to the top of the waterfall to look out over the falls. When I got to the top of the trail by the waterfall I was taken aback. It seems it was the practice of visitors to carve their names into the trees. I don't know how long this had been going on (years and years by the looks of it), but every tree had something (well a lot of somethings) carved into it. All these scarred trees really destroyed the esthetic beauty of the place. You can do something with your cache container to decorate it in celebration of your anniversary. I've seen containers covered in spray paint and glitter and well hidden (in a hole in a downed dead tree) so as not to be seen, or maybe you could carve something into the lid of a wooden box for your cache and put another more waterproof container inside. Maybe get crafty with the the underside of the lid of an ammo box so when you open it you see the display you've created.

Went to an party today where two people both celebrated their 1000th find by looking for the golden ammo can they hid in each other's honor. Had a potluck luncheon afterward.

It may very well have counted down what I was using- I just wasn't paying attention and I couldn't find the limit mentioned anywhere. Thanks for the response- now to do a little editing...