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Mary&Dave

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Everything posted by Mary&Dave

  1. The Summit Registers category needs a new officer or two. If anyone is interested, please join here. Thanks!
  2. Just a quick thought here -- if you enjoy the solitude of nature and would like to get that from a thru-hike, the AT is probably not the place for it. It's a social trail. Literally thousands of people start it each year. Hikers gather together in shelters. It can be a great experience, but it really isn't a lonely one. You might be better off looking at a thru-hike of the PCT or even (if you're up to the challenge) the CDT. Cheers.
  3. This is minor, but pocket queries don't seem to work quite right when generated from a route. It doesn't always save the settings of what cache types you want to see. Steps to reproduce problem: Generate a PQ from a route, make no modifications, save it. Modify the PQ to specify cache types, save it. If I go to modify the PQ a third time, I see the behavior above.
  4. Mary&Dave

    Age?

    If dogs can write puzzle caches, shouldn't they at least be able to sign the logs themselves? Geesh! Some lazy dogs...
  5. I'll consider that a "long distance". After all, many of the really long (1000+ mile) trails have their own categories.
  6. That sounds good. Perhaps the distance qualification should be more along the lines of "an average hiker cannot (or would not want to) complete this trail in a single day." Another suggestion is that it must be a single trail (with the same name the whole way -- not a network of trails), and it be either a point-to-point or a loop hike rather than an out and back. I'll also throw out a few examples (just to complicate things): - The Bay Area Ridge Trail is a 500 mile trail encircling the San Francisco Bay Area. There are very few spots to camp legally along this trail. Becuse of the camping regulations and since the trail is so close to home, most people will choose to do each segment as a day trip rather than attempting an overnight trek. I still think this should qualify as a long distance trail, even if it is not a common backpacking trail. - The Whitney Portal Trail is an 11-mile trail (22 miles round trip) to the summit of Mt. Whitney. There is a 6100' elevation gain on this trail. Most people take 2-4 days to complete this hike, simply because of the elevation. I don't think this would really be a good candidate for the long distance trails category, though. It would probably fit better into another category. (This is actually a really bad example, as a trail continues for another 220 miles north down the other side of Whitney -- but let's ignore this for the sake of argument -- most people only hike to the summit and turn around anyway.) Cheers, Mary
  7. No. The free version is fine. I generated one from the Bay Area to Tahoe using driving directions (Nice!). Is it possible to trace a KML file (say, along a trail) with the free version of Google Earth? If so, how? By the way, this feature rocks.
  8. Question -- Do I need Google Earth Plus to generate a KML track? (It looks like I do, but before I spend the $20, I wanted to verify.) I tried uploading a KML track (but this is one I downloaded off the Internet, NOT one I created myself, so that is probably the problem), and I got this error message: Server Error in '/' Application. Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.] Geocaching.UI.UserRoutes.cmdUploadGPX_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) +8324 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) +108 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) +58 System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) +18 System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData) +33 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +1330
  9. Is that an open offer? Or, better yet, is there (or will there soon be) a way for users to do that themselves? Never mind, I just saw this. Thanks guys (and girls)!
  10. Do check out Waymarking, especially the category linked by tozainamboku for Mountain Summits. That's probably your best bet. Remember that leaving a cache is the easy part -- coming back to maintain it is the hard part. Another thing to check is if Shasta-Trinity NF has regulations against leaving caches on Mt. Shasta. The mountain gets a lot of traffic, enough so that they ask you to pack out your poop. They might not appreciate a cache. However, let me play devils advocate for a minute. There *is* a container and a log book on top of Mt. Shasta (and several other mountain peaks). No, it isn't necessarily maintained by a geocacher, and it isn't really hidden well enough to require a GPS to find (but neither do virtual caches on top of any other given mountain). However, could someone conceivably make a sign-only geocache out of an existing summit register? Does that fall within guidelines?
  11. Our image as a community is a huge deciding factor on whether Geocaching is a positive or negative thing ecologically. I think we'd all like to keep it positive. We can all help by: - Organizing and attending CITO events, being active as a community in volunteer maintenance projects for local parks, or simply picking up some trash on the way to a cache. - Keeping caches away from fragile ecosystems. You might place a cache in what looks like a perfect location, but you might come back to it to find a geotrail destroying vegetation. It's the cache hider's responsibility to choose a better location and help prevent unnecessary damage and erosion. - Maintain caches. There's a huge difference between a clean, well hidden ammo can and a pile of soggy, moldy geotrash in a broken container. One's caching. The other's littering. Help your community by reporting caches in need of maintenance and if possible, offering to adopt or at least clean them up. - Work with local park organizations to promote geocaching and create a policy for cache placement. Awareness is huge. Follow regulations (both those on GC.com and those imposed by the local land management agency). There's a lot we can do to fight the "Geocaching is just littering the woods with tupperware" mentality. Please, for the sake of the community, do your part.
  12. .001 minutes is equal to about 6 feet (a little less on longitude), so you won't get accuracy down to 10 inches. I've used Google Earth as a tool to find caches, and in some areas, it can most definitely be used exclusively. Google Earth can also be great for correcting coordinates when you have an area without much tree cover and with good satellite images. I'd actually change the coordinates of your cache to N 50° 44.585' E 7° 05.869' based upon the satellite image. The map of that area is even so good that you can see the 6 foot error margin.
  13. Try Sting Eze (little yellow container with a green cap), generally available in any store with a camping section.
  14. I'm seeing the same thing. With my first category, it took about 3 days longer than it said to complete peer review. I'm *guessing* that after the peer review process is complete, someone from Groundspeak has to give it the final okay, and that's why it takes longer.
  15. I didn't mean that to sound like a complaint -- that bug doesn't have a goal, so I don't mind if he sits in one place for a while. I'd rather see him go to cool caches, even if it means less frequent movement. Seeing him there actaully got me to solve the puzzle, and that's a cache I'd love to find the next time I'm hiking in that area (whether or not he's still there). I've got another bug that I left in a cache that probably won't be visited more than once or twice a year. The cache location fit the theme of the bug, though. At least it's a quality cache that will probably be around for a while.
  16. If you're the bug owner, there's an option to recalculate distance on the bug page. I think that'll force it to update immediately. But I'm not sure... my bug's been sitting in an ammo can guarded by a tough puzzle and a steep hike for many months now... Such is the life of a travel bug!
  17. Is that an open offer? Or, better yet, is there (or will there soon be) a way for users to do that themselves?
  18. I also think these should be two separate categories. Someone looking for a scenic hike doesn't necessarily care about a trail that requires an extended backpacking trip to see the best views. On the other hand, a scenic hike may not allow camping or an overnight stay. There are also sections of long distance trails, that frankly, really aren't scenic, but they're part of the experience. The windfarms on the Pacific Crest Trail in the Tehachapi Hills come to mind... I think the long distance trails category should include such information as -- how to get a permit (if required), overnight parking locations, campspots/shelters, water availability, resupply information (if applicable), etc. Maybe some of these can be optional, but they're useful bits of information for someone planning a backpacking trip. Perhaps there should be a minimum distance for a long distance trail to qualify as such. Maybe 30 miles (50 km) and up? Just long enough that while it's possible to do it in one day, most people will choose to take 2-3 days instead.
  19. Does this imply that the "final" cache would only be findable by someone who has found all 50 of the others? I think the chances of it being brute-forced/accidentally discovered would be a lot higher than someone completing the entire quest. Actually, I think it would be just as cool for cachers throughout the country to join forces, help each other find caches and solve the puzzle, and all get together to find the end (even though not every one of them has visited every single state cache). Another suggestion -- if you've volunteered for a state, take it back to your local caching forums and get input from the community there. You can probably get some great suggestions on what location really represents your state as a whole. Thanks for putting together this great idea, Blue Power Ranger.
  20. They are most definitely better than nothing. They just didn't live up to my hopes.
  21. Vinny, I think you need to spend a just a little less time spelunking in abandoned nuclear facilities...
  22. Sunday Afternoons has some GREAT sun hats -- the one Dave is wearing in our profile picture. They are lightweight and have a long tail in the back to keep the sun off your neck.
  23. There's an exception to every rule. One of the greatest caches in my area starts with, of all things, a lamp post skirt at a strip mall. A lame cache is a result of poor planning and lack of maintenance. Don't fill your backpack with cache containers to hide under bushes on a trail you never plan to hike again. Don't fill your glove box with film cans and altoids tins to leave in parks that you'll probably never visit again. There are too many waterlogged containers full of unmaintained geo-trash, soggy film cans tossed in bushes, and rusted out altoids tins. Don't make another. A lame cache is also one that is placed without regard for the site's guidelines. "Uh, yeah, sure I got permission to hide this at the truck loading dock at Walmart." "But I used a blunt object, not a pointy one to dig this hole!" Also, if you have to hide your cache with a "don't get caught" note, not because you fear the cache might get stolen, but because the cacher might get caught and questioned for being something that they maybe shouldn't be, you might want to think twice about that cache placement.
  24. Can some of these categories be consolidated? For example -- Summit Registers and Mountain Summits. Can't there just be a variable for register on the Mountain Summit page? There are also some categories here that I really don't want to see go away, but at the same time, it doesn't make sense for me to lead them. The Ice Age trail, for example. I've only hiked on it once, and I don't live anywhere near Wisconsin. But I'd hate to see the category disappear just because it was not adopted.
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