Travisty

This is a great idea so I would like to bullet a few features that would be important to at least myself. Standard permission form including someone willing to step up and be our contact for the landowner/park service for that area. A way to limit the number of geocaches within a particular park or development. A way for the landowner to revoke or reinstate permission due to heavy traffic or impact damage to the area or wildlife. Therefore needing the ability to display off limits areas to fellow geocache placers as well as areas that already have permissions and quotas. This would be very useful for everyone, plus you could tie comments that the landowner would like everyone to know about a particular area when you seek a cache in that area (i.e. close all gates, pack-out all trash, don't pester the livestock, be alert for snakes, don't eat the purple mushrooms, etc.). This would be good information that is not always made available on the cache page or by the cache placer, and would truly be valuable to us geocachers.

Okay I just have to add this little tidbit as well. Sometimes when I'm following a trail I also pay closer attention to footprints and try to find places that people or animals may have ventured off the trail. I also keep a lookout for broken branches and twigs. Pine needles are also a dead give away that someone may have passed through there. These little observances have aided me in many other adventures than just geocaching. I remember doing a land nav course that was set up by Special Forces and those morons were putting points in the most retarded places (i.e. the middle of a swamp and in a tree). Well the best way to find these points were to look around at the area and find the most impropable path and follow it. They even varied from their own coordinates to present a further challenge (real world they called it). We sure didn't have GPS's to bale us out. We had to rely on our own experiences, and examine every detail inorder to finish the course. It took us 3 days and 37 miles of South Ranier terrain in Ft. Lewis. Get this, they used white talcum powder (For those unfamiliar with the area, it rains quite often in this part of the country) to mark two of the points which probably were washed away before we even started, however we did find some traces of talc in one of the locations. So just be observant of the things that may be out of the ordinary. These clues have aided me in every geocache so far and will surely do so in the future.

Nicely put Markusby, I find that terrain becomes more important because I have a fear that I may become too dependent upon my GPS that I might just walk off a cliff if the waypoint was taking me that way. So I stop and check my distance and direction using a compass and beeds and begin second guessing my GPS more and more. I make my GPS prove to me that it is correct nearly everytime. I find that I get more enjoyment out of it because I start to pay attention to my surroundings more and more, and less attention to the arrow on that electronic gadget. Sometime I have even challenged myself to not using that GPS until all other means proved fruitless. Then I usually discover that I was just as correct as the GPS. In fact I challenge everyone to go seek at least one Geocache whithout the aid of your GPS, sure you can bring it along but use it like a credit card for emergencies only (yeah right...). If you are really up to the challenge go for a multi cache and do not use your GPS, if you can help it.

I agree with the consensus. I had my first no find lately and was pretty irritated with it I was dialed in exactly to the coordinates and spent more time triangulating and intersecting the coordinates, before just scouring every foot of the area for approximately 200 square feet. I made pretty sure that it wasn't any navigational error and then I logged it as a "not found". I spent propably too much time hunting for this one, but it was my second cache and there was no way I was going to let this get to me. So I picked up two more caches that day to compensate for not finding this one. I think it is more a reflection of the cache owner not checking up on it regularly than it is of us seekers not finding something that doesn't exist.

Another possibility is Lightning. Lightning claims thousands of deer, elk, caribou, and cattle each year. There was a study done that was documented in Bugle magazine that they had found nearly a hundred elk carcasses on a ridge in Montana killed by lighting. Another incident claimed about 25 mule deer in Colorado and yet another incident claimed almost 150 caribou in Canada. Lightning can easily kill these animals by striking in the vicinity of a herd. There are also thousands of cattle killed in the United States due to lightning strikes. The only way to know for sure is to report the incident to local authorities and let them take it from there. They will be able to deterimine if these animals were poached, illegally dumped, killed by local predators, or by lightning strikes. On a personal note we were at the sand dunes in Colorado a couple years back and I experienced this first hand as I watched out over the distance a herd of cattle was grazing in the not too distant fields when a storm front moved in and we seen about 5 cattle light up after lightning struck a couple yards away. We didn't hang around to see if it killed them, because we were in a pretty vulnerable place being on the dunes during a lightning storm. This is also one of those places that have record numbers of lightning strikes per year.

Actually I also heard they were going to ban rock climbing in all National Parks also, but that was 10 years ago and nothing ever came of it. This sounds like one of those crazy park rangers getting pissed because they have to work their nine to five in their guard shack and too many people frequent the park so they can't go to a self-serve access. If you ask me, which nobody ever does, I think it is probably one of the best things that have happened to the parks since the whole naturalist movement of the early 20's which lasted more than 50 years. This in my opinion is the best way the parks and forest service have to gaining public interest and awareness in our beautiful parks and recreation areas.

Actually I also heard they were going to ban rock climbing in all National Parks also, but that was 10 years ago and nothing ever came of it. This sounds like one of those crazy park rangers getting pissed because they have to work their nine to five in their guard shack and too many people frequent the park so they can't go to a self-serve access. If you ask me, which nobody ever does, I think it is probably one of the best things that have happened to the parks since the whole naturalist movement of the early 20's which lasted more than 50 years. This in my opinion is the best way the parks and forest service have to gaining public interest and awareness in our beautiful parks and recreation areas.