david_and_h
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Posts posted by david_and_h
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When I was 12, I would ride my bike from outside the beltway in to the mall area of Washington DC with my friends. When I was 14, I traveled by bus and train over 250 miles from home without any parental supervision (in a foreign country!). Much of the time, my parents had no idea where I was, except on our longer excursions. When my daughter was a year older than you, I let she and a friend travel from Spokane to N.Y. city and the Yale campus on her own. Tell your parents to stop treating you like a baby and let you range a little farther afield. Maybe they'd be more comfortable if you had a cell phone? A cheap pre-paid would let you make emergency calls.
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Monofilament fishing line is death to birds. They pick it up and add it to their nests, then get tangled up in it and die. I have personally found dead birds tangled in monofilament line. Thus, if I *ever* see fishing line laying around in the woods or tangled in the brush, I pick it up and take it home so it won't harm any birds. If I was out hiking and saw a bobber within reach of shore, I'd probably grab it just to dispose of any monofilament line that might be attached.
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Thanks for the replies. If I start feeling the need to fine-tune my cache searches, I'll check-out GSAK. For now, I'll stick with Basecamp and use PQ's for my searches.
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I got my GPSr (Oregon 450i) for hiking. I learned how to use Basecamp to create and edit routes and waypoints and transfer them to and from my GPSr. This last month, I've been playing around with my 1-month free premium membership. Since I was already familiar with Basecamp, I've been using it to select caches from my pocket-queries, organize them into folders and load them to my GPSr. But I've seen quite a few references to GSAK around here. Are there any good reasons for me to download and install GSAK when I'm already comfortable with Basecamp?
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How 'bout a multi, where the coordinates for the final are spelled out on the ground in letters so huge they can only be seen from the air. If you're standing at GZ, you see nothing.
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As a relatively new cacher, I've found my Trekking pole (as I learned from GeoTrekker26) a valuable tool for poking around, moving leaves, etc. It's also nice for going up and down slopes! Also I would reiterate, please carry a few sizes of replacement logs and plastic bags. You will encounter many full, or wet logs that you can remedy with these supplies. Of all the tools I carry, I've used my tweezers and mirror the most.
Wrap a few turns of duct-tape around your hiking pole and you'll have it if you need it. Better than moleskin for covering blisters.
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So no one likes my idea of taking a light aircraft from strip to strip in the boonies to place/grab caches that way?? I think it would be a great idea.
There are wilderness airstrips in Idaho that are about as remote as you can get in the lower 48.
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I just found one of these throw-downs you're talking about: GC2BWE9. Look at the comment on 7/31/2011. Someone finds an empty pill bottle lying on the ground 115 feet from GZ, "fixes" it by adding a new "log," and other cachers are finding it and signing the wrong log (or both).
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I have 2 pre-packed bags that always live in my day pack. First is a waterproof bag with an emergency blanket, extra clothing and a Dri-Ducks waterproof shell. The other bag contains:
waterproof matches in a waterproof container
fire starter kit
small knife
About 20' of utility cord
sun screen
insect repellant
whistle
magnetic compass
first aid supplies (band aids, gauze pads, aspirin, etc...)
toilet paper
mini LED light (like the keychain lights, but with an on/off switch)
iodine tablets
I think I should add a signaling mirror to this kit.
On the day of the hike, I add some food that I won't eat unless I really need it, like dry granola or cliff bars.
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I'm a complete n00b, which means I'm just old, not old-school. All I've done is bag a few practice finds near home but, so far, I've only been interested in looking for caches I have to hike to.
If the numbers game means people are keeping score based strictly on "Found its," I think it's silly that a cache on a power trail counts the same as a cache that requires a 6 mile round-trip hike, with no other caches in a 10-mile radius. Unless there's a points system based on cache density, difficulty & terrain, the numbers thing seems kind of meaningless. It's not comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing grapes to bowling balls.
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Being from South Dakota, the human critter is not a big problem. So, typically I carry two tools, cell phone and 9mm beretta. I cache alone a lot and many places in SD, the cell serivce is minimal so if I fell and broke an ankle or leg, I would use the pistol to signal for help.
I didn't used to carry, but more and more reports of mountain lions in the area, it only seems right to carry some sort of protection, just in case.
It's interesting reading that some people carry pistols to protect themselves from larger animals - cougars, bear, moose. How effective are pistols? Would a a rifle be a better tool?
Neither one is a very good tool (link). Quote from the linked article:
You might think guns would provide better personal protection but research suggests that human bear encounters involving firearms are far more likely to result in injury to humans. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Law Enforcement Personnel, even experiencedhunters who use firearms to defend themselves suffer injury 50% of the time. Persons defending
themselves with bear spray escaped injury most of the time and those that were injured experienced
shorter attacks and less severe injuries.
Canadian bear biologist Dr. Stephen Herrero believes a person’s chance of incurring serious injury doubles when bullets are fired versus when bear spray is used.
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If there is no other nearby cache listed in that area (try the mapping option) then it's a fairly good bet that it is that cache.
NOTE: There are other caching websites, just so you are aware and some of those caches are cross-listed, some are not.
If it does appear that no others are in the vicinity, you should log it with
1) a "found it" log ("iffy" in that you did not sign the in-cache log -- if there was no logbook, no problem);
2) a "Needs Maintenance" log.
The cache owner receives an email for each one of those logs. The NM log also "flags" the cache as needing repairs.
Returning to the cache of course, would be the best course of action. Normally, there is identifying tags, sheets or at least a logbook. Some just might let it slide if it is really an arduous hike. Your choice on that action.
I went back to the cache with my GPSr. It was GZ for "Sonny Dayz," as I suspected. The log book was intact and had the name of the cache, so I did as suggested above (plus signed the log, of course).
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Thanks for the tips. It's too high to have been washed downstream, so it probably hasn't moved far. It's about 4 miles round-trip from my house and 400 ft down (and back up!) but I think I'll go back in a couple days and get coordinates and look a little more closely at the cache. That is, if it doesn't get blown-away by the 60mph wind gusts that are predicted for the next day or so.
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I've never looked for a geocache before but I just got a GPS for Christmas and plan to give it a try, which is why I've joined. But enough for the introductions...
A couple days ago, I stumbled upon a plastic container with stuff spilling out of it on the banks of Latah creek. I checked it out, thinking someone might have accidentally left some stuff there (one of the items looked like a wallet). When I looked closer, I could tell by the contents that it was a geocache. But there was no lid for the container and I had no idea where it was "supposed" to be stashed, so I just wedged it into as dry a spot as I could right where I found it. I can see that there's a cache listed on this site in the area I found the broken cache. What should I do to positively identify the cache so I can contact the owner to let him/her know that it need maintenance? How likely is it that it's a cache listed on another site? Is there something in the cache, like a log, that tells me who's cache it is and where it's listed? It's a pretty serious slog to hike back to where I found the cache but I'd be willing to go back to it if I need to. If I had my GPS with me, I would have marked a waypoint but I didn't.
You may think you have found a geocache...
in How do I...?
Posted
Two possible solutions come to mind immediately. 1) Attach the stamp to the container with a small chain or computer-lock cable. 2) Construct containers where the stamp is incorporated into the container -- maybe built-in to the lid or part of a stamping machine that is attached to the container.