Ragnemalm
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Posts posted by Ragnemalm
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On 2/23/2018 at 11:22 PM, Cacheism 500 said:
I wanted to do one where you have to first find two trads within 60 seconds of one another on foot and upload 'proof.' (161 metres minimum distance, achievable if you leg it!)
Anyone else had any good but unpublishable ideas?
Lots and lots of them. Anything that is actually a challenge!
I am totally against the challenge rules. The current challenges are horrible. They are mainly a tool for experienced caches to intimidate the newcomers. New challenge: Old cachers fulfill it immedialtely and it is just another petling. New cachers can not fulfill it withing a year or even five! They are not challenges! A challenge is something you accept and try to fulfill within a limited time.
So my idea about a challenge is almost completely reverse to what we have today:
- Must be actively accepted at a certain time.
- Must be finished in a limited time, no more than a month. (Long-time challenges are bad and tend to make cachers give up the hobby after finally fulfilling them!)
- Anything you did before accepting the challenge does not count.
- Does not require a log in a physical cache.
That's what I call a challenge! Beginner friendly, does not give you a long-time stress, can not be pre-fulfilled.
A checker would be nice, and are not technically impossible to make for many cases.
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On 2/26/2018 at 1:06 PM, Isonzo Karst said:
The Lonely Cache Challenge (in some areas, Resuscitation) - typically find of a cache that hasn't been found in a year, sometimes more. Or sometimes less - as 4 finds of caches that haven't been found in 6 months, for instance (more suited to large urban areas).
This one gets messy , example: cache unfound a year, on one day 5 cachers in two different groups find it - group 1 signs at noon, and group 2, not knowing about group 1, signs at 2pm - did they all find a lonely cache? did only members of group 1, maybe one 1 member of group 1? . Not all areas have enough caches to support this.
A project gc checker can't be written for this, so no Lonely challenges.
The people that this appeals to tend to do it with or without challenge log to sign. But that's true of a lot of caching goals.
Lonely Cache challenges are the best challenges of all! They encourage finding old caches, which often leads you to nice, off.trail places. It will give the CO of a rarely found cache more finds. There are some variations of it, like finding a number of caches in one week with 2000 "lonely days" or finding 3 of the 10 "most lonely".
I see absolutely no problem with this as a challenge. It is fun, it is challenging, and it is good for CO and thereby for the whole community. I have logged a few of its kind and I have always finished them in one single day.
I don't know if Project-GC can make a checker but technically it is possible to make one.
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On 8/8/2022 at 5:55 PM, TeamRabbitRun said:
Because a geocacher's legacy means something in this hobby.
And an E-mail you have put into research publications does not...
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On 7/11/2022 at 3:47 PM, CheekyBrit said:
EG: Remember that one time we hiked 20 miles getting poison ivy exposure, did a 10 mile kayak, then the geocache wasn't there and we got arrested for trespassing. Man that was funny. (made up for comic example)
Wow! That must have felt bad at the time, but something you will never forget!
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On 6/7/2022 at 3:35 PM, thebruce0 said:
Yeah, lots of optional nakedness; heck you could do it whenever it's not illegal and you're comfortable :P. But "to reach a cache" implied necessity. Unless you could say perhaps your clothing was hindering your reach, lol
I meant necessary at the moment for you, not mandatory for the cache itself. Like a cache intended for boat, or bathing clothes, but you had none with you so...
This happened on one of my caches. The cacher had brought wading boots, but it was too deep, so on to solution #2.
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On 7/5/2022 at 11:11 PM, GeoTrekker26 said:
I don't know what you mean by this. The only user created item I know that expires is a Pocket Query link to the results.
I mean everything outside geocaching expires. When I left the university, my very personal E-mail address was removed in no time, and when I came back, I had to choose another one. My phone account (including my phone number!) expires if I don't use it for one year. Web domains are promptly deleted and grabbed by someone else if you miss a payment.
If other things, much more valuable than a GC nick, expire that quickly, why would an abandoned GC nick last forever?
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The D/T ratings are shaky, since we all have different views. A cache may seem easy for the CO, who knows how to find/solve it, but others can get sidetracked and it can suddenly be very hard. Also, how hard a physical challenge is depends on COs and visitors shapes. But it is sad that the system in some ways encourage obvious misses, where easy caches are rated higher than the harder ones just because of some trivial tool.
I don't find the island caches too hard to rate. If it is a short swim, safe for most people to swim: T4 or T4.5. If it is a long swim, or you cant reach the cache if you are swimming, then you need a boat and it is T5. However, it is most likely much easier than a T5 where you need rope and harness, and most T4.5s will be harder.
We had a CO in my area who made very hard T5's, very high up in trees, with need for climbing gears and often complicated rigging like double ropes, and also hard to find so you may need to get the rope up several times just locating it. We were disussing putting in special T5 symbols for the different kinds of T5, T5-basic (boat), T5-medium (tough climbs but straight forward so you don't need things like multiple ropes), T5-expert... They were never used though.
Online jigsaw puzzles and rods are two problematic ones. With a rod, you are standing on the ground and the problem is to handle the rod. D or T? Jigsaw puzzles take time, a lot of time, but they are trivial, no mental challenge, you will finish them just by spending time. D1 or D5? Both are commonly used to shortcut the high ratings, not least when doing things like the D/T "bombs", that is areas with all D/T ratings on one trail.
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On 6/7/2022 at 10:29 PM, CheekyBrit said:
I get the vibe that this is a bingo of specifically geocaching misfortune.
That said, the worst day of geocaching is better than the best day of most things.Let's call it memorable moments.
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On 6/9/2022 at 2:19 PM, ras_oscar said:
I had a hiatus of several years, because, ya know, life got in the way. I returned and would have been quite upset if my user name (and the attached finds) had somehow been given to another player.
But why? Everything else expire, why not an unused user nick?
The attached finds, of course not.
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9 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:
At least 10 of 25, with no bingos, in 11 1/2 years of gecaching.
- Not a harvester, but other mechanical chopping devices, several times. Either for land clearing for construction or as a "mechanical burn" as an alternative to a prescribed burn or to prepare an area for a prescribed burn in the future by reducing fuel load.
- I've done some hikes without water where I regretted it. Particularly when I misread the map and the hike was twice as long as expected and the trail wasn't maintained.
- Lump of wet pulp is probably 20% of my Finds. Yay Florida climate!
- I'm sure I've had my pen die at least once. However, much more common is losing my pen mid-hike. Probably happens at least once a year.
- I don't think I was stung for about 15 years before I started caching. Then I got stung twice my first year. Apparently wasps sometimes nest on palmettos! Then I went 10 years without another sting. One got me last year while checking on one of my geocaches.
- I've been stopped by the police only once, I think. Very early on. When I explained what geocaching was the officer asked if people ever set booby traps to surprise seekers (he seemed to think the suggestion amusing).
- Dying cell or GPS battery has cut my caching short several times.
- I've found archived caches several times. My favorite was when I placed a plastic jar (stating as such in the description) letterbox and a seeker was confused when they found an ammo can with no stamp. In investigated, found and removed the ammo can, and learned via inquiry to my local Reviewer that it was the final to a multi archived years earlier.
- I've encountered wild hogs caching in the Florida wilds a number of times. They've always fled as soon as they realized I was there. Only scary instance was a time I heard what sounded like a very large hog running full speed crashing through the palmettos. I couldn't tell where relative to my position. I hurried to the nearest open area on the trail and began whacking the nearest palmettos with my hiking pole to alert the pig to my presence. I never did see the hog. I wasn't concerned he was deliberately charging me; rather the opposite. He might barrel into me unaware I was even there.
- I've found several caches signed by muggles. The most memorable was a GRIM by a canal with a note inside stating "We thought this was a bomb".
Many fine memories! (At least they are fine afterwards.)
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1 hour ago, MNTA said:
Bingo
Thanks for bring back so memories- Bushwacking in chest high grass. Was walking along and then in a split second ended app over my head water. Managed to keep hold of my phone snd above water.
- A sheriff stopped to check if I needed help, car stopped in the middle of nowhere. Showed him the app and we found it.
- 10 Stings, Dog yelped 3 times. Ran the quarter mile back to my car one was still following me. Fortunately there was a drugstore super close.- Don't have boars here but I did run into a herd of cows, with a new born calf and I was walking my friends GIANT husky. They made noises I never heard before. They squared up and I slowly backed away.
-Hurt myself and my car - Slid off a logging road (500$) GCA5, Hit boulders well maybe giant rocks while trying to not get stuck sand 30 miles from the nearest road ($1500) GC2101
FOUR Bingos!
And you got this right, bringing back memories is actually why I did it, remembering "that time that we did THAT".
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On 5/26/2022 at 6:03 PM, hzoi said:
19/25 with two bingos. Though I only logged in blood once before deciding that grass or berries would be much less of a biohazard.
I've found plenty of other critters in birdhouse caches - like earwigs and wood roaches and field mice - but none have ever had holes big enough for birds.
I was 25 for 25 on the blog version.
Wow, two Bingos and several fours! Including the middle one!
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1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:
No bingo for me but I did better on this one than the official one:
Just one box away from Bingo!
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45 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:
Is running outta "gas" and running out of energy pretty-much the same? Been there...
You have a certain freedom of interpretation.
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1 hour ago, Smitherington said:
Here
Yes, this is the inspiration, but as you can see, the two bingo systems are very, very different. Mine is very much "how about doing it this way instead?"
It started with "logged in blood" (kind of classic emergency solution) and then it kept growing.
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8 hours ago, Joe_L said:
Regarding nails: Trees eventually die and some need to be cut up. Nails will damage a chain saw and possibly cause an injury to the saw operator.
Precisely, there will almost always be a saw in the tree at one point. Nails are bad, screws are worse.
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32 minutes ago, lee737 said:
12..... I've shed blood several times, but never signed with it.....
That was close to bingo in two places!
But if you have shed blood, you qualify for "hurt yourself", right?
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I have a cache in a cave. I was a bit disturbed by the lack of visits. Then we went there to maintain it and find 30 (!) logs by obvious non-cachers. Probably a visit by a group of scouts. That was really amusing to find!
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I was inspired by the bingo sent out by HQ recently so I made my own, with a different angle. How many boxes do you get, do you get any full lines (Bingo!)?
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Do not use nails, but even more important, never use screws! Short tacks with a large head can be pushed out by the tree as the tree grows, so they are not so bad. Screws are quickly "eaten" by the tree, sabotaging any future saw as well as your sign.
Strings are good, but they need to have good slack, to avoid tree strangling. Also, you need to use good strings. Avoid cheap materials like PP that deteriorate in sunlight.
Dead trees is a different matter. They don't grow.
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Just remember to be nice to newbies. Do we know that they have noticed the message you sent?
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On 5/19/2022 at 4:41 AM, JL_HSTRE said:
So make an Adventure Lab that isn't lame in terms of either location or questions.
That was not the question. I want to make lab caches instead of ALCs.
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When an area is plagued this way, it can help to make all caches premium, just for a while. Systematic saboteurs might check the map for caches to steal. We had that problem here and after making everything premium, the thefts stopped. The saboteur probably praised itself for its victory (or something) and went on to doing something else (like growing up?) and we could go back to normal.
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On 4/28/2022 at 5:33 PM, WolfWalker said:
I'm glad my user name didn't disappear! I didn't geocache for quite a few years, mainly due to life getting in the way. My husband died, I lost our home to a devastating flood, then was homeless for almost 3 years. Only recently did I remember that I used to like the hunt......and now I'm back, just hit my 200th a week ago.
But would you have been surprised and upset if the user name had expired after 10 years?
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Goals (not ghouls)
in General geocaching topics
Posted
It is definitely high. I am at 2.11/2.18 and that is when actively prioritizing high T and D!