Cache4Corn

I hit a cache up in Minnesota around New Years. It was great! No leaf cover to degrade the signal, and the mosquitos weren't near as bad as they are during the summer!

OK, here is the ultimate caching vehicle. Plug in the coordinates, and it drives itself to the cache! Check out the accuracy- +/- 4 inches" Auto Trac Of course, the next cacher would probably have a decent trail to follow...

quote:Originally posted by Rusty O Junk:The pocket query has all the information you need for in the field, ahh woods. I was all set with my freshly loaded Palm Pilot, all the caches for 100 miles ready for my surfing. The waypoints were loaded into the GPS (I'm saving money so I can upgrade to one of those GPSr units that all the elite folks use!), I had my jar of trinkets, and a travel bug ready to drop. I was headed into a target rich environment, caches, travel bugs, first finds, they were all right there for the taking. I arrived at the hotel, knowing that I would find several hours of prime caching time each day for the next couple days. I gathered my tools and prepared to exit the rental car. The door swings open, the Palm Pilot hits the parking lot, the battery cover pops loose, and a battery rolls under the car. Tradgedy! Terror! Oh, the Humanity! Can I recover and reinstall it before it goes braindead! I can hear the flatline as I crawl around the parking lot on my hands and knees. Aha! I find the batteries and rush to install them. Which end is the plus end? Which way do they fit? I feel it's memory fading away. 1s and 0s turning into .6s and .2s, I fumble the battery and finally get them installed. My hands tremble as I snap the battery lid closed. Carefully, I turn the Palm over. I open the lid, and tentatively press the power button. It comes to life! Yes! No! What do you mean 'ERROR, Please press reset". My heart sinks, my knees buckle, I sit back into the rental car and hit my head on the roof. Maybe it means, reset, and then everything will be OK? Nope. It means you get NOTHING! No caches! No clues! No idea if the waypoint in my GPS is a virtual. Technology has reached out and slapped me! Payback for all those times when I unplugged the electrical cord just to show it who was the boss! Payback for failing to purchase the latest upgrade in software. Payback for eating powdered donuts and drinking Diet Pesi while typing on the keyboard. The next day, I humbly approached the local library with my pen and pad of paper. Picked the caches, verified that the waypoint was in the GPS, a couple notes as to what I was looking for, and off we go. Life is good. Dropped a bug, Grabbed a bug, one first find, five caches total. -Cache4Corn

OK, so I would like about 10 of the small ones. How might we get a congo line going to move these from Topeka? Waypoints: Kansas City, Des Moines, Waterloo I would be willing to continue moving some boxes further north. I can get the 50 cal ones easily, but I would really like some of the thin ones. If anyone could shlep these closer for me, I would be most appreciative! Regards- Norm

quote:I do however see the point with children, especially their first time out. One thing that we started with the boys was the concept of 'rotating the stock' when visiting caches. We always try to leave more than we take, and what we take generally ends up being placed in another cache, eventually. We take a tupperware container of caching materials with us, and the loot ends up in the container. Thus, it is available to be recycled into another cache. I figure it like this: For the real young kids, a McD toy, rubber animal, bouncy ball, etc, is the kind of stuff that they can take. I try to put enough of those in that there should always be some trinket for the kids. For the mature cachers, the find is the reward. I appreciate the efforts of people who have placed caches for us to find. I think it is a bit snooty to expect each cache to be a 'museam in a box' or a fabulous collection. If people want to stock caches like that, that's fine. But to get upset when someone trades a hotel pen for the steak dinner certificate seems a bit naive. Maybe this is becoming like Halloween? The adolescents don't want the cheap candy, they would prefer money. I think I'll start putting Canadian Loonies ($1 gold colored coins) in the caches. You can pick them up for pocket change now! Regards- Norm

One of the folks that found a cache I hid took me to task for not including driving directions in the description. So now I add enough info that you should be able to start in an appropriate spot. I like to place caches the way that are similar to the caches that I like to find (isn't that amazing!). Not a trivial walk, not an obvious hiding spot, but at the same time, something that can be found with an appropriate usage of logic and observation. The part I am struggling with currently is how to rate a cache that is normally 1.5/2, unless there are mosquitoes, when it is 5/5! Until we get a frost that kills these beasts, I'm looking for caches that you can drive up to! (J/K, of course!) Regards- Norm

There are some other things that need to be considered. Some of us grew up in the country, playing in the woods, hunting and fishing. Bugs and plants are no big deal, chasing animals, tracking, and hunting is part of our experience. Others grew up in town, saw animals at the zoo, and plants at the store. A trip into deep brush can be pretty intimidating. Having a deer snort at them from close range is pretty spooky! This post is not an us vs them post. Just that what may seem like a trivial situation to me may be a monumental happening to someone else. We have been using the expertGPS maps feature to overlay aerial photographs on the coordinates. You can get some good information about the terrain, the lay of the land, and the location of the cache relative to trails, creeks, ponds, and roads. Might be a good way for the starting searcher to stay out of bear country.

When your machine says that you are within 11 feet, the people who posted the coordinate may have had an accuracy of 60 feet! We have found several times that we would circle an area that is about 50 feet away from the cache. When your GPS says you are on the spot, consider that you are in the middle of a 100 foot diameter circle where the cache should be. Then look for hiding opportunities, disturbed elemnts, etc. There should be a category of 'great first time caches' where people could flag caches that are an easy walk, and relatively easy find. Just so people can get a start with some successes. It is a lot more fun with your kids to find a couple the first day then it is to spend all day feeding mosquitos without finding anything.

We are pretty new to the game. The first ten caches that we found were just like I like them. Most of them required some looking around, some of them were a long hike, but they could be found. The next couple that we sought after were a different game. Slogging a half mile through the swamp, mosquitos trying to carry you out, underbrush, thorns, and grass so thick that you couldn't see three feet. The woods canopy blocked out the GPS signal on a regular basis. In my book, not fun! Since those attempts, I spend more time qualifying which caches we go after. (Now we just need to find the time!) Our goals are to have a nice hike, to find parks and trails that we have not seen before, and to get some fresh air and exercise. The caches that look like swamp sloggers or mosquito feeders will go on the winter frozen tundra list! One technique that I have used when searching is to take a bearing from 160 feet out or so, pick a landmark, and work to it. If I have trouble locating the cache, back out and take bearings from three different directions. I hid a cache after I thought I had a feel for what I liked in a cache. Nice little park, about a 600 foot hike in from a parking area, placed in a hollowed out stump. Pretty easy to find, with a nice hike. Later, I discovered that there was another parking area about 150 feet from the cache! So it became more trivial than I had hoped for. But it is still a nice hide, great for people getting started, and not requiring a half mile slog through the swamp! Seems to me that the keepers of the cache can provide a great service to the seekers by describing the level of challenge. The ratings are something, but when the hider describes it as a nice 2 hour hike, that tells me what to expect.

We are pretty new to the game. The first ten caches that we found were just like I like them. Most of them required some looking around, some of them were a long hike, but they could be found. The next couple that we sought after were a different game. Slogging a half mile through the swamp, mosquitos trying to carry you out, underbrush, thorns, and grass so thick that you couldn't see three feet. The woods canopy blocked out the GPS signal on a regular basis. In my book, not fun! Since those attempts, I spend more time qualifying which caches we go after. (Now we just need to find the time!) Our goals are to have a nice hike, to find parks and trails that we have not seen before, and to get some fresh air and exercise. The caches that look like swamp sloggers or mosquito feeders will go on the winter frozen tundra list! One technique that I have used when searching is to take a bearing from 160 feet out or so, pick a landmark, and work to it. If I have trouble locating the cache, back out and take bearings from three different directions. I hid a cache after I thought I had a feel for what I liked in a cache. Nice little park, about a 600 foot hike in from a parking area, placed in a hollowed out stump. Pretty easy to find, with a nice hike. Later, I discovered that there was another parking area about 150 feet from the cache! So it became more trivial than I had hoped for. But it is still a nice hide, great for people getting started, and not requiring a half mile slog through the swamp! Seems to me that the keepers of the cache can provide a great service to the seekers by describing the level of challenge. The ratings are something, but when the hider describes it as a nice 2 hour hike, that tells me what to expect.