Doctroid

I'd put my snowshoes on long before that. Some years I've had to use the snowshoes to take the garbage out to the compost pile the snow on top of the compost pile. Of course, at our previous house, we kept the snowshoes in the shed during the off season, and invariably I'd fail to retrieve them from the shed until I needed snowshoes to get to the shed.

And it sounds like a pain in the butt to me. Which is not to say there's anything wrong with someone who thinks it sounds kind of fun, just that not everyone thinks that way. If I were to find such a cache, with no indication in the cache description of what would be involved in signing the log, I'd probably re-hide the container and post a DNF: "Wasn't in the mood to find log." Not, you understand, that I eschew anything that's not a park-and-grab or anything of that sort. Far from it. I like puzzle caches, multicaches, caches that require long hikes to get to. But searching through dozens of plastic eggs or film canisters or whatever just isn't something I regard as fun. You'll get finders like Cache Test Dummies, and finders (or DNFers) like me. Some of the latter may be less than well-behaved about the "surprise". Expect that. +1. Heck, +3.

Two people have mentioned Syracuse... well, I'm in Syracuse (or suburbs thereof), and can report that it's not as bad as people make it out to be. This December we had only 6.6 inches of snow — officially; they measure it at the airport, and I'm sure I got less than that in my driveway. It was my 3rd best caching month since I started early last year; found 8 regular size caches in the woods just yesterday. The mud was a bigger hindrance than the dusting of snow. Of course last December we got over 70 inches of snow, and I didn't do any caching at all until March.

I went out and got 8 caches yesterday to bring me to the 200 cache milestone. (And took the opportunity to grab #201 today.) No, it is NOT about the numbers... entirely... but it is a LITTLE about the numbers. I felt motivated to get those 8 caches to get me to 200, but on my terms: No park and grabs, all of them regular size caches in the woods at distances from 0.1 miles to 1 mile from where I parked. #201 was a guard rail cache near a Dunkin' Donuts. I'm not a very good purist. As for December caching, I did none last year (my first real caching year) but this December was my 3rd most prolific caching month. Then again we had only 6.6 inches of snow in Syracuse this month. December 2010 we had 72.8 inches.

Then there's this:

Because God forbid we should ever have to be surprised.

I disagree; since I can't guess with any great amount of confidence what the words in question were, I think clarification is needed. Casual perusal of the history of censorship shows that one person's unspeakable obscenity is another's colorful language.

This is false, or at best true only in theory. Here for instance is a cache, which is in bad condition but neither missing nor in violation of law, which our reviewer has temporarily disabled and says will be archived if the CO doesn't take care of it. Same reviewer has archived other caches for similar reasons. It seems to me it's not even true in theory. In the first paragraph of the introduction to the Guidelines, it says: And the guidelines do include maintenance.

Good plan. People seem to read too much into "NM" and "NA" and "DNF". To me "NM" means, "Hey, I think something's wrong here, give it a look?' and not "You are a horrible CO". "NA" (which I agree would be better expressed as "Needs Reviewer Attention") means, "Hey, I think something's seriously wrong here and the CO's not fixing it" and not "I am at war here". And "DNF" means "I didn't find it" and not "I do not believe this cache exists". I log every cache I try to find, every time I try to find it; I use NM when a log is (very) wet or full; and I have used NA a few times even on caches that exist and are being found, if their condition is poor and they are not being adequately maintained by the CO or the community, and especially if the site deserves a good, well-kept cache.

I'm surprised at the number of people who feel the proper response to defacement of the log is to further deface the log. If the offensive language (and given that we've only been told the first letters, I'm not even sure it's something I'd consider offensive) occupies a page or part of a page that could be removed without affecting other log entries then maybe ... but even then I really think it would be better to just log an NM, and regard it as the CO's right and responsibility to deal with it as they see fit.

1) Round up people who plant micros and sell them on eBay 2) Use the wet log to clean your windshield 3) Round up your non-caching friends and sell them on eBay

Anyone else notice this thread recently passed 5000 messages?

But their maps are better.

There will always be room for easy caches. For those wanting a greater challenge, perhaps there will be an upswing in puzzle caches.

And note that the USDA map is a bit misleading. If a single county in a state has a single sighting of the plant the whole state is shaded in. For example, only southern New Jersey and a single county in West Virginia has a confirmed find. Of course it is probably slowly spreading North as temperatures rise. True, but if you click on a state (for example NJ) you get a county distribution map: http://plants.usda.g...34&symbol=TOPU2

Since when ? Poison oak is spread all about the Northeast. Last we were in the Andirondacks, it was everywhere. We've spotted it at most travel centers up Rt. 81. Think low (10"), not like a tree. Often mixed with blueberry bushes and with scrub oak on ridges. I've never seen it in the Adirondacks, or elsewhere in the Northeast, and the USDA has a map that agrees with that: http://plants.usda.g...le?symbol=TOPU2 (I should clarify: When I wrote the above quoted post, I wasn't sure what poison oak looked like; now I do know, and am reasonably sure I would remember having seen it if it was there.)

Notice the chain link fence completely surrounding that box to keep kids, drunks, and fools out? Me neither. In 21st century America, that means it's a dead certainty that for all practical purposes it's impossible for the exterior of the box to become a hazard (short of someone attacking it with a backhoe, or leaning on it during a lightning storm). The parts that can be dangerous will be locked up securely. This is not to say it's a good idea to put a cache there, but it's not an electrical hazard.

There are lots examples of experienced geocachers failing to find easy caches... cachers with 2000+ finds logging a DNF on a cache which the next day is logged found by someone with 37 finds. Everyone has off days and blind spots. So don't take a single DNF as proof of anything.

Takes armchair finds to a whole new level! I used a point and shoot camera (with flash of course) to get a look deep inside a hollow tree once. Would've worked great for finding the cache if, um, I'd been looking in the right tree. TMI!!

http://coord.info/GC167DV (Finding the log was not so hard a puzzle!)

+1

Norfolk! I spent a few years living in Newport News. I go back there once in a while, and it's where I made my first few intentional cache finds. Not sure what part of the area you're in, but if I look at the map, west and northwest of Suffolk looks to be hundreds of square miles with very few caches. Not as scenic, maybe, as the Hampton Roads waterways and maybe not as convenient for you... but it's there. As one who's hidden one letterbox and zero geocaches maybe I shouldn't be handing out advice on the subject... but I agree with the thought that if the place you want to put a geocache in is already saturated, that really means another geocache isn't needed right there. Wait until you find a place that does need one. Unless all those caches around you are in bad condition, full of damp swag and moldy logs, or missing completely; then there is a need for some new, well-maintained caches. I'd have no complaints, in that case, if you were to pick a few of the worst offenders, mark them Needs Archiving, and then take over the location when they're gone.

... Looking at your profile, I also see certain activities listed which are outside the "Find a container" matrix by which you have defined geocaching. Specifically; On 07-27-11 you drove down a road and read a sign. Is that geocaching? On 12-03-10 you drove to a hill and took a picture of yourself. Is that geocaching? On 05-20-11 you hung out with 500+ geeks. Is that geocaching? You've even done a couple challenges, which I find odd. Why 'odd'? They've probably done lots of things that aren't geocaching. Borst68 never said "I refuse to participate in, or to log a 'find' for, anything that isn't 'finding a container'". Nor would I. Indeed, I've done 1 virtual and 31 benchmarks. They were generally enjoyable experiences, and I see no reason not to have logged finds for them once I'd done them. But in my personal view, neither benchmarks nor virtuals are really geocaches. And there's the problem: since they aren't really geocaches, they don't really fit here. New virtuals are no longer permitted and old ones are getting archived, and benchmarks, well, TPTB don't count them as finds, are neglecting the benchmarking features of this site, and, by shoving the benchmarks link deep into the bottom of the footer, are trying to make sure everyone else neglects them too. Which they pretty much do. Events, of course, don't suffer that kind of neglect; that's because geocachers, or at least some geocachers, like hanging out with other geocachers. Events are not geocaches, even if they count as such, but they are certainly strongly connected with traditional geocaching. But benchmarks, virtuals, Whereigos, webcams... they're all non-geocaching ideas that they've sort of attempted to graft onto geocaching with little success. Challenges look to be another of the same.

Can we clone you?

If I ever move to Washington, someone remind me to learn to recognize poison oak. We don't have it in the Northeast. Just poison ivy.