nekom

Depends. I've not had one that took more than a couple of days. One I placed in the morning, submitted around noon, it was published early afternoon and found that day. Of course I had explicit permission from the land management agency to place a geocache there, so that may have sped the process along a bit.

Yeah I have to agree, that's pretty cheap.

Get a big enough ammo can to put it inside of and you'll be good to go!

Best/worst is subjective, depends on how you like to play. Most of my favorite caches were very easy to find, just hard to get to. An ammo can in the woods is not a difficult thing to find when you can get to within 10 feet of it. Magnetic nanos designed to be insanely difficult to find really isn't up my alley, not that I don't go after them now and then anyway, but I prefer to find what I'm looking for and hopefully see a neat area along the way.

That's your answer. I can only speak for my area and assume other areas are similar, but I've been at this long enough to pretty much know which local cachers are going to find my more challenging caches. There are a few locals around here who love a challenge and go out of their way to get the tough. Then there are those who are only after the quickies. Then those sets intersect, there are a few around here who will find absolutely every single cache published, be it a wal-mart micro or a terrain 4 multi mile hike. Everyone has their tastes, and it's good that geocaching offers something for everyone. I don't know if I have a reputation per se but I think quite a few people who have found caches of mine before would probably suspect that any new cache of mine probably has something to do with history, most likely railroad/steel/coal/coke era relics or an abandoned tunnel. I know I notice things like that. I don't want to mention any names, but there is a hider around here who has a penchant for hiding caches involving cemeteries, a few that are known for puzzles, a few known for micros, a few known for long hikes, etc. You get a feel for that over the years, and so people who have found your past caches might have some prejudice (either in favor of or against) with regards to any of your future hides. Of course there are also some hiders that are hard to peg, you never really know what to expect. My most found cache is my roadside park and grab. There's a lot of history to it and some probably took the time to appreciate it, others just wanted a quick smiley, which is fine by me, as long as they had fun that's what it's all about. It has had 115 finds since being hidden on 4/12/2008 although it hasn't had a find since November. It's also right alongside a U.S. highway so it isn't just locals, anyone passing through via the route would probably notice this cache and stop in for a quick find. For contrast, a cache I hid on 9/1/2007 which is not TOO difficult a hike has only been found 35 times. A rather difficult cache I hid just over a year ago has only been found 8 times, and of those 2 favorited it. Don't let it discourage you, hide good caches and people WILL appreciate them.

At least if you don't find it, you could make gin.

I did some googling for relevant statutes and it turns out that Federal law DOES allow public use of ANY waterways that are navigable. They do not need to be navigable at all times or in both directions, they do not need to be navigable by any particular size of boat nor is there any specific measurement used. They do not need to be deemed navigable by any courts, if they are navigable in practice, then they are navigable by law. Even using the most liberal interpretation of this vague statute, noone could possibly argue that this small creek is in any way navigable. So the way I see it, there are 3 options here: 1. List it as a terrain 5 knowing full well that noone (well ALMOST noone) will actually use a boat to get there when there is another way. Still though, there IS a legal way, so this should be within the guidelines, right? 2. List it as a far more honest terrain 2, maybe 2.5 or so and note the tunnel as the best access point, still up in the air as to whether or not that is legal but it's probably at least a far sight better than actually walking up over the railroad tracks (which is quite possible, but definitely trespassing on railroad property), or 3. Drop the idea and move on to my next one. I have a series highlighting a former railroad and the caches placed on the abandoned portions don't have this problem. Problem is that some of that former railroad is also a current railroad, and again I FULLY agree with Groundspeak's policy on keeping the heck away from railroads. I personally know someone who was fishing on railroad property and got a $350 fine for trespassing. My backup plan for highlighting this area with a cache wouldn't be anywhere near as cool, and it would be really close to town. I'm not sure how `friendly' the locals are, though I do know a few families there. Sometimes an idea simply isn't workable, perhaps this is one of those times.

It is designed only to carry the tracks over the stream, it was never designed for pedestrian or vehicular traffic. Actually, I do know the owner of the land, but he wouldn't have an answer to that question. He only owns it because he wound up with it somehow, he has no interest in it really as he owns better riverfront property elsewhere. It was once owned by coal mining companies but the real estate was disposed of by them decades ago. He either got it in a tax sale or bought it from them or bought it from someone who did, not sure what the chain of ownership was there, but I do actually know the owner, he's a good friend of my uncle's. There really is no way to get there other than crossing over or under the railroad tracks, crossing at the nearest street crossing and going through people's yards, then a fenced off business, then a ton of ponds of muck, or using a boat. There is a boat launch just 5 miles or so down the river on the same side of the lock. Other than that, going under the tracks is about the only way I can think of that MIGHT be legal when it comes to railroad property. I can honestly say that the cache would not be LIKELY to cause forseeable grave harm.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so here's a marked up topographic map of the area showing what I have in mind:

It's a natural creek but it's certainly not navigable in any way. The river is the Monongahela River, which is quite navigable and sees a lot of recreational boat traffic as well as coal barges and the occasional but rare something other than coal on a barge going by. So I'm sure the river has plenty of right of way for the public use, but I'm not so certain about the creek. I'd say it's a good 60-80 feet from the railroad tracks to the creek and the tunnel has a good 20' ceiling. There is another area, albeit much farther away, that has a railroad bridge over a creek. Does it matter whether it's a bridge or a tunnel? Seems it would be the same situation to me, but perhaps the law has a distinction I'm not aware of.

For what its worth, this is a dirt road where 4WD is almost required year round. The railroad is a single tracked line which probably sees only a few trains a day. The likelihood of running into railroad security is extremely remote, however it is of course not zero. The likelihood of anyone calling the police suspecting terrorist activity is even more remote, however also not quite zero. If I make this a boating only cache, the vast majority of finders are going to just cross the tracks one way or another. I know I would. I could place at least one stage across the river, I do have a canoe. But people could easily just drive around to get the stages, although that's about a half hour of driving to the nearest bridge and back down the other side. The nearest street crossing is in a small town with really no entry into the woods you'd need to get to without going dangerously close to people's houses and yards, so that's not a very appealing option. Just trying to make this work, maybe it can't and I should abandon the idea.

I seem to recall asking this question before but I can't seem to find the thread. First let me state that I fully understand and fully agree with GS's policy of staying the heck away from active railroad tracks. Not only can they be dangerous, but at least in the United States you can get in a LOT of trouble for trespassing on railroad property. Now I have a cache idea in mind, but it's on the `other' side of the railroad tracks where the nearest actual road crossing is VERY far away. I'm not certain if I would want to make this a multi (probably would, there are a LOT of things to see. Settlement ponds, abandoned rusted out car where one shouldn't have been able to get to, old grinding wheel on the river bank, old mining ruins, a spring, to name a few) or just a traditional with parking and instructions on how to cross the tracks legally. There is a tunnel under the railroad tracks through which a small creek runs. It can easily be walked through, though your feet will almost certainly get wet. Would this be considered a legal railroad crossing? There is also an overgrown road (still listed as a road on google earth and old topographic maps) that crosses the tracks and heads to the river, however there is no evidence of a crossing there, and the road is just overgrown grass and thorns now. Would this be considered a legal crossing? The only other legal option would be to use a boat. If I were a cacher doing this cache, I'd be tempted to just illegally cross the tracks, and truth be known there's a 99.999865% chance nothing would go wrong with that, but I'm hoping to do such a cache where at least a legal option is available so I'm guessing the creek would be the best way to set that up? Maybe put a stage of a multi near the creek so that it becomes the most appealing option? I know one can't force cachers not to `cheat' and cross illegally, but if a legal option exists, it should be within the guidelines, right?

You'd be surprised how many of us 4 wheelers (cars in CB lingo) have radios. Just the last time I was on the turnpike I saw at last a dozen pickup trucks and a few sedans with antennas. When I go out caching, I roll with a CB radio in my car as well as a handheld. I can't imagine NOT having a CB when on major interstates. You get to hear where the cops are sitting as well as weather and traffic reports directly from the truckers in the middle of it. Of course when we go to our own operations (car to mobile) we don't walk all over ch 19, we switch to 15 which is relatively unused. It's an EXTREMELY useful tool when with a group, especially if one of the people is prone to saying "Well, I'm not doing THIS one, I'll wait in the car.", you have a communications line with them, which allows parking to be a little more liberal (if the car needs to be moved, they can move it and inform you) Outside of truckers, hobbyists CB'ers are clearly still out there. When the skip rolls in, every channel is packed, especially 6 which I understand is the high-power (illegal but they do it) calling channel. Under normal conditions, you won't hear much outside of 19, sometimes 17.

I have trouble uploading pictures directly from my camera, I have to resize them manually or it won't work. It doesn't sound like you have a size issue if they are 250x250ish, if anything they may be too small. Have you tried loading them and re-saving them with a different program, mspaint, paint.net, etc? Or in a different accepted file format (.PNG maybe if GC accepts that)? Their file parser might see something it's not familiar with, resaving them with another program may remedy that. Just a thought.

I don't care if it's a property owner, a law enforcement officer, or some random jerk. If ANYONE gives me trouble, I'm going to leave and probably not going to return. Whether they are right or wrong, if they are out to give me grief I want none of that. If I believe that they are right, I may contact the reviewer or post a note stating that the cache doesn't belong there. If I believe that they are wrong, I might post a DNF noting that some jerk gave me a hard time here, so that others will be ready for it. In either case, I'm not interested in arguing or escalating a situation. If someone requests that I leave and never return, then I leave and never return. So far it hasn't happened, but no cache is worth your life. You never know who has firearms and you never know how mentally stable a stranger is. Walk away. Cache another day. Nobody can place a cache on my private property because I already did. It would be too close, wouldn't get published

Yes. Everything is ruined forever.

This is also really great as a CO. A few of my caches have been favorited so far and they are exactly the ones that I personally feel were my best hides. It's good to confirm that the ones I feel were my best were the ones others really enjoyed. Just for added anecdotal evidence about micros, my 3.5/4 cache hidden early this year has had 7 finds, 2 favorites. My one and only micro (which is a park and grab but at least offers some history) has had 115 finds, no favorites. Heh, no love for micros in these parts I guess.

Indeed, but that's sort of the beauty of the simplicity of the system, in my opinion. Not everyone likes the same caches, but if, on average a particular cache receives a lot of favorites, chances are the majority of people are bound to like it. Instead of getting one cacher's opinion via their favorites list (which I have done in the past and is still there as a helpful tool when considering fun ones to go after), you're getting a sort of `average' of everyone's favorites list. Will you see a highly favorited cache that doesn't wow you? Absolutely. Will you see a barely if at all favorited cache that does? For sure. I think most are going to find though that that will be the exception rather than the rule. I've checked a few times throughout the day as the first votes begin to pour in and an awful lot of the highly favorited caches in my area are the ones I also favorited or have been on my `to do' list. So far, there is absolutely nothing that I don't like about this.

I like this. A lot. The way it's implemented is simple and it essentially gives you a mashup of everyone's top 10% list. Locally I pretty much know what to expect based on the hider (though I've been quite surprised at times) but this will be fantastic for road trips. What caches did the locals (or other travelers for that matter) REALLY enjoy finding? I guess it's early yet but so far I'm giving this idea two thumbs up.

There are no shortage of challenges out there. Most states offer delorme and/or all counties challenges. I think that I'll be a lot more proud when I find a cache in all 67 Pennsylvania counties (some day. lofty goal for me) than I ever would being awarded some arbitrary award.

A found cache seldom retains the same charm it had in pursuit. - Pliny the cacher.

Wow old thread is OLD. I like one I saw on a t-shirt once: I use billion dollar satellites to find tupperware in the woods. What's your hobby?

Actually, one of the Cache Owners did go out and talk with the LEO's during their investigation. She posted an update on our local Forums, and they had a few questions but didn't seem too concerned about it at this time. They were actually standing about 15 feet from one of her placements Good to hear, I was just going to say that if I were the CO, I would contact the authorities and make them aware of the cache and it's location, so that they don't waste their time blowing it up or unnecessarily freak out upon finding it. Not that a geocache looks anything like a pipe bomb, but honestly if I were a LEO and unaware of geocaching and found an ammo can hidden, I'd be a little suspicious of it.

I was when I was a kid. I have some fond memories of day camp.

I wanted to bump this one more time to see if I'm missing anything here. I have the final hidden, just waiting on some parts to cobble together an AM transmitter that should have enough power while staying within FCC regulations for unlicensed transmission. Here's what you would have to do to find the cache: 1. Decipher a cryptogram. 2. From that, you should know to check the page source where you will find your `one time pad' (you can still use HTML comments for hidden text, right?) 3. From that you should also know to go to the posted coordinates and tune your car's (or other) AM radio to 1000KHz. 4. Wait to hear the repeating message, which are numbers that correspond to your `one time pad', which will reveal the final coordinates. Is there ANYTHING that violates the guidelines or anything else that I should consider changing to make it a better cache? Also would it be a 5 difficulty as a radio is required, or is it safe to assume that EVERYONE'S car will have an AM radio thus making it not really special equipment? Oh and this is actually one of those rare caches which will be placed with permission of the land owner, which is a land trust that buys up hillsides and keeps them from being logged, but opens them to the public for geocaching, hiking, hunting, and whathaveyou. I already have one cache there. Any input is appreciated.