Dunadan

Huh? So are you saying GC.com is more tailored to park and grab hiders? I guess I must be fortunate as I live close to the center of the terracaching universe. There are plenty of terracache opportunities around here, St. Maries, ID., but definetly not as numerous as geocaches. I tend to favor terracaches as I like a more straight forward typical cache at the end of a hike that takes me to unique destinations. And actually there are plenty of those on geocaching also. Terracaching has only been up and running since last October so it needs cachers in some other areas of the country/world to hide more caches. But trust me, I intend to continue finding geocaches. I find that in the winter time most of the terracaches are covered up with snow and since I don`t own a snowmobile or snowshoes I am limited in what I can go after. So that is when I concentrate more on geocaching as there are lots of them in Spokane, WA. & Couer D` Alene, ID and other cities not too far away. Salvelinus, I see by your avatar that you are into big fish. About a hundred miles south of here you will find the Clearwater River where someone caught a 25 lb. steelhead recently. However that is not a record. Just thought that might interest you. If you are into really big fish, consider hiring an outfitter with a jet boat at Lewiston, ID. or Clarkston, WA. to go Sturgeon fishing. I remember 10 or 15 years ago a 10 footer & a 13 footer were caught in the snake river that flows between those to towns one summer. That will test your arm muscles. Keep on fishin!

I found that if you put "Skydivers Geocaching Point System" in the search bar of Google, that it brought up several links. That would be a lot quicker than typing in the web address. Good luck and I hope you like what you see. Even though I enjoy getting the points, I found that the harder ones worth the most points were the most interesting caches to find. They always take me to the neatest places. Somehow the SGPS encouraged me to go for the hardest ones and in the end the most rewarding even without the points. The points ended up being just a side benefit for me. I would like to say that Skydiver encourages everyone that is involved with terracaching to also enjoy all the other caching sites including geocaching. In the terracaching forums Skydiver goes by AngryKid. And even though my initial post here was a bit of a downer I would like to say, putting the political aspect aside, caching in all it`s forms is a great sport for families and individuals. My wife and I have really enjoyed it.

Skydiver was a geocacher from Missoula, Mt. that created a website that ran in parallel with geocaching. At least that is the way I think of it. SGPS stands for Skydivers Geocaching Point System. Basically if you found any cache within 150 miles of Missoula it would assign a point value that constantly fluctuated based on several factors such as how often the cache was found, how hard it was to find, how hard it was to get there and so on. If you found caches within that area you didn`t have to do anything as it kept a running total of your points automatically. You didn`t have to sign up or do anything, you just became part of the system. Some people did object to not being able to opt out or remove their name from the system. It was all tongue in cheek as the points didn`t get you anything but if you reached 3000 points you got a little symbol added to your name called the 3K Club, 5280 points was the Mile High Club, and the last one Skydiver added was around 11000 points for the Orbital Club as that was the amount of miles over the earth that the satelites our GPS use orbit the earth. Geocaching objected to Skydivers website as they didn`t like encouraging a competitive atmosphere. It became to hard with the constant upgrades at Geocaching in their software for Skydiver to keep up with the changes so he created a whole separate website callled Terracaching.com. He adapted the "Terms of Use" agreement used on geocaching`s website to use on his and geocaching objected. They banned him from geocaching. Now please understand that what I described is just my best understanding. When I attempted to use the forums to ask why he was banned, basically my thread was shut down. I should also explain that the SGPS was a work in progress and wasn`t a perfect thing, much like geocaching. But where the SGPS only rated caches within 150 miles of Missoula, Terracaching is a worldwide system just like geocaching. You have to join and have two sponsors within the terracaching community, which isn`t hard as long as you post something about yourself in the "Applications for Sponsorship" forum. Shoot, a lot of people don`t even do that and get sponsored. And you can still see the final results of the SGPS system. I will try to post a web address shortly.

Perhaps this would be a good cache for terracaching.com. More of a hikers cache site.

I keep a Camelbak Blowfish filled with all my geo gear on the back porch. It`s ready to roll on a moments notice. For my upcoming birthday, LadyEeyore bought me a new Camelbak with twice the room. I highly recommend some emergency items. An Air Force Rescue Squadron Huey from Fairchild AFB winched LadyEeyore out of a draw in the dark to the hovering Huey 150` above. This was March 2005. She had been laying on the ground from 2 pm till 9 pm, cold & wet with a suspected broken pelvis. Turned out to be a severly mashed hamstring. But a better space blanket & some hand warmers to place on the carotids, under arms and possibly in the groin area would have gone a long way to keeping her warm after her nasty spill in that icy creek. With a little bigger pack we will be better prepared & I absolutely love the water bladder!

I seldom check out the forums as I figure it would take up all my time trying to keep up with it all. Even though I have enjoyed geocaching I find that I am disappointed to come to the realization that the powers that be don`t really care what we think. For example, a lot of people enjoyed the SGPS system. It added another dimension to geocaching. But even though it was wildly popular, geocaching.com decided it didn`t fit within their vision of geocaching. I also feel that the banishment of skydiver was over the top. I would really like to feel that our input was part of the decision making involved in the evolution of geocaching. After all, we are kind of like a church, and without a congregation there is no church. It follows then, that the congregation ought to have some influence in the matters of the church.

Even though you are not accepting proposals yet, I would like to get my request in early. I propose a Fire Lookout category. I have stayed in a few & am developing an attraction for them.

I would just like to say that I am very dissappointed in GC for banning Skydiver. I really enjoyed the SGPS system that worked in tandem with the geocaching website. It gave me even more incentive to get out caching when I knew that a cache was going to give me x amount of points. I strove for harder caches because of this. I hope GC will reconsider and realize that there is a place for geocachers that enjoy a point system. I know that I really enjoyed getting to the next level on the SGPS.