chris-mouse

Does this mean that PQ's with more than 500 results still get sent as an attachment?

What art of Ontario are you in? That might help find local caching groups near you. I'm in Brampton, and normally I'm caching in the Toronto to Hamilton to Guelph to Orangeville area.

Create pocket queries for the areas wkhere you will be geocaching and download them to the phone before you cross the border. Them make sure the data roaming is turned off. you can then use the 'saved' tab to call up information from any of the pocket queries, and search for any of those geocaches without needing the phone data connection. Make sure you save your logs and send them later, when you have a data link. Downloading pocket queries and uploading logs can be done via WiFi. Pretty much every Tim Horton's or McDonald's has free WiFi available.

Hi Janardis. Welcome to the addiction sport. One thing you can do is look for event caches near you. You don't mention what part of Canada you're in, so I can't suggest any offhand, but here in Southern Ontario there are a couple of geocaching groups that hold meet-and-greet type events in local restaurants on a monthly basis. There are also a couple of larger picnic events held annually. At any of these events you'd find geocachers more than willing to discuss what GPS they use, and why. There's also a very good chance that there will be someone willing to show you what it's all about by taking you out to find some geocaches.

Mountain equipment Coop carries bike racks. There are stores in Toronto, Burlington, and Barrie, so you should be able to get to one of them.

Thanks. I had a ball getting all the caches I needed for this. I had to skip over a lot of the memories because there simply isn't enough room in the log for anything more. I even added an additional challenge to the cache. I rode Geocycle to the cache, covering 84km in just under four hours. For the record, there are now two people who have completed the cache without benefit of owning a car []

Those night caches you found were probably the BFL Boot Camp caches in the Milton area. There's enough of them still active to keep you busy caching all night for several nights at least.

If you're in the Bay and Dundas area, you can spend the day exploring without needing the car. One of the areas I consider a highlight of the city is the Toronto Island ferry docks. Take the subway to Union station, then the streetcar link from there to Queen's Quay. Walk from there to the island ferry docks, and spend the day out walking on the Toronto Islands. There are currently seven active caches on the islands. A more strenuous walk would be to take the subway to Castle Frank station. Follow the side streets over to GC2GXJC Acorn. From there, you can follow the Don Valley trail system upstream towards GC329NG JB's Sunnybrook Park Cache. The park system forks in several different directions along the way, and there are a couple of dozen caches scattered throughout the various branches. Ferry information can be found at: here Toronto transit information can be found here Toronto Parks maps can be found here

I usually buy ammo cans from Princess Auto. They have stores in Newmarket, Whitby, and Mississauga. Be warned though, the quality is all over the place. Open and inspect the ammo cans closely before buying. I have found containers in mint condition. I have also found containers with severe rust inside and even water sloshing around inside!

Well, I got it done. I got off the bus near the Metro Zoo, and hiked up to Oh Deer,Oh Deer (GC1VX6P) as a starting point for the day's caching. Along the way, I found four other caches, including the final for the Ten Little Indians series. That one was the 'unknown' type cache I needed to fill in the final spot on the holidays grid. The holidays cache was the last cache find for the day, and strangely enough, it was also the only one where I had a watcher. There was a deer watching me while I signed the logbook

I won't be there for midnight. Mid-day, maybe. GO chance-it can't get me from Brampton to the park any time before 8:30 at the earliest, and I'll have a few kilometers of hiking to do before I visit the challenge. I'm sort of toying with the idea of going for a clean sweep of all the non-puzzle caches in the park. Anyone know if there's an easy way to cross the river in the area of Oh Deer, Oh Deer?

Is anyone else still working on this challenge? I only need a puzzle or letterbox cache on Boxing Day to qualify, and I just happen to have a confirmed accurate set of coordinates for a puzzle cache located elsewhere in the same park, so I'll be there some time on Boxing Day. That sure beats fighting the mob scene in the malls.

Lee Valley tools has bison tubes for $1.55 each if you're buying five or more. They also have Brass ID containers (think evil nano cache containers) at $4.50 for six of them.

I'm guessing it's GC1t5WP as that seems to be the only cache they have in that area.

I'm in your boat. I live in Brampton, and don't have a car. The BFL crew goes out caching pretty much every friday evening. I usually arrange for a ride with someone, and take transit to the meeting point. I also add another form of transportation to my options. I consider anything within about 50km of home to be within bicycle range If you really want to meet a bunch of Geocachers, see if you can find a way to get to GHAGAFAP It's coming up in September, and has long been one of the 'do not miss' events on my geocaching calendar.

I usually flip back and forth between Google street map and Google sattelite. The street maps are smaller, so they load faster. The sattelite maps have more detail about things like trails and creeks. I haven't tried them in Quebec, but they do work just fine in Ontario.

oops, accidental double post

There are plenty of people who enjoy caching at night. If you live near the western side of the GTA, look for the BFL Boot Camp cavhes. They are designed to be found at. night If you're looking for someone to go caching at night with, you are welcome to come along with the BFL Crew We go out night caching pretty much every fridsy night somewhere in the area from Kitchener to Markham, and Orangville to Hamilton. Get in touch with Northern Penguin and he can keep you advised of the night's planning.

In this part of Ontario, it just might be because there are very few caches that can't be found in winter. Some of them just take more determination than others. I have done caches that became much harder in winter, like the film can under a metre of snow. There are also caches that become much easier, like the terrain 5 canoe caches that became a terrain 1.5 walk up when the water froze. In general, I figure snow adds a star to the difficulty level here, unlike areas in the mountains where ten metres of snowdrift mean winter placements must be very different from summer placements.

Post your log as you normally would. After you submit the log entry, the confirmation screen has a link in the upper right part of the screen to upload a picture to go with the log. Larger pictures tend to have problems on the site, so I resize all my photos to 640x480 before posting.

I think a cycling event is a great idea. Let me know when, and I'll be there. If you want, I can even suggest a bunch of possible starting points and routes for various times and difficulty levels. I've got route ideas ranging from 10K/1 hour easy trails all the way to hundred mile overnight trips It's helpful to bounce your ideas off one of the cache reviewers before settling on a final plan for the event, they really are there to help make the geocache ideas work. Once you've got a plan, submit the cache posting and wait for everyone to show up Just keep in mind that an event cache needs to be posted at least two weeks before the date of the event.

That depends on what kind of caches you want to have. You could put a film can under every other lamp post throughout the city, but is it worth it? I can tell you right now, I'd be bored silly before I got the first street done. Rather than looking at the number of caches per square kilometer, look at the number of interesting places, and how many of those already have geocaches. I like to look at it this way. Would the cache you're about to place be of interest to someone from out of town for any reason than 'just another smiley?' If the answer is no, that's probably one cache beyond the optimal for that area.

I do a lot of night caching, and my favorite two light sources are an LED headlight and a 'high powered' LED pocket flashlight. The pocket flashlight is rated at 120 lumens in the high power setting, less than half that on low power. It's got a nice narrow spot beam that I can use to look under rocks and in bushes without lighting up the whole forest. Most of the time it's used in low power as my 'search' light that I use to locate the cache once the GPS says I'm in the area. When I'm on the trail to the cache I prefer the headlight. It's not as bright as the pocket flashlight, but it has a much wider beam that does a better job of lighting up the trail and highlighting low branches before I walk in to them. A red LED setting on the headlight is nice for lighting up the trail without destroying your night vision. The drawback to the red light is that the blue paint used to mark some of the trails does not show up in red light. No matter what light you choose to use though, take more than one light source with you! There's nothing worse than realizing you're a couple of kilometers from the car and your only light has just died. I'm in the Toronto area, so I don't really know what the caches in Alberta are like, but if you want some ideas for your own night cache placements, take a look at the BFL Boot Camp caches that have been placed here. We've had a lot of fun coming up with new night cache ideas every year. If you have any questions about how any of my night caches are done, send me a message and I'll be happy to help.

As an example of a system that seems to work very well, here's what happens when planning for one of the BFL Boot Camp night caching events. About the beginning of August, a location and date will be chosen for the event. At this time, members of the BFL Crew will be asked if they want to place caches for the event. Those who volunteer to set up a cache are added to a private mailing list for event organizers. Cache placers figure out what area they'd like to place a cache, and post a notice on the list saying things like "My cache will be along the Bruce Trail west of 8th line." If any two people want the same area, they know they will have to get together and coordinate the details so the two caches don't interfere with each other. This usually happens within a week or two of the original request for volunteers. Cache placers scout the area for their cache, and locate the cache hiding spot as well as parking, posted coordinates and any stages needed. This information is posted to the mailing list so that conflicts can be checked. The cache placer also creates a cache page with minimal description, and submits it for review with a note to the reviewer indicating that this is a work in progress for the event and that it is not to be published until the night of the event. This allows plenty of time to fix any problems, and also holds the spot so cachers not involved with the event don't try to place another cache in the middle of everything. If the reviewer has any issues with the location, these issues get dealt with at this time. Once the location is cleared, the cache placer gets the cache itself ready as well as any reflectors/props/stages that will be needed. This gets placed out in the woods at least two weeks before the event. The cache placer also updates the cache page with the full description of the cache with all the story and instructions that are to be public. A copy of this information is sent to the event organizer and the cache page is resubmitted for final approval by the reviewer. During the last two weeks before the event, the BFL crew takes the public cache descriptions out into the woods and does a beta test of all the caches to catch things like math errors or confusing descriptions. During these beta test, the cache placer hangs at the back of the group and gives no help in solving problems unless specifically asked. If the cache placer has to be asked, there's something that needs clarifying, so the cache description gets updated to fix the issue. The elapsed time from the first announcement to the day of the event is typically something like two months, during which time we are all constantly keeping each other informed of what's going on with our caches. The key to all of this is communication. Without it, it would be impossible to put a dozen new caches into an area a couple of kilometers across without constantly stepping on each others cache placements.

It's volunteers like you that are the reason I am indeed a very merry Chris-Mouse. Thank you, and all the other volunteers for all the work you do for everyone.