Gamaliel

It's going to happen eventually, best get it out of the way now. When it happened to me, I felt terrible. I emailed the cache owner and offered to pay for the cost of a new cache. Nothing else you can do about it besides that. She was cool with it and wouldn't even take my money.

List the other area parks that manage geocaching successfully. If there is a local organization, let them take point on this or stress how successfully this organization works with other land managers.

Sorry he wasted a trip thanks to a negligent cache owner, but the fact is that you found it first and you signed the log first. Whether or not he would have found it is irrelevant. Since FTF doesn't mean anything, really, he can claim whatever he wants, or you can both claim it, or neither of you. Whatever happens, I wouldn't refrain from claiming it just because he wants to claim it.

These are my favorite kinds of caches. I love finding out of the way historical sites. If someone wants to park and run, their loss, but for the rest of us, the gain is worth placing the cache there. Not every cache has to be a 98 part multi, and if I'm on vacation, I'm likely to skip the multi anyway and just look at the historical site.

564. I've always heard this is a pretty cache dense area so I expect it would be a lot more if not for that large 1000 sq mile bay directly south of me.

Sometimes there's nothing else to talk about. "I like geocaching! Yay smileys!"

I'm tempted to start writing that in logs but without actually peeing in the cache. It'll drive 'em crazy trying to figure it out.

I'm tempted to start writing that in logs but without actually peeing in the cache. It'll drive 'em crazy trying to figure it out.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000196C2A/ Love it. Cheap, reliable.

On bookmark lists I maintain, I can easily indicated which I have and haven't found, but on lists by others it would be helpful to be able to see at a glance which ones I've found. Thanks!

My eTrex sucked up batteries at a ridiculous rate. I hate to replace them every time I went caching, and a couple times I had to switch out batteries in the middle of the woods even though I'd started out with fresh ones. I was using cheap dollar store batteries but it wasn't much better with the good ones. Now I use a 60csx with duracells and I can go a month or more without changing them.

"Not the littlest hobo!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qemfyDfXBY

Those people are undeniably rude, and I wish we'd see less of that sort of behavior in geocaching. But this sort of behavior is hardly limited to FTF hounds: Exhibit A. This old straw man again. No one is demanding you change your plans and rush home to your computer or buy a new phone or any number of implausible imaginary requirements. But when you are home, there's no excuse not to log it.

I do! I enjoy getting outdoors, going new places, finding caches. Poking the same spot with my hiking stick for twenty minutes is not enjoyable to me.

Well said. If you have time to geocache, then you have time to log it (barring legit excuses like being on vacation away from your computer). If you don't log it out of apathy, you are being discourteous. If you don't log it on purpose, you are, as MM38 said, being a jerk. For the record, I'm not an FTF hound and I'll grab maybe one a year these days.

I also don't hit them with the ball deliberately and then say "why are you crying? Life's not fair!"

Mental torture is part of the game? Maybe such games should be left out of geocaching. Puzzle caches are enough mental torture for me.

I don't understand this. How do you keep track of a year's worth of finds? A list? GSAK? Memory? Wouldn't that be more work than just logging them as you go?

If you live near a big city or hunt down an especially large and well-stocked sporting goods store, you might be able to try out a gps. However, I've never seen anything other than dashboard units or the occasional eTrex, which was my first unit. You might go to a geomeet and ask other cachers to let you look at their units - after seeing others use the Garmin 60csx in the field I bought one at Amazon the next day.

I would archive the cache. Regardless of who or what is responsible for the damage, if you think it's geocachers then the land manager is likely to think it is geocachers and that could have consequences for park access in the future. Let's be honest here, we're going to do stupid things in search of that smiley. We've all done them, and some people draw their personal lines in different places and disagree about what is appropriate and not-crazy in pursuit of a cache. When placing something, I always consider what geocachers will likely do in terms of parking and access and not what they should do. If they won't listen to requests and signage, then there's simply nothing that can be done. Remove the cache, end the damage, and stop rewarding people who cause damage with smileys. While I'm not one who frets too much about geotrails and bushwacking damage - most of the wild lands around here get burned out by brush fire from lightning strikes or controlled burns fairly regularly - but one line I feel strongly about is not crossing boundaries deemed environmentally sensitive for whatever reason. I figure if the signs are there there's a good reason and the land managers know more about the environment than I. There are fragile areas (turtle nesting grounds, rare wildflowers) around here that don't need foot stomping, and there's plenty of crappy areas that can easily handle that stomping, so why take the risk? A local cache was archived because it was behind those signs in a small area that could have been a nesting ground for turtles or sea birds. Years of cachers didn't think twice about stomping through there, including a lot of people who should have known better. Shame on them.

I found a waffle iron while shrub hunting for an urban ammo can.

Maybe a typo and they intended TFTF - thanks for the find.

Wow, only 16515 cachers with one or more finds. I thought there would be more. And judging by my placement on the list, I'm under the Mendoza line.

Odd. There's a library cache around here that's a puzzle cache. The cache description provides the call number. The GPS coords bring you to the front door. I have a set of Dewey cataloging books at home (yes, I'm being serious, stop laughing ) so if you need someone to create a relevant call number for you, email me.

Add the following text to the reviewer guidelines/bible/whatever they use: Do not archive caches or instruct cachers to do so on behalf of a land manager or land management agency without reviewing written messages or guidelines from that manager or agency first.