Dread_Pirate_Bruce

My sincere condolences and thanks for sharing your thoughts.

If you found it and signed the log, log it as a find. However, make t clear in your log that you did find it and it is where it was supposed to be. The CO may delete it, in which case a complaint to the local reviewer is in order. Archiving a cache and not removing it is to leave geo-trash.

This discussion has really helped me refine my thoughts. I generally don't mind urban caches that require stealth to grab or replace. I'm less happy when it requires luck. I don't care for caches where you must poke around a lot. I was recently faced with a 1.5/1.5 cache that was downtown in a big city. There was a courtyard between two buildings where people smoked, had coffee or just hung out. The GPS led me to a spot where there were 3 circular planters. Each was 5 feet in diameter. Each had 4 metal bands around it, spaced from top to bottom. I quickly figured out that the cache was under the lip of one of the bands. That gave me roughly 180 linear feet of metal to search by walking around and feeling. Fortunately, the hint was very clear. It turns out the cache was in the one spot where you could sit on a bench, reach back, and make the grab. Had I realized the CO was bright spot, enough to have put the cache in the one good spot and to have correctly rated the difficulty, it would have been much easier. Hindsight is 20/20.

I have noticed what seems to be an increase in the number of caches that are placed where there is a lot of muggle traffic. Many are placed such that finding the cache cannot be done quickly or easily. Either there are a lot of spots that must be searched or the cache has to be well hidden to keep from being muggled. Many of these hides are by cachers with relatively few finds. It is well and good to bring me to a tourist attraction or other interesting place, but but don't hide the cache right out in front. If its likely other people will be around, find a place for the cache that is a little more secluded. If extreme stealth is required and has to be mentioned in the description, perhaps it is not a good place for a cache. The game is to find a cache, not to see how stealthy one can be. Just my 2cents on the game.

My wife and I do a lot of cruises. I preload my GPS with likely prospects for each port. Likely prospects means caches near the cruise ship terminal that I can walk to, caches whose logs refer to cachers being on a cruise, and caches at places a tour is likely to go. I'm on a cruise, not a cache outing, so my goal is one or two caches per port. On a recent cruise, I hosted an event in several ports where there were no physical or virtual caches.. Each was near the ship scheduled for 30 minutes and starting either 30 or 60 minutes before departure. (It is too hard to figure when you can get off the ship so don't schedule an event for your arrival - missing your own event is bad form.) The only attendees were from my ship. I suppose that was to be expected because if there were local cachers, there would have been more physical caches nearby.

Maybe the cache owners had other criteria in mind when selecting a cache location. There were in or under a random tree or bush. There was no reason for the specific spot.

1. Go with tubeless tires and you can ignore goat heads. 2. I'm near LAX, do you want to get together to bike-cache some time?

I enjoy using my bike to hunt caches along trails. I get to combine trail riding with caching and stopping for caches gives me a chance to rest from time to time. Riding is usually faster than than walking, especially on an out-and-back trail. Yesterday, I went bike caching in the Southern California hill. Except for one stretch of about half a mile, where it was hike-a-bike, the trail was pretty easy and a lot of fun. The cache stops were always a welcome opportunity to rest. One big issue for me was caches that required walking across a field of brush. Clothing that's good for riding isn't so good for bushwhacking. I was constantly picking foxtails out of my socks. I skipped many caches that required bushwhacking. The funny thing, though, was that the caches could easily have been hidden close to the trail without much risk of being muggled. I noticed that sometimes, it is easier to find a cache hidden in a SPOR than to find one under a single rock. The SPOR is a giveaway. I found that I was best to give myself a time limit on each cache. If I couldn't find it in a few minutes, I'd move on. There were lots of caches and the time was better spent seeking those. As the day went on, I found I was giving myself less time before giving up. It was a combination of fatigue and frustration.

My wife and I spent a long weekend in Palm Springs, California. I wanted to do some caching and my map showed a series of caches along one particular road. I gave those a go. It deserves a report. From the map, I thought the series might be a power trail. It wasn't. A few caches were quick grabs, but most required some walking and some hunting. In the available time, I found 25 caches The interesting thing is that very few of the hides were particularly inspired. Some were in bushes. Others in piles of rocks. However, the cache containers were novel and made the hunt a lot of fun. There was one that was a plastic cat in a bush. Once was a large concrete turtle among the rocks. One was a toy mailbox in a tree. One was a concrete rabbit with a bison tube hanging around its neck. It was a lot more fun than just pill bottles in piles of rock and surely took more thought and effort.

Just go ahead and publish it. Just put a film can and log there until you are ready. Then swap it for the real one just before the hunt. I like the idea of a geocaching bachelor party.

Although I don't specifically keep count, my logs often mention when I'm able to make a grab without having to dismount. I don't go out of my way or stretch or strain to make a mounted grab. But, sometimes hides in reflector posts on mountain or desert roads don't require me to dismount. You can't do that with a car.

I would count that one. If the distance to the cache is enough that unloading and reloading the bike is quicker and easier than just parking & walking to the cache, I'd say that you biked to it. What if, instead of your own van, it was a public transit bus that your bike was carried on? If unloading and reloading the bike is quicker and easier than just parking & walking to the cache, I'd count it, too. Even if I only expect unloading and reloading the bike to be quicker and easier than just parking & walking to the cache, I'd count it. If I park by the first cache in a string of caches and then use my bike to get it and others, I count it. But for my "challenge," you can count it however you want. Does anyone in Los Angeles want to go riding and caching?

I sometimes get frustrated by spending time looking for a cache in the wrong place. Or hoping to look for a cache only to discover I can't actually get close to it while staying in my comfort zone. Or deciding there are too many muggles nearby. But its always an adventure. I only hate geocaching when something happens that screws up my score so that I can't win. Then I break whatever club I happen to be holding. Oh wait, that's golf.

In the app, you need to save the cache to a saved list before adding the waypoints. Then you need to look at the cache through the saved list.

Bike-caching is whatever you want it to be. Personally, I count any find while out for a ride. If I can make the grab without dismounting, it counts. If I park my bike and walk or hike to the cache, it counts. If I drive to a trailhead, unload my bike, grab a cache in the parking lot, and then ride to the next cache, it counts. If I'm driving somewhere with the bike in the van and stop to grab a cache -- that does not count. Nor does stopping unloading the bike, riding a short distance to a cache, grabbing it, loading the bike back into the van and driving to the next spot. I really like my bike for power trails. The real downside to bike-caching a power trail is that at the end of the day, you're a two hour ride back to the car.

I'm amazed by how few of the many replies address the number of caches found while cycling. I don't care if the theoretical cache would have been published or not or whether you like challenges or verifiability. I'm only interested in who thinks they've found more than x number of caches while cycling. niraD gets the award for FTA (First Ton Answer). Michaelcycle is STA only 36 minutes later. Congratulations.

I like using my mountain bike while caching,especially in the mountains and deserts. I now have over 1,700 finds while bike-caching. I was going to place a few challenge caches where the logging requirements were 100 finds by bike, 500 finds by bike, 1000 finds by bike and 1500 !finds by bike. It would have used the honor system. But, as everyone knows there is a hold on challenges. With that in mind, who would have qualified for which ones?

I drafted a very articulate position on challenges . When I read this, I revised my whole thought process, I concur with the above.

I recently visited the Caribbean island of Curacao, which is a Dutch territory. Now, I need to decide how to list it in my list of places I've cached. Do I list it as "Curacao" or "Holland"? When I cached in the Hawaiian Islands, I listed it as "USA". I want to be consistent, but I'm not sure claiming a find in Holland is legitimate. I know that it is my list and I can do whatever I wish. Nonetheless, I'd like to know how others would treat the matter.

I keep a personal spreadsheet of my finds with notes about where I found the cache. When I'm caching, I use field notes and then convert them into logs when I get home. When I do a field note, I note the details of the hide. I once accidentally clicked the button that immediately posted the field note as a log and as a result inadvertently posted a bunch of spoilers. As soon as I became aware of this, I fixed it, but it wasn't until a CO alerted me that I even knew. Btw: I hate it when the CO's hint requires local knowledge or says "no hint needed." If no hint was needed, I wouldn't have looked.

Friends got me interested in challenge caches. One entailed finding caches that hadn't been found in one month, two months, etc. Now I'm hooked. Yesterday, I found two in the mountains that hadn't been found in two years. What's the longest forgotten caches others have found?

I started riding a mountain bike to help grab caches in the desert and hills. I've got 1700 finds while biking. Now, I've forgotten if I cache while riding or ride while caching.

I saw it. I commented on it. I photographed it. But I failed to find it. Go figure. I was driving from California to Florida with my kid. I wanted to get a cache or two in every state we visited. I made up a list of caches that were easily accessible from the highway. I specifically sought caches that had lots of favorite points. We pulled off the highway in Texas in search of a cache marking the halfway point on Route 66. It was at a rest stop with what had once been a diner. I photographed the diner and nearby signage as well as a decrepit old truck. My kid commented about the graffiti on the truck. I searched for a cache, but came up empty. Some time later, I realized that the truck was the cache and the graffiti was just the logs. Since I did not sign the log, it was a DNF.

September is going to be very hot. Don't overheat yourselves or the vehicle. Don't hit cattle at night.

I opted to get a ResQLink for my adventures into the wilderness. Based on my research, it is more reliable in an emergency. It is a true emergency beacon, not a satellite messages.