Scratch Ankle

Update -- someone just placed a series on a road in my area I defined above. 29 new caches.

I don't have much expertise in this. I've released one and it's disappeared. But from that and reading a lot of logs of other trackables it appears that almost nobody actually pays attention to the goal of the trackable. They find it, pick it up, and move it somewhere that may or may not have anything to do with the goal of the trip. Often it has nothing to do with the goal. On the way to my family reunion I dropped mine in western New York with the goal (attached to the trackable) of going to London Bridge in Lake Havasu City in Arizona (my sister's home) and then return to London, Kentucky (my home area). I hoped for it to make it's way back before the next reunion and I would hand it to my sister. It was picked up and moved several times northeast (although not any great distance) instead of southwest. It finally found it's way to Michigan and someone there picked it up and took it to Texas which was a big jump on its way. I started to get hopeful. Someone picked it up there and said they would move it on. I assumed that meant toward Arizona. Instead he took it back to Michigan where it has disappeared. I'm getting ready to send another on its way but I have no expectations that it will actually arrive at a goal except by pure luck. Certainly expecting a cross country and return trip in a year is a pipe dream. Keep your goal simple and attach it to the trackable so when someone finds it they know (or should know) right then what the goal is and act accordingly. Whether they actually pay attention is another matter. Good luck.

Try Boundary Waters Canoe Area -- no cell phone coverage and you can barely can pick up a radio station. And you don't carry things you don't have a use for. So for 12 days we had no access to anything except ourselves. Saw one airplane go over head. Great way to spend a vacation. The internet ain't everywhere -- maybe it seems to be in Portland Metro Area but the world isn't Portland Metro. You are way too concerned this soon about one not being logged. Relax. And if you haven't figured it out from the other posts it may never show up. It isn't worth the annoyance if it never does. If it disappears it disappears. I figured this out before ever placing mine. It now appears to be missing (several months now). It isn't bothering me. I knew this going in. What did cause me some minor annoyance was the fact that a tag was attached explaining the goal of going to Arizona. I placed it in western New York. The first several finders took it northeast when it needed to be going southwest albeit not great distances in the wrong direction. Someone finally took it to Michigan. Great. Someone picked it up and took it to Texas. Terrific. Guy picked it up and promised to move it on. He took it back to Michigan. ?????????? And that's where it disappeared. Am I overly annoyed by this? No. I've read plenty of logs of trackables with goals and they don't seem to move to places to meet the goal they just get moved. And the logs will show that several disappeared. So you release one knowing this and celebrate when things work out and accept it with good graces when they don't. It ain't the way it's supposed to be but it is the way it is. And if you can't accept that, trackables probably aren't for you.

We have two haunted caches that I've been to. The first is in a cemetery. The ghost must be active and hiding the cache from me because I haven't been able to locate the cache. Other than that, no activity. The other one is a haunted railway. Someone put up a memorial so maybe that has the ghost mollified as no activity there either. Only thing I was worried about showing up was a snake in the rock pile I had to dig into to get the cache.

goofed.

There are about 30-40 active in a roughly 10 mile radius from me. This is pretty drastically reduced from when I started as one CO committed geocide after I posted a needs maintenance on one and later a needs archived when I posted that it definitely was missing since a spoiler video showed that my guess was correct. That removed quite a few. Another CO has several in the area. One was finally archived after 3 years of DNF and NM postings. A couple months ago I posted a NM on my first find as I knew it was no longer there (across from my church). I just checked and he hasn't responded but 2 of the 4 "found" logs after that weren't finds. Another said it was 22' away. Last posting before my NM was that it was on the ground so apparently it got moved to another tree at some point. Come to think of it, it was on the ground when I first found it and I had to do what I thought would be temporary maintenance on it. I suspect one of his guardrail caches is missing as well. Another cacher mentioned it -- I haven't looked. I believe only two caches for that area were placed in the past couple years and one of them I was responsible for archiving almost immediately. It was in a sensitive business and on the building so I checked with the business before looking for it and she demanded I remove it then and there. No permission and placed by someone from several states away apparently with no local maintenance plan. They archived when I contacted them and told me to keep it. So we are going backwards. And yeah, I should hide some. I do have one very nice one after all. I haven't give it a lot of thought but don't really see any place that is interesting enough and where I could get permission.

We had one here that took over 3 years of DNFs before the reviewer temporarily disabled it giving the CO a chance to repair. I've got several I've looked for that had more than 3 DNFs that weren't disabled. Is there really a 3 DNF rule? I'm not likely to post a DNF unless I really looked completely for this very reason but I haven't seen anything to indicate that only 3 will get one archived. I just don't want to start a history of DNFs when there really wasn't a serious search.

Well, if the CO truly did get permission for the cache to be there, then of course cachers can go into private property. Whether or not you can trust the CO, is another issue. If you don't feel comfortable with going past private property signs even with assurances from the CO, then you should turn around and walk away. I referred to signs that say "no trespassing" not "private property". Even if the CO says he had permission a sign saying private property would slow me down. Most caches are on private property but not marked and that's where you take the COs word - generally. When that private property is marked as such I'm inclined to take it the property owner's sign's word over the cache publishing. Two things make me feel this way: I know a guy who was given permission to fish a posted private, locked gate pond. He shared that key with his friends telling them it was OK. The property owner was not amused to find someone there. Permission was taken back and a new lock installed. A cache was placed here locally by someone living several states away. I had a bad feeling about it based on the nature of the business and where the cache was physically located on the building. I passed that night and went the next day and talked with the director. She was very upset and knew nothing about the cache being placed there. She insisted I remove it. And as it turned out, there was no one local who was responsible for maintenance and the CO simply told me to keep it. I knew the guy who took advantage of fishing permission and would have trusted him and been wrong. I don't know the people who are hiding caches - why would I blindly take their word that it is OK when there are signs saying it is not OK? Geocaching does not override property owner rights. And if signs are posted in a legally required manner the property owner will win if he/she decides to push it in court.

Why would the CO getting permission to place a cache in an area marked "no trespassing" give me legal right to enter that area? The CO might have permission to enter but that might not have been for a cache. Granted a no trespassing sign with a GC code on it might mean that's where you look but a posted no trespassing sign has legal ramifications that a cache posting on this website won't overcome. I've seen plenty of comments in this forum about how many caches probably do not have actual permission granted so a no trespassing sign seems pretty formidable to me. Then, too, permission may have been granted but issues occurring or a change in property owners may have prompted the placing of a no trespassing sign later which completely negates permission granted earlier. We have seen people create an account to deal with non-permission or revoked permission caches but not everyone would do so. A no trespassing sign is a lot easier and had legal ramification for those who ignore it. No means no and a cache published here does not negate that.

My feeling on posting something other than a found it log is will what I post add to the cache and it's history. If so I post and if not I don't. If I am driving to a cache and torrential rain begins falling 5 miles before I get there causing me to decide not to go does not, in my opinion, do anything to for the log or cache history by posting a DNF with a note why. A long story involving the police, a couple of strippers, your wife, your ex-wife, and 2 of your current girlfriends might at least make an interesting story but that really has nothing to do with the cache. I could find plenty of other places to tell that story. If I arrive at a cache location and 1 minute after I start looking a busload of 2nd graders arrive and begin playing kickball where I think the cache is then that doesn't rate a DNF in my opinion. If it is in a city park where kids play it doesn't even rate a note for my money. Now if I'm at the top of a mesa 25 miles in the dessert and a bunch of 2nd graders arrive on a bus and hike the half hour to the top of that mesa and begin playing kick ball at GZ I would figure that deserves a note. I might even consider a DNF but likely not if I didn't really get to look before they arrived. If I see a venomous snake in the hole in the tree where I see the cache, that certainly will rate at least a note and probably a DNF with a warning about the snake. I'm amazed at how many people will stick their hands in places they can't see. If I give a real look and give up, that's a DNF. If I come back again and give another real look, that's another DNF. I've got a couple that I haven't found like this. One I won't bother with again since the CO seems to be getting unconcerned about NM and has had reviewers archive caches for lack of response (over 3 years in one case). The other I was the first to log an attempt to find but no one has yet found it and has just been temporarily disabled by a reviewer based on the DNFs and comments about poor coordinates and no response by the CO. Those DNFs do serve a purpose and why I prefer they have a basis in actual failure to find. I would hate to see a string of DNFs based on crying children, bad weather, and so on start to create a history to count towards archiving a viable cache.

Loss of a trackable is basically the cost of doing business. If you have a business and take a check sooner or later you're going to have someone write a bad one that won't be honored. Sure, you can go to the trouble of getting the person criminally charged but you'll spend more time and effort on it for low amounts (like what you have in your trackable) that it isn't worth it. That's the cost of doing business. It isn't right that it happens but that's reality. I like to fish and part of that cost of doing business is I'm going to lose several lures over the course of a day. I don't enjoy losing those lures but I also know it's going to happen. I knew when I released our trackable the chance existed that it would disappear and that may be the case based on the last note posted. But that's the cost of doing business if you want play that game. If that loss causes you this much mental anguish then this probably isn't a game for you to be playing.

The first trackable I found I held for about 2 months but the goal was to travel to Maine and since I was headed for NY from KY I held it and so noted in my posting of grabbing it. That got it halfway to its goal. Personally, I would rather mine stay with someone who will move it where it wants to go instead of just moving it randomly but then I have a goal. I dropped it in a cache in NY with printed goal on it. It kept going around the Buffalo area but moving NE instead of SW to Arizona. Finally it made it to Michigan and someone there took it Texas. Guy who picked it up in Texas said he would move it on when he logged his grab. Then he took it to Michigan. Now, if I didn't have a goal and just wanted it to travel I'd rather it get moved quickly from cache to cache rather than sit with someone for a couple months. So how to handle it depends on whether there is a goal or not and whether holding a short time it will help it meet the goal. As for visiting caches, I don't really see a point unless it were the guy in Michigan who visited caches on his way to dropping it off in Texas. But visiting 50 caches in a 10 mile radius doesn't strike me as all that interesting.

I have a couple with more than one DNF. In one case, I was the first log on a cache that was published a week or so earlier. I was working from memory since I just happened to be driving by and since the CO works at a tattoo shop and the location looked to be where a tattoo shop was located I looked where it seemed obvious. Lots of hiding places, no luck. Second visit I found that GZ was about 100' away from where I thought and in the middle of the street. This was closer to where an archived cache referenced was placed but nothing seemed likely there either. That seemed worth a second DNF. Two months and several DNF postings and still no finds and the CO has not logged in since hiding. Next attempt will probably be a NM rather than a DNF. Assuming I don't find it of course. I have another where the hint is tallest tree but GZ appears to be right on a grave with a tree next to it. That tree isn't even the tallest one in that row and nothing close seemed to fit it. Second trip I gave up and went by the clue. I found a tree closer to being the tallest but 100' away from GZ. It did have a hole that would make a great hiding spot. It was empty, however, and a second DNF posted. CO has a history of not responding to NM postings (one for over 3 years before being archived by a reviewer). I don't see a reason to try this one again. I've had a few others that I haven't found twice but didn't see any reason for a second DNF but those have been just a casual drop by and a cursory look from a little farther away to see if something strikes me that didn't close up. Nothing worth mentioning and I sure wouldn't call that a search.

When I go to geocaching.com I see a picture with text that starts, "Geocaching is the real-world treasure hunt that's happening right now, "

I'm surprised at the tone of the comments. When I ask someone what they're wearing they get creeped out and I get some heated responses. :lol: What my wife and I wear depends on what we're doing. And since it's "we" and my health issues, that dictates the types of caches we go after. She still works and other time suckers keep us from getting out often or to far away caches. The top of a mountain 3 miles from the nearest road ain't happening. So many caches are in or close to non-rural areas with not a lot of bushwhacking. For those clothing is simple street wear appropriate to the season and her in sandals often. If we're out in a more rural area it's still likely to have a trail and we're in walking shoes and I'm in long pants while she's often in shorts. Guess who gets to go off trail to find the cache. Long pants are good for the occasional poison ivy plant not noticed but I never really found them more than a minor help for protection from thorns but I still wear them in rural areas. As for snakes, you can get snake chaps and snake boots. A tall hiking book may offer some protection as well but not a bit of help reaching into a hole in a tree and finding a snake in there. Somebody has pictures of a copperhead bite he got when doing so and has posted a few times. I find my cane or a hiking staff I fixed with a hook at the top useful to deal with that issue. I don't reach into places I can't see into and I tend to watch where I put my feet. I've found too many snakes. I remember in my college days opening the door of the trailer I was renting on Easter Sunday and a found good sized rattlesnake sunning himself on the concrete steps. I also once stepped out of my house onto the porch and happened to look down to see I had stepped over a copperhead. Both outside of town but I remember cutting grass with a small tractor at the Catholic church in town -- I started to get off to replace a belt that had slipped off when a copperhead came out from under the cutting deck. Basically, watching what you're doing will do more for protecting you from snakes than any type of clothing. That and don't play with or try to kill them as that's how most snake bites occur. And remember that most snakes are not venomous -- but a bite from a non-venomous snake still stings a right smart.

Not sure if this is your problem but recently I had a message similar to that and it turned out for some reason the download was attempting to go to a different GPS unit than my Garmin Etrex and wouldn't change. Make sure you're trying to download to your Garmin. I ended up having to back out entirely and disconnect the GPS and start all over. Things were fine then.

I had one recently that we were looking for just at dark and was closed. It was a business that would be sensitive to visitors and it was right at the building. We passed that night and I stopped the next day and talked to the manager. They knew nothing about the cache and insisted I remove it. Very unhappy lady. The CO was traveling through and dropped it and then went home -- several states away. Pays to pass when things are a little bit hinky. A call to the local constabulary could have gone poorly.

I'd certainly use a pole to could reach it rather than climb. But, I'd also want to know that I could put it back correctly before I did so. If all I'm going to do is knock the cache down with the pole, the pole probably isn't going to be much use putting it back in place. Then whatcha ya gonna do?

I'm glad someone is looking out for me. I didn't know I was being segregated because I'm not given a free premium membership. Now that I think of it, I'm being segregated by an acquaintance because she didn't invite me to her wedding. Then there's the country club that makes me pay a fee to play golf or use their pool since I haven't paid a membership fee. Heck, way back when I registered my first vehicle in New York state they segregated me. I had to pay more money to register my car than my friends did because my car was heavier than theirs. Good thing there's people out there to raise my consciousness and let me know how I'm being mistreated. Shoot, it just occurred to me I can't even get food stamps just because my wife's income and my retirement puts me above their arbitrary income levels. More segregation! Come on, get off your high horse. This is a game. There's rules to it and if you don't like the rules just go to the house and find another game. Quit cheapening what has been real problems of segregation by calling this segregation.

Sometimes my Etrex will take me right to the cache. Other times it will have me 100 feet away. Sometimes bad coordinates, sometimes someone moved it, sometimes just the thing trying to commit suicide by yanking my chain. Not to mention I am about as dumb as I look. One of my earliest caches I was supposed to be at ground zero according to the GPS. I stood there looking around for the rocks that were supposed to be there and happened to look at the GPS again and it now showed me 30' away and then 70' and then 100' away. Every time I moved off and started over it would take me back to that same spot which would then start moving all over the place again. As was warned in the cache description, the hills and trees would not allow for good readings. Lots of wind helped mess it up even more. The cache description gave pretty good directions and descriptions of what you would see so that you could follow them and find the cache without a GPS at all but it did require tramping through the trees and down from the railroad bed towards the creek. It was located about 75' from what the GPS kept indicating was ground zero and not in a direction the GPS indicated at all as being the cache location. A tough cache for early on. Even if it takes you to ground zero, you may not recognize the cache. One I found was a stick that had been cut, the inside drilled, and then reassembled with a pivot to keep it together. Right there in plain sight but not what you would expect as a new cacher. One other was a bison tube glued to a large bolt head inserted into a hole drilled into a fence post. Another was a cap on a metal fence post that had to be taken off to find the cache glued to the bottom of it. So your GPS may be bringing you right to the cache and you're not seeing it. One very useful thing is to read the cache description and be prepared to think about puns. One had a hint that it was hidden behind the "Tree-0". After I found it I got the hint -- it was hidden behind the tree with three branches off the root -- trio. Other hints may not mean much -- one we found was easy because we are old and "good old Alfred Hitchcock" as a hint told me to go look in the bird house ("The Birds" was one of his famous movies from early 60s). My wife's nephew and girlfriend did not get that at all since they're about 25. However, the birdhouse seemed to be in an odd place so it drew them to it. So, read cache descriptions and logs before looking, make notes about possible hints, and open your mind to the less than obvious things around you.

There's a reason I refer to her as my late wife. She's never on time for anything and there is no changing her. However, we did just return from a 7 day cruise and she was pretty prompt. That ship will leave without you if you are late returning. Only once during the whole week was she late and that was for a meal. So if we ever reply that we will be attending your event, expect to meet my late wife. Assuming we get there before you get tired of waiting of course.

I am not a PM. I haven't seen any reason to do so yet simply because there are so many caches close that I can get. I don't make this a full time job which is obvious since I only have about 40 finds for a little less than a year. I play as my wife and I can. We enjoy it and don't see PM improving it at this point. Would having more caches available to me -- free -- be nice? Yes. But it isn't my game and it isn't my rules. If it becomes my game and my rules I'll change them to suit me. But there will always be people who won't like my rules. I go to a friends house and they play some card games by different rules than I do. We never discussed changing them since it was not a matter of life and death and sure I don't expect other people to change their way of life in their home to suit me. I'm not the center of the universe. But when they come to my house they play by my rules. I'm a ham radio operator. I don't need to pay a fee and join a radio club if I don't want to avail myself of their benefits in order to use my radio. I have a driver's license but I don't have to join AAA and avail myself of their benefits in order to drive. I like to fish but I don't have to pay a fee to join Bassmasters and avail myself of their benefits in order to fish. Just like I can geocache without a PM. But if I want those benefits I need to pay for them if the organization has a pay structure. Get over yourself. A PM is not a civil right. It ain't class warfare -- all you need to do is pay the membership fee. If they say no blacks, Jews, Native Americans and the like can have a PM then you have an argument but that isn't the case. Your problem is you want benefits without paying for them. If you don't like the game find another one. If you want to try and change the rules, try doing so in a less strident manner. You'll get farther.

"The GC disclaimer says: you assume all risks involved. Hopefully that disclaimer would protect the cache owner as well as Groundspeak." I'm not a lawyer but a lawyer's comment to me was that disclaimer doesn't provide that much protection. At the very least, you can't sign away the rights of others to sue. It's a pretty common clause that I have seen a lot and his comment was if you get killed doing it, your family has every right to go ahead and sue regardless of your signature on that document. Used to be that you were responsible for what your knowingly undertook. Nowadays everyone seems to think everyone is stupid and needs to be protected from themselves. One of my favorite things I have run across was a cartoon where the character was saying something to the effect that he wasn't saying we should kill all the stupid people but should just remove all the warning labels and let nature take care of the problem. Anyway, these days it's probably a crap shoot as to whether a lawsuit would be successful or not. To get back on topic, I've not injured myself. In large part, that's because I'm not near as dumb as I look. I worry more about my wife since she's likely to stick her hands in places without looking while I poke and prod with my cane or other items first. I have no desire for either of us to have a finger look like wimseyguy. A lesson I wish my wife would learn. She came screaming in the house one day that she had reached into a flower pot and there was a snake in it. I asked her why she reached into the flower pot if there was a snake in it. Of course that was much later since we have had a few copperheads and one rattlesnake around here so a snake sighting is taken quite seriously. The kicker was the snake was about 6" long (and not venomous). She's rough on my blood pressure.

I'm fairly new to the game but my theory is a DNF is not posted if I have not been able to continue to my "give up" point on that trip. Your example would mean I did not give up looking, I yielded to circumstances. The circumstance may be danger, muggles, dark setting in, my physical ailments catching up with me and not allowing me to continue looking for that cache that trip, or whatever. I just come another day and try again. At most I might post a note that I stopped because I wasn't inclined to confirm that I'm still not susceptible to poison ivy but that would be to warn later cachers that are susceptible to it. But at that point, I'm not coming back either. If on a later trip I gave up looking for it, I would then post a DNF.