MountainMudbug

Actually, there are fully authorized physical caches in National parks. The ban is a myth. It's up to the individual park to determine whether to allow geocaches. Point me to a couple It is true that some NPs will allow caches. You pay a fee and they tell you where you can hide the cache. I received this info directly from a park ranger/head honcho after being instructed to remove an 'illegal' letterbox. He suggested that I might 'chip in' with other lboxers or geocachers to come up with the $150 yearly fee to hide within the park at an approved location. (This all happened a couple years ago, so things might have changed in that time. I did not pursue the pay-for-placement plan. I already donate to the park.)

We've encountered many black bears up close while hiking in the Smokies, and we never felt we'd be attacked even though it does happen on rare occasions. We don't carry spray or knives or guns. We carry hiking sticks and stay close together and pay attention to our surroundings. Actually on Aug.12 a young boy was slightly injured by a black bear on a Smokies trail...... we were back out hiking the 13th with no hesitation and again we saw 3 large bears up close and personal. We didn't bother them and they didn't bother us.

You could quadruple the counts.... it still wouldn't get me to like Waymarking.

Oh wow, this is terrible news, I used Topozone for everything.

Yay! Another season of nest watching, I'm happy to see that lil egg!

You da man, briansnat.

.... because, some people like to walk. We "walk" 8-10 miles in the mountains each weekend for no other "reason" than we like it. Maybe you could invest in some rollerblades or a bike if you don't like walking, or stick to parking lot caches. There is certainly no shortage of those.

Eliminate public display of numbers on gc.com. - Most of the questionable and/or undesireable behaviors I've observed have been directly related to the numbers race. If I can't have that, bring back the Virtuals.

Just curious: Who are you talking to? Whoever will actually listen. Which means myself, I guess.

If you think there is no competition in geocaching, you haven't been paying attention. Not everyone is involved in competing, but there are plenty who are competing, on many different levels. Those who are competing are often those who are faking finds. I've seen it happen, so there is nothing you can say that will convince me that this isn't true. Apparently you haven't seen it happen, and there is nothing I can say that will convice you otherwise. I'm not going to provide examples because I refuse to point out specific people, so don't ask. No doubt my lack of specific examples will be cited as "proof" that it doesn't happen. And even if I did point it out, you'd say "who cares?" So, we're all shouting into the wind here.

Count me among those that were sad to see Virtuals killed. Waymarking is not the same experience and I still don't like the way it is set up. I would have preferred to see Virtuals just given their own find count and section, just like Benchmarks, and with the same gc.com layout they had (still have) based on coordinate location alone, not all the category stuff. But whatever.

Now I've got to make a Puritan Power t-shirt to wear while caching

Striving for honesty is never a character flaw, but it's a pretty futile task trying to mandate it. We all migrate towards what we like, and our hides and how we maintain them are reflections of ourselves. We each do what we think is right, but no one should expect everyone to have the same definition of what that is. Are you saying it is too much to expect that when somebody logs online that they found "HappyMountain Cache", that they actually showed up at the coordinates of "HappyMountain Cache", found that cache container, signed the logbook, replaced the cache, and continued on? That is the feeling I'm getting, perhaps I've misunderstood. Or maybe I'm confused as to the point of geocaching, although I think I should understand it after this amount of time. If it is true that I'm expecting too much based on that, then geocaching has in fact degraded already.

I'm a bit tired of reading the inference that because one thinks false logs are lame, they therefore have no life and are also obsessed with numbers. Looks like striving for honesty is now a character flaw.

If the person's log doesn't make sense for the cache If someone tips you that the person made bogus logs on other caches If your spidey sense tingles Out-of-the-blue late logs on archived caches without explanation This has happened to my own archived caches, I know it to be a fact. I have the old logsheets from my archived caches, so when somebody "late logs" a find dated 2005 now in 2008, I actually will go back and look. It does happen. Why should I turn a blind eye? I'm not trying to police everybody else's caches, but I will enforce my own as I see fit. That doesn't make me a stick in the mud or a busybody or a jerk. False logs are something of an insult to my intelligence and also reflect on the logger's lack of integrity. We are on the honor system here, but some people have much less honor than others.

Sbell beat me to it, but I don't think changing our caches into Letterboxes as a means to protect our game makes sense. We can't protect geocaching by changing it into letterboxing. It needs to stay geocaching. However, in my opinion, geocaching doesn't need protecting. The issues discussed in this thread (fake logs, fake finds, etc) are so rare that they can be dismissed. These are not issues that will degrade the game we play at all. I don't think you guys actually read my posts. I wasn't advocating turning geocaching into letterboxing. I was simply (and apparently wildly unsuccessfully) trying to explain how letterboxing works to somebody who didn't appear to understand that there are TWO stamps involved. As a result I am now assumed to be trying to change apples into oranges. Which I'm not. I disagree that fake logs are so rare that they will not degrade the game. There have already been enough of them, otherwise we wouldn't have 7 pages of discussion in this thread alone.

But if there were stamps couldn't I still log a find and claim I'd found it since I'd have the lack of proof in my stamp book? Even the owner couldn't check it then, only I'd know. The way it is now at least the owner can check if he wants to. Each boxer has a unique signature stamp that gets stamped into the letterbox logbook, like signing your name in a cache log. You're stamping the box stamp into your personal log, and stamping your stamp into the box log.So yes, the owner can check. Do we really want to turn geocaching into letterboxing? Why isn't someone's name in the logbook sufficient evidence that he found the cache? Oh come on, I was answering a question re: checking sigs in letterboxes. Stop twisting things.I'm not twisting anything. I was merely responding to your post. TT wished all caches had stamps. You appeared to support this position. My questions were toward that position. Either you or TT (or anyone else that agrees with her position) were welcome to respond. No, I did not support that position. I was responding to Mushtang's comment regarding the owner not being able to check the logbook. At this point we're so far off topic I suspect that nobody knows what we're talking about anymore.

But if there were stamps couldn't I still log a find and claim I'd found it since I'd have the lack of proof in my stamp book? Even the owner couldn't check it then, only I'd know. The way it is now at least the owner can check if he wants to. Each boxer has a unique signature stamp that gets stamped into the letterbox logbook, like signing your name in a cache log. You're stamping the box stamp into your personal log, and stamping your stamp into the box log. So yes, the owner can check. Do we really want to turn geocaching into letterboxing? Why isn't someone's name in the logbook sufficient evidence that he found the cache? Oh come on, I was answering a question re: checking sigs in letterboxes. Stop twisting things.

But if there were stamps couldn't I still log a find and claim I'd found it since I'd have the lack of proof in my stamp book? Even the owner couldn't check it then, only I'd know. The way it is now at least the owner can check if he wants to. Each boxer has a unique signature stamp that gets stamped into the letterbox logbook, like signing your name in a cache log. You're stamping the box stamp into your personal log, and stamping your stamp into the box log. So yes, the owner can check.

In my perception, it has been competitive number hunting that has led to false logs (among various other weird practices) in pursuit of stats/milestones, that also often result in congratulations, recognition, events hosted by peers. I'm not interested in racking up big numbers myself (I've been here a long time and haven't logged a ton of caches!). I do look on in wonderment(and sometimes disbelief) at some of the inflation techniques that I've observed. Just don't really understand why it is done other than for numbers' sake. And if it is just a game, just for fun, why does it come to that?

Well. When one of my cache logs fills up, I go maintain my cache and collect it. I take it home and read through it to see what finders have written (which frankly isn't much these days), to see if any muggles found the cache and signed the log, to see what signature stickers and such are in there. I keep all the old logs in a gallon ziplock bag. It isn't like I'm running around looking for any possible hint of "cheating" every time somebody logs online. Do you just toss your logbooks in the trash? Really curious, not trying to be snide....

My thoughts exactly! DCC for President of Geocachers with Integrity! Amen to that my brother!!!!!!! He's got my vote!!!!!! I agree. Excellent post, DCC.

Should then everyone be so laid back and unconcerned that it becomes an anything-goes free-for-all? I'm reading a lot of "I don't care, it doesn't bother/affect me".

There was a false logging issue I became aware of a while back - may even still be an issue, I don't know. I can't comprehend why anybody would stoop so low, so I quit trying to follow the saga. Long story short, individuals would together log caches they hadn't found - lots of them - amongst a few caches they did find, in an effort to massively increase their numbers (because don't you know, you get worshipped as a caching god when you have lots of finds??) Result - much fawning over them, events to congratulate on the big numbers (probably there were a few golden ammo cans presented), blah blah blah Further result - the false logging was discovered. One publicly apologized and voluntarily removed their portion of the false logs, at the same time outing other false logger. Other never said anything about it, and as far as I know continued to cache. What exactly is the benefit of this type of behavior, for anyone? "Cheating" yourself, the cache owner, and other cachers is neither comendable nor impressive, makes no sense, and doesn't accomplish squat. I just don't get it.

Here's an idea - don't like the thread, don't read it. If that logic is good enough for cache hunting (as it is repeatedly mentioned), why isn't it sufficient for forum threads? Just because it annoys you? Why must the casual viewer be "protected" from it?