michigansnorkelers

Sure hope it doesn't land on top of a lamppost in a Walmart parking lot!!!

One tip for making Winter caching more enjoyable: If you don't have a snowsuit, take along the pants from a rainsuit. That way, you can stay relatively dry as you tramp through the snow, and kneel at the cache site.

THAT picture was worth a thousand words!

Winter caching can be an awesome experience. Gazing upon acres of virgin snowfall. Marveling at Ice-covered trees glistening in the sunlight. Seeing all the tracks of birds, rabbits, deer, and whatever. Astonished to see spiders and insects crawling atop the snow! The deafening silence of a windless morning. The satisfaction of finding a cache under 3 feet of snow. The satisfaction of the adventure, even if you don't find the cache under 3 feet of snow. Darn, it's not snowing in Detroit yet.

The SKIRTS are to provide a wonderful nesting place for bees, hornets, wasps, and all kinds of nasty critters. Imagine the joy in lifting one of these squeaky things and being greeted by the stinging swarm that lie in wait. Also imagine the joy of muggles as they watch you hop around the lightpole, slapping yourself silly all over your body, as you fall to the ground. STOP, DROP, AND ROLL isn't just for fires any more. LPCs have to be geocaching's greatest practical joke.

Yes, Pocket Queries will come up with a list of geocaches that ARE SUPPOSED to have travelers in them, but most will be gone! Virtually all trackables will be picked up by the NEXT geocacher to visit the cache. Check the cache page. If the date of the last cache log = the date the traveler was logged to the cache, then there is a good chance you'll find it there. Unfortunately, there is NO WAY to automatically search for this!!! However, if the traveler was dropped in the cache November 28, and the cache has been found on November 29 and 30, then the traveler is probably gone! Either taken and not logged, or muggled. Sad, but true.

If you have GSAK, press CTRL SHIFT F10 and it will save a snapshot of the entire page to your desktop.

I crumble up the granola bar and wait for the ants to come. Then, I add them to my ant farm which I leave as a FTF prize! I forgot my swag bag, so left the only thing I had on me ... a comb with several broken teeth.

FOUR years and counting before it's our turn!!!

Even going paperless, it is very handy to have a printed map of the caches you're most interested in. Sometimes I use BOOKMARKS, PQs and GSAK. Let's say I go geocaching with my wife, who likes regular traditional caches that are an easy shorter walk. I PREVIEW a PQ for this, then explore the area with GoogleMaps. I might look over the recent logs to see any problems with the caches or their location (wet contents, muddy area, heavy bushwacking, etc). A short time later, I've decided on the best choices for our limited time. So, I might accept the PQ as is, or BOOKMARK the best caches. Now, I RUN my first PQ, either the original, or the one created from the BOOKMARKS. I then send this to GSAK, in a database of its own. OK. So those caches are our main objective. But we MIGHT want to hit others that are in the general area or along the trails on the way to our target caches. So, I RUN a second PQ with all the rest that we MIGHT do if we feel like it. I send this to GSAK, in a second database. Now, I send the first database to my GPSr, using the GEOCACHE SYMBOL for every cache. Next, I send the second database to my GPSr, using ANOTHER SYMBOL for these caches. Finally, I send both databases to my PDA via CACHEMATE. Out in the field, I can see at a glance which are our TARGET geocaches (Geocache Symbol) and which are convenient additionals (any symbol except Geocache Symbol). Sounds complicated, but it is really pretty easy. Works for me.

Also, are you using a handheld GPSr or an automotive unit or a cellphone?

Neat idea! Once, at a flea market, I picked up a couple dozen Indian Head Nickels for $1 each. I thought they were cool, as well as a piece of history. Unfortunately, the new Nickels look similar. I've also stopped at the bank and picked up brand new shiny "gold" dollars. They were always a backup if I ran out of swag, or there was no room in the cache for anything else I had with me.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I shudder to think about some of the places I looked as a new geocacher. The first time my GPSr pointed to a LPC, I had no idea the skirt lifted. There was nothing else around, so I knew the cache was on this thing somewhere. Then I noticed a little access door on the side of the pole. I wondered if it was real, so I opened it and saw the electrical wires! Over 800 caches since, and I still find electrical boxes pried from their mounts. I've seen caches so convincing that I pushed and pulled on REAL electrical objects that were adjacent before finding the cache. There is no end to the ingenuity that COs use in mimicking electrical objects, or blending these hides seamlessly into the surrounding electrical equipment. Yup, someday someone is going to look in the wrong place and get killed doing an LPC or other similar find.

My 3-year-old grandson LOVES his flashlights. Too bad about yours.

Today, I went to Home Depot and paid $10 for a pack of 8 LED flashlights and two headlamps. The flashlights were aluminum, not plastic, complete with three AAA batteries each. Two were 9 LED, and six were 6 LED The headlamps were plastic, and ran off two wafer batteries, included. I bought several of these ten-packs. They still had a lot left. Better than McToys. What have you found, how much, where, and are any left?

Lots of good advice above. Let me add: Post the parking coordinates (downloadable) on the cache page if it is not clear where to legally park. Just because a cache is close to a parking lot doesn't mean that approval has been obtained to park there. For example, the cache is close to a hospital parking lot. The cacher goes after it and is confronted by security. Been there, done that! Make sure you have good coordinates!!! This probably means using a GPSr and not a cell phone or GoogleEarth. Remember to hide the cache BEFORE publishing it!!! Sure is fun to search a muddy bog in a rainstorm only to find that the cache has NOT been hidden yet. Yes, these are my actual experiences. Yes, these were all hidden by newer cachers with few finds.

If you find one of these in one of my caches, I would prefer you trade even rather consider them as a gift. I have left non-trackable geocoins in my caches, but don't consider that I am leaving a gift. Wow. It is extremely rare to find an unactivated coin in a cache, especially if it is not a FTF prize. Do you attach a note or something so that the finder knows it is a swag item? Otherwise, this won't be known until you're home trying to log it.

Have you ever watched COPS? Very often, a routine stop for a minor event (such as a taillight out) ends up in an arrest involving drugs, weapons, or outstanding warrants. So, it is not surprising that your geocaching actions would be interesting to an officer. Just be understanding, truthful, and cooperative. Of course, be careful how you hold a Garmin 60 or 62 unit!

GSAK If you don't mind running a PQ that covers the entire area first, you can then use GSAK to filter your route. http://gsak.net/google/polygoneditor.html

Sorry; looked like a nice cache. Noticed it was close to the road, not far into the woods. Maybe a little too close to the road and/or trail in an area frequented by muggles? That's the trade off with caches that are quick, convenient and easy to find. You might want to try a multi, with the last stage far into the woods. You'll get a LOT fewer finds though. Or, hide another one that is quick and easy to find, and hope for the best. By the way, my wife much prefers the quick and easy ones!

I used to have jack-knives as a kid. It was no big deal back then. I freely brought them to school. On the days of our Den Meetings, we wore our scout uniforms to school. We all carried knifes. The biggest trouble some of us (not me ) got into was carving our names in the desk tops. Today, they would be a problem for a very different reason than mentioned so far. If a kid were caught with a knife in this day and age, he/she would be expelled from school and taken into protective custody, or criminal custody. Heck, this could happen if all they did is DRAW a picture of a knife, or pretend to use an imaginary knife! This is perhaps the best reason not to put a knife in a cache today.

Thanks for all the replies! Looks like there are a lot of generous cache owners out there, satisfied just to get a nice cache log and a well-deserved THANK YOU from the lucky FTF cachers. I've logged my share of FTFs, but few have had even small token prizes. But I've always wondered about the rare "super prizes" such as geocoins. Again, thanks for the replies.

It only works on PQs you've already run. It then filters the unwanted ones out with a polygon filter. Here is a link to my favorite polygon filter. It takes several steps, but is actually very quick and simple to use, once you know how. Post again, or email me if you want more help with this. http://gsak.net/google/polygoneditor.html

As I already mentioned, you really need the upgrade kit to load the most caches, especially the more recent ones. The upgrade kit is cheap and easy to use. Do you realize that once you turn on the unit and it locates the nearest 20 geocaches, it will continue to point to those same 20 even if you drive 100 miles away! You have to turn the unit off/on to reset it to search for the 20 nearest to where you currently are. I see you already found 2 geocaches, rather easily I might add. Great work! There will be a number of DNFs, but that number will decrease with time as your numbers go up. Do you know that you can, with a bit of time and patience, look for just about ANY kind of cache with your unit? With the upgrade kit, it is possible to enter caches manually into your unit (via the Update Interface). It does wipe out the current memory though, so you'll only be able to go after those you enter manually. But, now you can solve a puzzle and plug in those coordinates and seek it out. Or, do an Earth Cache, or an Unknown, or a Virtual, or a Letterbox Hybrid, etc. Heck, you can even go after a FTF! You CAN even do a multi ... one stage at a time, although I would stick to simple two stage ones at first. On day one, set up some manual caches, including stage one of a multi or two. On you next trip, you can manually set the coordinates for the next stage. A bit inconvenient, but it CAN be done. So, keep it up and HAPPY GEOCACHING!

I've been wondering about some of the FTF prizes I've won over the years. Most are minor, but I've picked up several geocoins as well. I know these things are costly, but my understanding is that they are given as prizes and not as trade items. I try to leave something nice behind, but not equal to the value of the FTF prize. Still, do cache owners expect you to leave an equal value of swag behind? If not: then there are some very generous COs out there. If so: then I have a dilemma. Many times, the cache containers are way too small to hold much of anything. Would I leave money? Pretty lame, I know. I've even found nanos where the FTF prize was left at another coordinate. Then, what should I do? I often trade up or leave nice swag at empty caches (sometimes quite a bit!), so overall I improve the swag situation in the game. I hate to think about what I've spent on swag in the past year! It HAS to be in the hundreds of dollars. So, what do you think? What do you DO?