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GCVote isn't used by enough people in my area (in the U.S) to be very useful yet but if do a search in Berlin, Germany and take a look at the GCVote ratings on the Google map of the area, you can quickly see how it does become useful even though it's a simple 1-5 star voting system. What happens is that the good caches appear (as 4 or 5 stars) and the stinkers get 2 stars. Everything else ends up as average. Even that small amount of information allows an out-of-towners to narrow down the hundreds to manageable handful of caches.

Here's a piece of my profile. The kinds of caches I like: A place with a good view, an interesting feature or great scenery A hide at a place with interesting history A reasonable hike on a little known trail An unusual hide location Cool camo or unusual container A series of hides with a good theme (This was based on a similar list that Markwell had some years ago)

Since it's a cache at a a restaurant I wouldn't go out of my way to find it and if I did, I'd probably take one look at the long rant in the description and add a "tldr" to my "tftc".

If there was no way to know that a multi was going to require 40 miles of driving then I'd make a clear mention of it in my log to encourage the CO to change the description and to warn future finders. If it was reasonably clear that there was going to be that amount of driving involved then I dont think you can complain. Choose to find it or choose to ignore it.

Geocachers should following the guideline of "Leave no visible trace". (Or if you want to get specific:- Leave no trace that is visible to the general public). As you point out, leaving a cache does not follow the strict principle of "Leave no trace" that is recommended by environmental groups.

A Google search for : Paul Repak boonville now shows this discussion as the 4th search result. That kind of internet history is going to haunt him for years to come and is almost certainly going to be worse punishment than anything the law is likely to do. It's a shame that virtuals are no longer allowed. After the trial is over, I was thinking that Lewis Rd in Boonville would be a great place for an appropriately titled virtual cache. A virtual cache would be preferable for obvious reasons.

I dont think may believe that geocaching would be **vastly** improved by a rating system but it would certainly be another tool that could be used to help find caches that might be worth visiting when you're in an unfamiliar location. Here's a snippet from a previous post I made about the subject in relation to how even a simple simple system like GCVote can be useful

I'm very much in favor of any feature that would enable me to find caches that other people have enjoyed for any of the reasons you suggest. I don't need such as system for my local area but when I'm visiting a new area (particular an urban area), it's very difficult to easily find caches that are a step above your average park-n-grab unless you stumble across someone's bookmark list or a local caching association's recommendations.

Prices vary quite a bit depending on your location. I've paid $12 or more for a regular ammo can in Northern California. In Southern California I paid just under $8.

It would be interesting to try and match up the sender with a geocaching account. I'll give "Trace", the creator of the email, the benefit of the doubt and say it's not actually some scheme to defraud anyone. The email suggests that the person probably doesn't have very good judgment and my prediction is that the the whole idea will probably just fizzle out. I doubt that very many people (regardless of their knowledge of geocaching) would be inclined to "donate" to an idea like this. I'm going to guess that this person is relatively new to geocaching and has ambitions of creating some kind of wonderful puzzle/series of caches but doesn't really know what they are doing at all. I bet they have a small number of finds and are itching to create their own wonderful creation. I'd be interested to know how the scheme plays out. I bet it would be like rubber-necking at a car accident.

And another tip about zip-lock bags:- I put a bit of duck tape at either end of the zip part because zip-lock bags tend to split there after repeated opening and closing. I also put tape on the bottom corners of the bags as that tends to be the next place to split.

My area is full of smilies....

Congratulations. Since you're claiming a new record I'd be interested in hearing some more details about what rules you set for yourself. Were all 4 of you looking for every cache? Had any of you found the caches before and provided clues to the others? When did you start and when did you finish? How did you track the caches that you found/didn't find? By my calculations you had 2 minutes and 51 seconds per cache including driving. That's quite a feat. It looks like there are almost 200 caches in 2 power trails alone. What were the other 300 caches like?

JohnnyVegas I'm not sure why you're surprised by the cache owner's reaction. There's a nasty thread on these forums from October (that you participated in) where it was mentioned that you had been accused of reporting that CO's only other cache for a guideline violation and that cache was later archived. You even posted a photo of their other cache on the forums. Btw, I have no first-hand knowledge of that incident, I'm pointing out something that might shed some light on the situation.

I always take those reports (there are a ton of 'em) with a huge grain of salt. They just reek of urban legend to me. Looks pretty real to me: The Article

Because my finding skills are so bad I tend to spend more time searching than most people and I've found countless strange things near caches such as : a brand new nail gun in a box, a buried tribute to a teenage love, a rubber adult toy and a case of beer. (All in different locations). One day when I was out caching I found torn up $1 and $20 bills and lots of costume jewelry. I turned it into a cache:- Tam Treasure Mystery (GC1Q6HJ):

I'm surprised nobody has suggested a jello mold. That was the first thing that came to mind:

It would take you more than a few seconds to decode this in the field Vg unf orra fnvq gung jura lbh yvxr n cynpr lbh fubhyq chg qbja ebbgf . . . nccneragyl guvf vfa'g gur pnfr urer jvgu guvf pnpur. N fcrpvny abgr . . . Cre gur erdhrfg bs Znvar Qrcnegzrag bs Genafcbegngvba sbyxf . . . cyrnfr nibvq jnyxvat ba gur yrnpusvryq (sbe lbh sbyxf jub ner pbaarpgrq gb Pvgl Frjre Flfgrzf naq unir ab vqrn jung guvf nern vf . . . vg'f gur terra tenffl erpgnathyne nern jvgu gur "pnaql pnar"-yvxr CIP cynfgvp cvcrf. Lbh pna trg gb guvf pnpur ol jnyxvat nybatfvqr gur jbbqyvar. Nyfb . . . vs lbh frr nal sbyxf sebz gur QBG rlr-onyyvat lbh nf lbh tb gbjneqf be yrnir gur pnpur cyrnfr znxr n fcrpvny cbvag gb vqragvsl lbhefrys nf n trbpnpure fvapr gurl unir ab ceboyrz jvgu trbpnpuvat, ohg ner fnsrgl pbafpvbhf naq jnag gb znxr fher gung abguvat vyyrtny vf tbvat ba ng guvf erfg nern. Gunaxf. In the mean time you have allready walked across the leachfileds that they warn you not to walk acorss. I saw this hint on a cache the other day. Could this be the worlds longest hint?: Jr erpbzzraq guvf ebhgr orpnhfr vg vapyhqrf n avpr uvxr hc gur angher genvy naq n fbzr inevrgl va lbhe uvxr. Ba n Fhaqnl lbh znl urne gur eulguz bs n qehz pvepyr ng gur ortvaavat bs gur uvxr. Guvf pnpur vf ybpngrq va Tevssvgu Cnex, abegu/rnfg bs gur bofreingbel. Qevir bagb Tevssvgu Cnex Qevir, sebz nal qverpgvba, naq sbyybj gur fvtaf gb gur Zreel-Tb-Ebhaq (gur ebnq vf npebff sebz gur Enatre Fgngvba jurer zncf ner ninvy.). Cnex va Ybg bar naq jnyx onpx gb gur clyba oneevre jurer lbh znqr n evtug vagb gur ybg. Jnyx rnfg cnfg gur juvgr clybaf. Ybbx sbe gur ragenapr gb gur Srea Pnalba Angher Genvy, juvpu pbzrf hc fbba gb gur yrsg (A.34.07.477 J.118.17.267). Urnq hc gur genvy, pbagvahvat cnfg gur bhgqbbe pynffebbz, naq hcuvyy hagvy lbh uvg gur jvqr qveg ebnq. Tb yrsg, jnyxvat hcuvyy. Jura lbh ernpu 5 cbvagf (5 genvyf gung vagrefrpg) jnyx hc gur uvture jrfg-ornevat genvy, gur frpbaq genvy gb lbhe evtug. Jnyx cnfg gur cvpavp nern naq bagb gur cnirq ebnq. Ng guvf cbvag lbh'er urnqvat gbjneq chzcubhfr 114 (A. 34.07.457 J.118.17.167). Jura lbh ernpu gur chzcubhfr (n fznyy terra oyqt.) jnyx hc gur oevqyr genvy orfvqr vg. Pbagvahr nebhaq guvf genvy hagvy lbh frr gur zrzbevny fvta sbe Urael'f Genvy. Gnxr Urael'f genvy hagvy lbh ernpu gur pnpur. Gur pnpur vf nobhg 30 cnprf rnfg bs n fznyy YNQJC zrgny znexre. Pnpur vf jryy uvqqra va n ohfu.

For #3, in the U.S there's a cache on top of Whitney ( GC75C3 Peak-A-Boo: Mt. Whitney) that may have the highest elevation since it looks as though there isn't one on Mt McKinley. I presume (without looking) that the lowest is a cache in Death Valley. Worldwide, there is an archived cache on Everest (that might still physically be there). The next highest one I could find is GC1V4AN Khare, Mera Peak - 5200 meters or 17,093 ft. Perhaps there is a higher one that I don't know about. For #5 - CenturyOldCacher was said to be caching at 101 (now deceased). I've got some other similar trivia (most northerly, most southerly, most remote etc) on my GC.com profile.

I guess it depends on what "field" they are placed in. Last Sunday, I found about six of these that had been placed in the Mojave Desert, last January. All had lost their snaps and a few of them were shattered. All suffered leakage because of the broken snaps. They seem to become very brittle when exposed to the desert sun for a single summer. That mirrors my experience also. Plastic containers in hot locations haven't been holding up well for me. The worst combination is a hot location with a camo of a pile of rocks that just shatter brittle plastic. If I'm going to cover a cache with a pile of rocks I'm only going to use an ammo can from now on.

Ichabod Crane's Bun in the Oven (GC1V9EX) and Lots more similar photos Farmer Bill's Historic Dump (GC20RC6) (For anyone that recognizes that squirrel, yes, there's an app for everything)

A while back I came across several orphaned TB tags without anything attached to them. I made an Ophaned Travel Bug Collector out of them and sent them on their way. Ophaned Travel Bug Collector In the description I indicated it was fine to detach any of the tags if people found an appropriate item to attach them to.

Once you've got that algorithm developed and shared with the community, there will be some kind of monument to you set up next to Ulmer's GCF cache in Oregon! As soon as Groundspeak implements a rating system like GCVote, and modifies the Pocket Query generation screen to allow me to ignore "below average" caches, we will have that ability. Can I have the cash instead of spending it on a monument to me.?

Rather than a specific number of finds, I'd like to see people somewhat committed to the game before they place their own cache. In addition, if I had my way, when new geocachers dropped out of the game there would be some way of archiving their caches (unless the local geocaching community decided they were worth keeping) rather than having them live on until lack of maintenance caused them to be archived. (Though that's actually a whole separate topic). In my own case, I did actually set myself a goal of finding 100 caches before I placed my own. In this area, that seemed like a reasonable number to ensure that I knew what I was doing. Around these forums I see people argue against minimum find counts since it's said that the experience of finding lots of LPCs and guardrail caches will only increase the likelihood that people will copy-cat those ideas. Personaly I think that creative people are not likely to be swayed by those experiences while uncreative people will at least get to experience a few bad caches and hopefully not emulate those mistakes.

Yep. Both of those are examples are rude. Don't forget that some geocachers are kids that just don't seem to realize they are being rude or don't care. Sometimes people fool around with people they know well. That second example could be one person ribbing the other. From the geocaching home page: "In the last 7 days, there have been 389,166 new logs written by 58,313 account holders. " I would imagine that only a tiny percentage have anything rude in them. The geocaching community is a cross-section of the community at large though (except perhaps in the forums), geocachers are pretty kind to each other. If you think about it, geocaching only exists because the people that play are relatively kind and thoughtful :- (Hiders spend money to place caches with swag for others to enjoy. Finders don't remove or destroy caches and hopefully, trade even).