yumitori

Unique? Hardly. Throw-away micros take space that could be used for more interesting caches. Throw-away events take time that could be used for more interesting gatherings. This weekend rather than go to the nearest 'flash event' we drove the same distance to a regional 'meet and greet' where we visited with the locals including several we previously knew only from log entries, gave the young children time to run around as much as they wished, chatted about past finds and discussed new ideas, gossiped about our experiences while out hiking and camping, shared our homemade dishes at the potluck and generally had a grand several hours. Somehow I think we had more fun than the flash event folks did.

Okay, we discussed the idea of a Missoula Cache Machine next June and those of us who'll probably be handling the local planning think that we won't have any problems doing the groundwork necessary. And rumor is, we may even have a Red Robin by then...

Why the heck would anyone except geocachers and those interested in learning about geocaching attend a geocaching event? Apparently geocaching events in your corner of the world are much different than any of those I've attended. That said, I seem to recall this event. Note that the wedding, when all of the non-cachers would be attending, was not the focus of the actual event. Note too that there are no doubt better examples of how to hold an event and a wedding on the same day, but this one seems to come readily to my mind when the subject comes up.

Update - 180 traditional caches within 5 miles of a simple route between Missoula and Hamilton. I think a two day event is completely doable. My original suggestion for June of next year was based on the likely local 'work crew' and their schedules; I think that would be the best time given our busy lives. A number of us will be getting together this coming weekend so we'll probably discuss it a bit then. If September would work as well we can let you know next week.

Hmmm. Quite possibly. There's been a recent boom in easier-to-reach caches up the Bitterroot. One day around Missoula, one day hitting more in Missoula then a road trip at least as far south as Hamilton. Within a 10 mile radius of 59801 (Missoula central) there's around 110 traditional caches with a Terrain of 2 or less, while centering on Victor there's another 50 or so in the central Bitterroot Valley. Add in the easier two-stage multicaches, simple puzzles and the like and drop the ones with a bit of a walk or too far out of the way to drive to and it should be enough to keep folks busy. I'll play around further and see what the numbers look like when considering caches along a route instead in a radius when I can fire up Google Earth. It would be cool if Missoula could host a two day machine.

Well, since you asked ... Most of the folks involved in running the Spokane Cache Machine II know me and know how seriously to take my opinions. (Not a lot, for the newcomers here...) So, random stream-of-consciousness comments - We did feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of merchandising going on. We understood why, it just seemed a lot. Maybe have that sort of thing less 'front-and-center' at future machines if the locals want to recoup their expenses. We did not sign the logbook at REI because we did not find a cache there. There's nothing wrong with setting up a temporary cache just for the day, and I don't have to get a smilie before I have fun finding a container in the bushes. Or find a way to hide a geocache at a business that doesn't run afoul of the commercial guidelines. The gods know we've found enough geocaches near businesses in the past; they just didn't make a big deal about the location on the cache page. Talk with your local reviewer; I'm sure something can be worked out. I think Team Misguided and Trevor and Kate have already commented on the other new caches intended to be released during the event. Either make them temporary 'fun' things, or make them permanent really fun caches which will last. While the relocation of our local family units to Virginia has reduced how often we visit Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, we do keep an eye on the area and plan where to go and what to find on our next trip. It's always sad to see a new cache pop up and go away due to poor placement before we can get a chance to find it. That sort of thing happens at the best of times, but not rushing into hiding a new cache just for the sake of hiding a cache helps. (Note to self - take own advice in the future...) I was disappointed to see a couple of the caches that were discovered to be missing during the cache machine will not be replaced and were archived. I certainly understand when a location turns out to no longer be a good one for a container, but for the ones I'm thinking of that doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. We're always disappointed to not find a cache, but the disappointment is greater when we'll never have a chance to make good on our No Find. All that said, we had a fine time at the cache machine and would not have missed it. We found a little over 40 caches on Saturday, though we visited some 60 or so that the Pirates and Raynebeau could find some of the ones we've already been to. Going 'off-route' we were able to get to some of the caches requiring a little hiking which are somewhat outside our usual caching areas. We also appreciated those caches that were replaced during the day so that we could make good on our earlier failures. As ever the Friday night pre-event gathering and the Saturday dinner were great fun. There never seems to be enough time to visit with everyone, gossip with friends and meet folks we haven't had a chance to get to know before, but we did our best. The chance to socialize is what makes any event worthwhile, cache machines especially (anyone can set up their own optimized route after all), so we always appreciate the opportunity to meet and greet as much as possible. And the hospitality of the Inland Empire chapter is legendary; SCMII certainly demonstrated that once again. Thanks to all of the locals who put in so much time and effort to make the gathering fun for us visitors. If we're able to set up a cache machine in Missoula some time down the road I hope we can learn from your example. Ron/yumitori

Okay, ya'll Wet Coasters think about taking a sick day and driving over our way (you've got to be sick if you're willing to drive this far.) If there really is enough interest we locals can discuss a possible June 2008 cache machine in Missoula & the Bitterroot Valley. Back to the next one... Travis, if we could leave the date a little vague at the moment it would be great. If it's some time in September but before Peggy has to go back to school we could hopefully make the machine, be it Gig Harbor or wherever the route ends up being. But for some odd reason she seems to think that skipping out on clinicals or nursing classes would be a bad idea. Could we say for now tentatively September 22nd, but possibly a week or so earlier?

It's about 8 hours from Missoula to downtown Seattle, Travis. It's a full day's drive to either Seattle or Portland from here, but completely do-able. We prefer to take two days, however, to allow for some caching time along the way. Folks from the I-5 corridor would have to take a vacation day or two if they wanted to do a Missoula cache machine, but I think it would be worth it. The local cachers tend to place their caches in interesting places or to show off their fun camouflaged containers; there's not too many 'film canister under a rock in a vacant lot' hides around here.

We've done a few that were 24+ mile round trip hikes for a single cache, including one or two that we remain the only finders of. Numerous others that were over 10 miles round trip. Come to Montana; the caching's fine...

I'll post here since a new topic hasn't been created yet. We were asked at the Spokane II Cache Machine when Missoula was going to host one. A quick pocket query check shows that we have reached a reasonable volume of caches, enough to give folks plenty to do, so it would indeed be a possibility. I doubt the folks on the left side of Washington and Oregon would be up for another trip east in the near future and we'd need time to plan anyway, but if a Missoula Cache Machine was held sometime down the road would people attend?

Pirate's Booty Cache is just fine short of beefing up the trade items a bit (we found it this last weekend), but the owners have posted a note to the cache that they live in Scotland now and are unable to take care of their geocache. Ideally they should have picked it up before moving, but since they didn't it could use a new owner. I live too far away to help out, but perhaps someone in Spokane could contact mattandjeni and see if a voluntary adoption could be arranged.

<Shrug> Other people gave their opinions, I gave mine. That's how forums, especially these forums, go. Dissension is normal. It's interesting that only those comments in support of the idea are being considered 'acceptable' in this thread.

No, that's a cop-out. I'm unclear how you got 'deep thinking purpose' out of "hang out with my friends, meet new folks, trade bugs, gossip about fun caches" or why you do not feel that sort of thing is fun, since you say you think we need more fun but aren't supporting the longer get-togethers instead. We travel to Spokane or Coeur d'Alene for events all of the time, and now I see there's one of these 'flash events' scheduled in that area, by someone who lives nearly an hour away. So we should drive 2 1/2 hours for a 15 minute 'event' to sign a sheet of paper and leave? Show me where the fun is. A film canister under a light pole skirt is considered clever and fun when it's the first one in an area and the idea is new. When there's one every tenth of a mile in every mall and fast food parking lot the idea is used-up and lame. (And it spawns endless threads in forum after forum.) And back in 2003 flash mobs were clever and fun and new. Four years later? Not so much so. The organizers of these 'flash events' missed the boat. All I can say is that whoever first got the idea of holding a 10 or 15 minute event must really like throw-away micros.

Nampa, eh? You are certainly in a busy area. Get out into the hills and have fun finding some of the more scenic caches as well as the easy fun ones in town. And be sure to log your finds on-line so the owners and the rest of us can enjoy the stories of your adventures searching for them. Welcome to the sport!

What a stupid idea. No offense, 4Bows, but the whole 'flash mob' meme is like four years old by now. In Internet years that is ancient, completely used up and outdated. These might have been fun back in 2003, when the whole flash mob thing was happening, but now they are just lame. And on top of it you're going to be passing out fliers? You really think these 'events' represent what geocaching is all about? You actually want to advertise to the public that geocaching is all about a bunch of people acting dorky in some park? When I go to events, it's to hang out with my friends, meet new folks, trade bugs, gossip about fun caches, whatever. I can't do that at a 'flash event'. I'd be too busy signing some sheet and quickly pawing through trade items before they get locked away. We already have to deal with cheap throw-away micro caches. Now we have to deal with throw-away micro events?

That's a good idea for individual caches, but in cache-dense areas like Riverfront Park I don't think you want the 'best' parking for each individual hide, but rather one or two central locations that allows folk to do a mini-loop and hit several before returning to the vehicle. It's much more efficient, especially in the downtown where just finding a parking space can be time-consuming. This is what I had in mind. One or two parking waypoints near Riverfront Park, the parking lot for Sullivan Park, the best access point for Lincoln Park, etc. It's not necessary to provide waypoints for every cache, but there's some 'clumps' that would certainly be best reached from a single stop. Ron/yumitori

I'm obviously not explaining clearly enough. Here's how I would recommend routing those caches - Bring folks down Sullivan, going either direction, as dictated by the route's flow. Turn at the traffic light leading into the parking lot that serves as an access to the Sullivan Park parking lot. (Those of you familiar with the area know where I mean.) Park. Walk to W is for Whether We Would, the other Sullivan caches, and walk under the Sullivan Bridge to Hot Wheels Cache (before or after finding the others). That's how we got to the cache, an it worked just fine. If there's public parking on the east side of the bridge we never found it. There's places to pull off but they looked private. By parking at Sullivan Park you probably don't cost yourself any extra time since you aren't hunting for a second parking spot and are only getting in and out of the vehicle once. Which brings me to another thought I had. Lisa, Trevor ... it can be tricky in some places even for those of us with some knowledge of Spokane to figure out the best accesses and/or parking. The Riverfront Park area for example could be (and probably should be) a 'park once, run to several caches' location. That's what we did on the first cache machine. Trying to find the closest parking to each of the caches in the area would waste more time than walking from a single well-chosen parking spot would. How about using the waypoints feature to add parking coordinates in those instances? They could then be easily incorporated into the driving directions. Ron/yumitori

We found that parking at Sullivan Park and accessing Hot Wheels Cache worked just fine, and folks will already be there for W is for Whether We Would... (not to mention possibly grabbing the other 2 caches in the same park). It looks like Jester has beaten me to most of my comments. A couple additional thoughts (so far) ... Shouldn't Tunnel Trouble come before Manito Bridge? And some of the caches currently on the route will require pre-planning (It's About Time, for example) or will require a lot of extra time (Eternal Easter Egg Hunt 2006 seems to have quite a few steps it seems); could we mark those so folks will know to look at them ahead of time?

One from each chapter, plus additional ones for the Inland Empire chapter up to a $50 total order.

Blue Power Ranger, when you posted awhile back in the Northwest forums that you were looking for a Montana cacher, I had some questions and concerns based on the thread about this series. I understood you to say at that time that you had started discussing such matters via e-mail, so I tried to contact you directly to express interest in placing the Montana cache after we had a chance to go over the details. I did not get a response, and shortly afterwards you announced that you had found someone to handle the state. But if you are now interested in my offer it still stands. I'll let you contact me this time. There's the link on my profile page, or you could just write me directly at gmail.com, oddly enough at the username 'yumitori'. Ron/yumitori

I kept the drives to the caches to a minimum. There's some great ones a little further off the highway, but would probably take too much tme to reach. These are also just kind of the high points. In the larger cities there will be plenty of others to chose from as well, but I think this will give you a good start. I've also tried to choose a variety of scenic and historic, different cache types and such. Ron/yumitori Riverfront Park Cache by Red Hot Mama (GCC5A5) - numerous caches in riverside parks in Billings. This was the first in the area. SUNDANCE by Elk Hunter (GCHPX3) - pleasant walk, with a few others in the area. Town dogs by rscout79 (GCX39H) - prairie dogs, prairie dogs, prairie dogs. Micro. Urban Bridges by Don and Nancy Wilson (GCD27) - nice riparian area to stroll through. Others in the general area are currently disabled but may be active by the time you visit. Missouri Headwaters by Don and Nancy Wilson (GC493) - oldest active cache in Montana, and great Lewis & Clark historical site. First In Butte by Jennifer&Dean (GC9EB8) - virtual at the Berkley Pit. No visit to Butte is complete without checking out what's left of 'The Richest Hill on Earth'. Prison Break by Steinebach (GCQ5XX) - little park adjacent to the Montana Territorial Prison. A River Runs Through - Micro Mania II by yumitori (GCGW5N) - one of my own caches, tricky camouflaged micro. Over the Moon by Leonata (GCNZMD) - a longish walk that overlooks the city. Finntroll's Old Home by cerulean_2 (GCTZAW) - micro in 'wild' city park. Nice trail loop possible with other caches available. Home Of The Elk's by cameljocky (GCT8X2) - camouflaged micro next to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Finntroll's Fishing Hole by cerulean_2 (GCV7MB) - walk along a fishing access. 3-2-1 by nobarkinghare (GCWYWW) - *multi* despite the icon, nice walk with a couple of steep bits. Natural Pier Cache by Jennifer&Dean (GCMRT6) - pleasant riverside fishing access, with a bit of history.

We've found almost every cache along your route from Billings west to the Montana border, so I think I might have a few suggestions. Depending on what sorts of caches you like, that is. What do you consider 'good caches'? Do you prefer specific sizes, types terrain, etc.? I'd also be happy to play tour guide in Missoula if our schedules work out. Just let me know...

I would like to order three, please.

Seth!, I suggest you ask your questions on the Washington geocaching forums. I think you know where those are...

I'm the Number 1 cacher ... ... on my personal list. There is no Number 2. I can appreciate that for some people sports are all about the numbers, but I started geocaching specifically because competition was not part of the game. I'd had enough of that with a competitive martial arts sport I participated in for some years and wanted a change, so I ended up here. The kind gentleman who runs the stats site linked above removed my name from the listings when I asked him to do so, and I like it that way. My finds are logged on-line because it benefits me personally to do so, and for no other reason. Folks who think the game's all about the numbers might want to check out one of the other caching sites where they make a big deal about their personal standings; me, I like it here.