tommytrauma

How well would your cell work in the States, probably quite well but might cost you a pretty penny. How about 20km up and over some mountains where there is no cell reception. But you could not get there without having your cell batteries die unless you had spare battery packs but you'd have to remove your protective case to plug them in and heaven forbid you drop your phone, now you're lost and helpless but if youre lucky I'll come by with my gps and spare batteries and a fully charged phone because I never used it just in case you need S&R. I could not cache without both. I suspect a may be a bit older than you, but I've actually gone into the back country without either a cell phone *or* a GPS. I was neither lost nor helpless while doing so. Hell of a concept, I know... If you're that technology-dependent, yours is a skill issue, not an equipment issue. But did you find any geocaches? On several "outings", yeah - except we just called them 'points' rather than caches, and all they had was an eight digit grid number for the next point. Wife was surprised when I first suggested geocaching, as she'd heard me bitch about the absolute joys involved in running around all night looking for point after point.

How well would your cell work in the States, probably quite well but might cost you a pretty penny. How about 20km up and over some mountains where there is no cell reception. But you could not get there without having your cell batteries die unless you had spare battery packs but you'd have to remove your protective case to plug them in and heaven forbid you drop your phone, now you're lost and helpless but if youre lucky I'll come by with my gps and spare batteries and a fully charged phone because I never used it just in case you need S&R. I could not cache without both. I suspect a may be a bit older than you, but I've actually gone into the back country without either a cell phone *or* a GPS. I was neither lost nor helpless while doing so. Hell of a concept, I know... If you're that technology-dependent, yours is a skill issue, not an equipment issue.

I'll be able to geolocate my stool. Great, now I can fire my proctologist.

Went geocaching today with my droid and (reference to unauthorized application removed by Groundspeak). Worked very well. GPS function of the phone seemed as accurate as my etrex vista. As others have pointed out, battery life and ruggedness may well be the weak points of the droid in this application, but It's extremely handy to simply be able to pull up caches in your immediate vicinity with complete info. I expect I'll be doing a lot more casual caching having it available on my droid all the time.

Dresden is getting in to geocaching? Great, now we have to worry about stumbling on a blackened denarius in a cache.

They would indeed. Good eye. Not standard mtn biking gear, but they've served me well. Good gear.

I've encountered runners who lie about their pace / distance. I've encountered lifters who lie about their weight. I've encountered crapbags who lie about their military service. In general, I fail to give a s***. They already get to live with the knowledge that they're a fraud. I have no need to add to that.

Mule, would those be 5.11 trousers and a riggers belt?

I've been doing light, local geocaching for around a year now, and am really enjoying it. So far, I've been doing fine with my Etrex Legand. I enter the coordinates manually, and I'm off and running. I've noticed though that some of the newer GPSRs are billed as having a 'geocaching mode'. Haven't managed to find out what this is though. Can someone clue me in? Tom

I thought that violent crime was on the rise in the UK. I seem to remember reading an article recently regarding a fairly high ranking police official in London who moved rather then confront the urban youth who congregated in his neighborhood. You do realize that the homicide rate in England now exceeds that in the US, right? http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/papers/LondonTow...1Hom-EW.xls.pdf You realize that your violent crime rate exceeds ours, right? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../01/ixhome.html I understand you all are looking at banning knives now. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm In the meantime, the number of states in the US issuing concealed carry permits has skyrocketed over the past 20 years, and both our homicide and violent crime rates continue to drop. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-09-crime_x.htm http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm I'm very glad to live in America.

Ayup, I absolutely love the Xterra. It's done very well by me off roading, but is still a comfortable commuter.

You can also find a good online price, print it out and take it into Best Buy. They'll price match. I picked up my Streetpilot C330 for my truck this way, and they gave it to me without blinking, and I saved shipping as well.

Do you think the 3,794 reported sexual assault victims in BC in '95 would agree with you? Or the 51,671 victims of violent crime in the same area and timeframe? That'd work out to what, just over ten reported sexual assaults each day or 141 violent crimes each day in BC? http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?ei=UTF...=1&.intl=us

You have piqued my curiosity on these hammocks. I am about to pull the trigger on getting one for my son and me. I have a quick question though for those that are using hammocks, where do you put your backpack when sleeping? Especially if it is raining. I just spent the weekend backpacking with the Scouts and I still have a sore neck, the thought of a nice soft hammock to sleep in sounds very appealing. As curmudgenlygal mentioned, the rain fly makes a pretty solid dry footprint around the hammock. I tend to use a serious rauncover on the pack (made it from an old poncho and bungee elastic) though, and I'll generally suspend it in a nearby tree or such. Just paranoid, I guess.

I gave up tents entirely last year, and go with a Hennessy Hammock. Kind of the next generation of jungle hammocks. two and a half pounds, comfortable as can be, and has kept me dry through some really nasty weather.

Why do I get this mental picture of a really frustrated and annoyed bear?

I hope you'll put up with a newbie to the forum putting his two cents in, but I'm a paramedic, wilderness medic and backpacker. Dealt with a whole bunch of ticks. I generally don't think much of single purpose gear, as everything is another piece of weight that has to be lugged around. However, I do carry a pro tick remover, a little compression tweezer thing that you slip under the body of the tick. A (rather drunken) discussion with an epidemiologist around a campsite one night convinced me that this was the best way to remove embedded ticks with the least risk of squeezing them so they puke their guts into you or leaving pieces embedded. Sorry about the crappy pic - my camera's dead, and I'm using the cell phone. Better pic and more info here; http://www.scs-mall.com/tick-removers/prod...p?number=PTRC2M