shrekTBA

for starting out, I am inclinded to recommend a GPS that you have to learn how to put in the coordinates and everything else. If you are only going to geocache, not a big deal, but if you want to learn to transpose from a map, or use it to project a course, you need to know how to use the GPS to it's potential. I like the Etrex H, basic yellow one. If you start with it, get the basics down, then read about the other units available, you will have a better idea of what will want when, not if, you upgrade. Then, you can use the Etrex H as a back up or to use if a friend comes along. I have left home alone, and ended up teaching others while out caching with my back up GPSr, more fun if everyone has a unit to mess with of their own. color displays, auto downloads, maps with turn by turn, altimiters, ele compasses and all of the other features can be decided upon after the basics are learned.

i like the Brunton AR8096 GPS compass. You can use it to get coordinates off a map to the GPS and the other way as well, works great, tough enough that mine has been in my pack for a couple of years and looks and performs as new. Opticsplanet.com has them for about $20.

buddist joke

"make me one with the tree"

I have been actively stalked by a grizzly bear, I will never forget how that felt. I have stumbled onto rattesnakes, 3 rabid skunks, and one very pissed off raccoon that was injured. I carry, and have pulled my gun twice, once on a bull mastiff that was on a full run towards my son when he was 4, got away from the owner, but the dog stopped before he got shot, turned out to be a nice dog, and once on a guy that was entering the front door of my ex's mother in TX. He was gonna "teach that bitch" as he stated when he opened the screen door and met a gun. He had been shooting fireworks at our car and my wife, sister, son, and sister in law and was asked to stop. He jumped the fence and chased them into the house. He was moving quick enough that the front sight on my handgun cut his forehead when he met it, stopped quickly and turned and ran off. The best use for a weapons permit I have found is not involved in carrying a gun at all. When I was at a Home Depot, the clerk was being extremely rude. He must have been having a bad day. He allmost yelled that he had to see some ID, so I gave him my permit, he ended up being so polite and courtious when he looked at it. I wasn't carrying, but he sure thought so. Was hilarious to see the deer in the headlights look on his face and the total change in attitude.

We have found several with the H models, legend, and vista as well. The H is what I like in the field most of the time, the other features are ok, but just not used as much once out of the vehicle. One advantantage of the H over the vista is battery life, if you use the ele compass and other features of the vista, batts go down alot faster. The H is great for a GPSr, you can then decide if you want more features to be able to use the unit for more than just cacheing and go up from there. You will move up no matter what you buy, with the H, you at least have a basic backup or unit for someone tagging along to use while you use the upgraded one. Right now, I have 2 of the H and one of the vista models. As for vehicles, I really want to get a Zumo550, but haven't done that.............YET. Big thing is to have fun and get what you want and can use, but as you learn, you will want to try others as well. See if you can get with others to try out different makes and models. I looked at a few that seemed great, but I didn't like the interface or the feel of it.

I always triple check that I put in the right numbers, being off by 1 can be a huge difference. Also, once close, when the GPSr says that I am there or withing 10ft and it starts jumping around, I drop my pack or something else to mark center and then walk in circles that get bigger and bigger if I don't see what i need to. I do this until I find it or get more than about 50 feet from the pack. Then I recheck everything again. If it is right, I go about 100 ft away in several directions and see where the GPSr is telling me to go and try to average out where I should be. sometimes, the hider did not wait until the GPSr has settled down enough for a position that is accurate, if they are within 50ft accuracy, and you are within 50ft accuracy and of that reading, you can be 100ft from the intended location, had that happen as well. When I am hiding, and most of the time when seeking, we have a couple of different units along and we use both of them to find where we should be. In learning a GPSr, this can be a life saver when it comes to survival situations, teaches you how close you can get, but still have to rely on yourself

I used mine without a cable for a long time, you have to enter the coords manually, but it does teach you more about your GPS so that you can do more with it. I wanted to learn as much as possible so that I could use it for hunting, camping, fishing and what ever else beyond just cacheing. I really like the vista, on my second one and also have 2 of the basic yellow etrex as well. One thing that is nice about the cable is that you can update the software, helped add some features such as the startup screen. Updates is about all I use the cable for now. The older vista operates identically to the new ones, both color and greyscale, so don't be afraid to use it and learn. Oh, I am also getting ready to teach people how to use a map, Brunton AR8096 compass, and a GPSr to transpose the information from the map to GPS and back while in the field. Once I get it going, the CAP, Boy Scouts, and several indivduals have shown interest. Have fun with whatever you do, don't worry about having the newest and most $$$, all can save your a** if used properly. Geocaching is the fun way to learn the GPS.

Wow was this different than what I expected, I must be way too tired. I thought it was "contraception cache", not contraption. I thought this would have been a really funny cache, still cool, but not what I thought.

I have thought of putting the coordinates on my head stone. I don't feel that it is immoral at all. There is no good place to hide caches, but my grandparents graves are in my GPS to make it easier to find them. Our local cemetary is very beautiful with full views of the mountains with lots of nice landscaping and trees around. There are historical markers in ours as well, such as civil war cannons and statues from local clubs. In the old section, there are huge white colums that are unnoticed unless you enter that section, if you didn't know where they are, most would never know about them. IMHO, most people have a weird take on death, it is part of life, so it should not be avoided at all costs or made into something what it is not. Everyone will be there at some point, so why avoid the area and what it has to offer when you are on this side of the dirt with a better view.

I live in Sheridan.

I had a similar expirience before geocaching also. We were hunting ducks (suprise) on a pond by Buffalo, WY. The water level was only approx 2 1/2 feet deep, but covered enough mud to swallow up anything that wandered into it... sooo....we decided we had to get to these cat tails on the other side of this part of the pond. My hunting buddy, being of signifigantly smaller size (not much shade in his shadow), just walks across with nothing more than occasional sucking noises while setting out decoys. I made about 10 feet when the 2 foot of water and sinking in the mud finds me up to mid thigh in the mud and water, sinking at an alarming rate. So, I try to pick up one foot and it gets stuck about 1/2 way up on my attempt to take a step, so I try to other foot. So, here I am with one foot stuck part way up in the mud, knee bent, when the other foot stops in the cruel grip of the mud. Both of my feet now stuck mid step in the mud, I start to fall face first into the muddy water. My friend was quick enough to be able to get my shotgun and stand there laughing at me as I struggle. As stated before, the mud did not offer much support, so each time I tried to steady myself, my arms go right into the mud, offering no more than a gulp of air before I am lying in the water face down with my feet still stuck in the mud. My friend starts heading for a spot to empty his hands to help me get out of the mud. The decoys that he had been placing on the way across are all around me, and I am making a few waves trying to get out of the mud, when one of the cruelest acts of nature that I have witnessed occured. We had not seen ducks all day, and now a couple of dozen (seemed like a scene from the Birds to a man breathing swamp mud at the time) Green winged teal land all around me in the decoys and I swear they were laughing while trying to figure out what was the big duck doing making all the ruccus. Needless to say, I was enough of a distraction that they didn't notice my buddy trying to get my gun sat down, when he yells "Don't move, I'm going to shoot!". I guess the ducks realized that the foreign sounds emminating from the big duck were not welcoming calls and decide to get a better look from a long way up in the sky. So, we finally get me unstuck, and the laughter subsides to giggles. Meanwhile, I stink like a wet dog that has been chasing soft brown sticks in a sewage lagoon. At times, I still can hear those demented duck laughs in my nightmares and wake up smelling that nasty water.

I have a different opinion also, I have used My vista, a legend and my yellow etrex on 4 wheelers and snowmobiles. I would not go without a mapping GPS, nearly all of the snowmobile trails are groomed over existing roads (trees already gone!) so the Vista will show you what road you are on. Also, if you get a little off, knowing that the big flat spot in front of you is in fact a large frozen creek with moving water under it, I would look and then choose my way very crefully. It really sucks to go through thin ice 30 miles from the truck. My machines were older, and had vents behind the windshield that blew warm engine compartment air out of them. On a handlebar mount, all of the GPS's did fine on rides to -10, no problems at all. On a newer sled, I would definately go with 12v power as it would save your batts for a case of broken down sled with a dead batt, then you still have fresh batts to run on, and then i carry extras, in my pocket just in case. I also carry a cell phone and extra batt. so that I can get to a high point with service, and then call in where I am using the GPS. So far, I have only had to do this as a practice, but was fun for my dad to look on the net and enter the coordinates and see where we were. If we needed it, a very effective way to get help. If I were still into the cold stuff outside of ice fishing (still use GPS), I would probably go with Rinos, for the peer to peer if we got seperated ( and the cool factor). I have spent nights out unexpectedly due to weather, was able to let someone know where I was, and still stayed put until conditions were better to get out, and I still have all fingers and toes, no severe cold damage other than doing stupid things right around the house. Winter is definately fun, but you have to be very careful to stay safe and/or alive. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

I really wanted one until i started thinking about caching, sort of hard to take the gauge cluster off of the ATV to get to a cache. I will stick with my Vista or Yellow on a handle bar mount. Besides, it is cheaper that way and if it breaks, you don't have to mail an entire 4 wheeler to Garmin! The rest of the Honda pasted every other need I would have. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

I have the nite eyes cases for both of my GPSr's, only issue that i had with them is they put quite a bit of pressure on the clik stick on my vista, so i did a little cutting and put in a backing of cardboard to keep it off of the stick and it works great. I would not put it on the dash in it though. I have the handlebar mount and a suction cup window mount. I love both of them. I also have a power cable and a combo power/serial for a laptop. Next mount will be a mini ram for my boat. Nice thing about using the Garmin mounts is that the same battery cover mounts will fit all of the others, no changing the GPS unit at all to go from windshield mount to handle bar mount. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

On a lighter note, I can see why "solicitation" is not allowed in a cache, imagine going to the bad side of town to look for "Rosie's" coordinates left in a cache. Would read like this: "this is a moving cache, if cache is in use, please wait for your chance. Protective gear is required" Then there would be the finders post: "left nothing, took home a burning sensation, be careful when hunting around the bushes. Bring change for a $100" new term: geo-hooker- polluting the gene pool, one gaget-holding geek at a time It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

My opinion is if you don't like what you see, don't take it. There are alot of people who find it offensive to use ammo boxes, they deal with it. This is about the same as not allowing a peice of rock with the 10 commandments because of it being offensive, but allowing all sorts of body peircings, tattoos, guys my size to wear thongs, etc. because it is someones choice and others have to look at it because it is a personal choice. I am in this for the hunt, not to read or examine (censor) what others have decided to leave in a cache. You can't please everyone, so just try to be realistic. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

Where I live, gps maps are very inacurate due to so many changes made to the street system. A few streets have moved, 1 grew over a mile and ther would have to be 20 new ones in the past year alone. I still use it for strange areas, but I also am ready for big changes from what should be there. Sheridan is growing way to fast for me. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

Upon returning, Al went back to see Bill. "It seems that an animal had attacked a small tuperware container, still had a strange odor. On a side note, too bad we can't recycle that plastic into computer parts for the internet." Al noticed that his words were falling on deaf ears when he heard a muffled gurgle under the desk. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

My yellow is 2 now and my vista is 1, had a legend and know who has it, still good after 2 years. No problems with any. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

I went to wal-mart and bought a handgun case then cut the foam in it for what i needed. One that held seveal guns would hold more than enough items and was only 15 bucks. way cheaper than trying to convert a briefcase. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

I have one from there that is very similar, 2 1/2 years and not one problem. Goes caching with me, on vacations, on my motorcycle etc. Great packs all around. My only complaint about it was in Vegas, way too hot there for a padded pack, but was still handy. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

I can see Elmer Fudd now, creeping through the woods with his gun, a biologist, a tree hugger and a photographer saying "be very, very quiet, we are going to shoot a bear, and take pictures of it while we fondle it and make his testicals shrink while taking pictures to put on the discovery channel." Give me a break, just tell Loreana Bobbit that bear nuts taste just like chicken Mcnuggets. Or better yet, as they point out that the bears are "natural", so is hunting, the caveman didn't paint pics of animals getting hunted while eating tofu dressed in hemp skins while drinking bottled water. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

The manual states to re calibrate the compass if the batteries are taken out, no exception. I have to remind myself to do this or I walk a very crooked line. Also, if level is the problem, the display will show that you need to hold it level on the navigation screen, I ran into that alot a couple of weeks ago. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.

Woodsyfeller picked up my TB on Jan 1, 03 and contacted me once and have never seen or heard from him or the TB since. It would have been so much nicer to have him say he lost it or whatever else instead of just sitting on it and doing and saying nothing. It would be the right thing to do to let someone know, I know I wouldn't have been upset to hear the demise of it instead of continued silence when I try to contact him. I would have just started over with another TB, not expecting him to do anything other than let me know. It's nice to see someone with a consience about the TB, rather than the attitude of to TB highjackers. It's not a sport unless there is something dead in the back of the truck when you get home.