Beaster

Cool, enjoy! Let me know how it goes. Thanks, Sean

quote:Originally posted by bobfireman:I stand corrected. As for Mt. Garfield, here is more info:http://www.co.blm.gov/gjra/mtgarfieldhiking.htm. Just because you don't need rock climbing equipment, doesn't mean it doesn't warrant a 5 rating. The ratings are more for the "average Joe" than elitists. http://www.bobfireman.com Quite correct - a cache can be a terrain=5 even without a requirement for special equipment, and I shouldn't have questioned the rating of the Mt. Garfield cache based soley on the description. Anyhoo, I'm still looking for some technical climbing caches if they're out there. Thanks, Sean

Actually no, requiring special skills or technical gear is well within the accepted rules for hiding caches. Please see Geocaching.com FAQ: quote:Where are caches found? The location of a cache can be very entertaining indeed. As many say, location, location, location! The location of a cache demonstrates the founder's skill and possibly even daring. A cache located on the side of a rocky cliff accessible only by rock climbing equipment may be hard to find. An underwater cache may only be accessed by scuba. Other caches may require long difficult hiking, orienteering, and special equipment to get to. Caches may be located in cities both above and below ground, inside and outside buildings. The skillful placement of a small logbook in an urban environment may be quite challenging to find even with the accuracy of a gps. That little logbook may have a hundred dollar bill in it or a map to greater treasure. It could even contain clues or riddles to solve that may lead to other caches. Rich people could have fun with their money by making lucrative caches that could be better than winning the lottery when you find it. Just hope that the person that found the cache just before you left a real big prize!

Thanks for the reply Cameltrekor. I'm not sure those qualify for what I was looking for though (i.e. real 5th class technical rock climbing). Cap Rock doesn't qualify since, as the cache page states, "No ropes are needed" and is rated a 4.5. Soda Fountain is a 5 for terrain, but doesn't qualify since the "special equipement" is a kayak or a raft. Stone Pony states "not a technical climb" and is rated 4.5 Mt. Garfield says "This is a strenuous hike." No mention of special equipment or technical climbing, so not sure why it's a 5? Anyway, I appreciate the response. I'll keep looking. Just sorta surprised that in Colorado of all places these things aren't more prevalent. Thanks, Sean

OK, so if nothing on the Front Range, how about anywhere in Colorado? Thanks, Sean

Hi- I'm looking for some caches that require technical rock climbing located along the Front Range of Colorado. I'm not talking about scrambling up a tough 14-er; I'd like something that requires real, 5th-class, technical climbing (trad or sport, but preferably no aid please). I've searched the site and have turned up a couple of CO caches rated 5 for terrain, but don't appear to have technical rock climbing involved. I actually ended up placing my own terrain=5 cache last weekend just to get things going a bit. Thanks, Sean

quote:Originally posted by ~erik~:Beaster neglected to mention that his cache has a latitude of 38 51.079 and the other has a latitude of 38 51.080. Both caches have longitude that are exactly the same down to the last digit. That puts the two only 5 or 6 feet apart by my guestimation. That was pointed out in two seperate e-mails. It was suggested that the virtual probably should not have been approved if the location can really support a microcache but it would not be appropriate to arbitrarily archive it now. It was further suggested that Beaster contact the "owner" of the other cache and try to work something out. If it were my virtual I'd archive it in exchange for the opportunity to get a first find on the micro there. It really serves no purpose to have a virtual and a physical cache on essentially the same spot, which is why it wasn't posted. erik - geocaching.com admin. Yes, this is all true, though you make it sound like I was intentionally obscuring the facts. I did not receive the 2nd email which contained the actual coordinates of the MOC until Monday night at 10:00 p.m., meaning I didn't read it until Tuesday, well after this thread had been established. Your first email only said: "If your coords and those of the others geocacher are spot-on the two caches are only a few feet apart." I wrote back for clarification on the "if," which came in the 2nd email. Regardless, this thread is not about whether my cache should or shouldn't have been rejected (at least, that wasn't my intent). From my very first post I made it clear that I had already emailed the MOC owners and would attempt to work with them to come to a resolution on the particulars of my cache. I used my experience only as an example of what I thought may be a flaw in the MOC system. My intent for this thread was to debate this issue, not to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of my particular cache. I even put a question mark in my subject line. Never once did I directly solict opinions on whether my cache should be accepted. In fact I specifically asked what is the proper protocol to follow in order to appeal the decision and was told to post a poll in a separate thread. For the record I emailed the MOC owners about the issue before I even started this thread. I have not received any response from them thusfar. I was and am still confident that I we can work something out. Should that not be possible, only then will I decide whether or not to post a thread to "appeal" the descision to archive my cache, as suggested by Sissy-in-CR. Rest assured that at that time I will fully disclose all relevant aspects of the issue, including the coordinates of both caches.

quote:Originally posted by Beaster: P.S. I remeber reading about the 1/10th of a mile rule a while back, but for the life of me I can't find it posted anywhere in the offical Geocaching guidelines for caches. There's no mention of it http://www.geocaching.com/articles/making.asp, and http://www.geocaching.com/articles/requirements.asp only mentions the restriction applying to virtual caches. Could someone do me a favor and post a URL for me of the official rule, just so I have the reference? Thanks. Can anyone help with the above request? Or is this "de facto" rule not published anywhere on this site? If not, shouldn't it be? Thanks, Sean

quote:Originally posted by Prime Suspect:One thing you might take away from this experience is that not doing any pre-planing is generally a _bad thing_. I have never placed a cache without scouting out the location (sometimes numerous times) beforehand. But hey, maybe that's just me. Anyway, _had_ you bothered to do this, once you had found out there was a MOC in the neighborhood, you could have determined in which direction to move your cache in about 90 seconds, by simply selectively altering the coordinates. Change the latitude a bit, and see if you're closer or farther. Do the same with the longitude. On second thought, make that about 30 seconds. Does it take a little bit of effort? Yes. Life's like that sometimes. Thanks Prime. So we've all now admitted there are obstacles placed in front of non-paying members when hiding caches that paying members needn't take into account. How significant these obstacles are can certainly be debated, but they do exist. At the very least they allow members to place caches on the spur of the moment; non-members don't have that luxury. So, where does it stop? Incidentally, I'm not convinced that a spur of the moment cache is such a "bad thing." Here's but one example of a cacher in my area not doing any scouting: Eagle's Nest Of course Gil&Ani are paying members, so they were able to place this cache with confidence that they weren't near any other caches. Despite their lack of scouting, it's a pretty cool cache. Regards, Sean P.S. I remeber reading about the 1/10th of a mile rule a while back, but for the life of me I can't find it posted anywhere in the offical Geocaching guidelines for caches. There's no mention of it here, and this page only mentions the restriction applying to virtual caches. Could someone do me a favor and post a URL for me of the official rule, just so I have the reference? Thanks.

quote:Originally posted by Prime Suspect: There's a de facto rule that caches shouldn't be less than 1/10th of a mile from each other. You apparently didn't check this. Had you performed a search by entering in the coordinates of your potential cache, you would have seen the MOC cache. While a non-member can't view the actual cache page, it _does_ show up in the search list - along with the __distance__ from the coordinates you entered. All the tools are already in place to allow you to determine if the cache you want to place is too near a MOC cache. Don't blame the system if you don't use them. Agreed, all the tools are in place, assuming I already know exactly (to within 1/10th of a mile accuracy) where I want to place my cache before I walk out the door to do so. But how often is this realistically the case? I would argue that quite often cache hiders don't know the exact location of their potential cache to within 1/10th of a mile before they actually do all the work to go out and place it. Maybe on a map one location looks good, but when you get there you decide it really would be better 500' to the north, etc. Without having the exact coordinates of all caches in the area - including MOC's - loaded into your GPS before you leave the house, you're flying blind. As it stands, until you physically walk out the door, go to the cache location, mark the waypoint, return home and plug in the info to the search engine, you don't know what other caches yours may interfere with. But by that time you've already done all the work! If I had I the coordinates of the MOC, I wouldn't have placed my cache where I did. I would have kept walking until I was > 1/10th a mile away and place it there. Instead, now I'm faced with having to return to the site and move my cache - an extra step that, had I been a paying member, I wouldn't have to do. Futhermore, I could go back, move my cache 1000 feet in a random direction, and if I guess wrong, I might still be within 1/10th of a mile from the MOC! Or worse yet, I could return home and find that I'm now within 1/10th of a mile from an entirely different MOC. How much trial and error should non-paying members have to go through? The only way we can avoid this with the tools available to start plugging in coordinates into the search engine, somehow hoping to triangulate the location of the hidden MOC's in the area. Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through if you ask me, all because I haven't yet chosen to pony up the cash to be a member. Just my opinion, Sean

quote:Originally posted by welch: Have you considered (assuming your cache is a physical and within .1 mi) making a case that you should be allowed to supersede this virtual? Physical caches are preferred, so why should a virtual be allowed to "block" you? Or maybe you can contact the owner of this other cache and see if they might archive their cache so you can get yours approved. Or maybe the two of you could create some sort of multicache. Yes, as I said I've already sent an email to the virtual cache owner and the Geocaching.com reviewer who initially rejected my cache to discuss options. There are really 2 things going on here: 1) the problem with MOC's and 2) the problem with virtual caches superceeding physical caches. I agree with most of the sentiments here that a physical should generally take precedence over a virtual, even if the virtual was placed first. No need to take down the virtual, but also no need to reject the physical. There's room for both. But regardless of whether a MOC is physical or virtual, the problem remains that a non-member has no way of knowing, before doing all the work to submit a new cache, whether a MOC already exists nearby. That is very frustrating. Does anyone have any tips for appealing a decision to reject a cache? Aside from emailing the person who rejected it with a plea, I'm at a loss. Hardly an unbiased opinion, but I really believe the caching community would benefit from the addition of my cache. Thanks, Sean

Sorry if this topic has been discussed to death already, but I didn't see it in a search of this forum. Here's my complaint in a nutshell: I spent a fair amount of my available weekend time planning a new cache, placing it, and then logging it. Only after doing all that work do I find that my traditional cache has been rejected because it is supposedly too close to another cache - in this case a "Members Only" virtual cache. However, since I am not a Geocaching.com member (yet!), I had no way of knowing a priori that I was stepping on the toes of another cache. This seems somewhat unfair to me - I just wasted a bunch of time and effort because I haven't yet decided to contribute $$$ to this site. I have no problems with making certain special features available to paying members only, but I also feel that those who choose not to pay shouldn't be penalized in this fashion. (Let's not turn this into a debate over the virtues of membership please.) In any case I've emailed the virtual cache owners to see about joining efforts, and I'm sure we can come to some sort of an agreement. But the problem persists - what's to prevent a non-member from spending a significant amount of time and effort deploying a new cache only to find that a member's only cache is already there? Thanks, Sean