GrizzFlyer

Try this link http://www.ngs.noaa....y_entry_www.prl link . Thanks for the link, much appreciated. Makes reporting very easy.

If the railroad still owns the property, you cannot trespass upon it. Pretty simple. It is not public property and cannot be used by the public. Railroad police (who have extremely wide jurisdiction, a holdover from the railroad boom in the 19th century) take a dim view of trespassers. Since they are few and far between, and generally spend their time on active railroad property, they may have approached the neighbors and asked them to call police if they see people on RR property. It's very difficult to get a cache published around here if its anywhere near railroad property, and rightfully so. One slipped through the cracks a couple of years ago, and was placed about 15 feet from the tracks on a line that many thought was abandoned (including me). No trains had been down there for years, and weeds were 5-6 feet high at the rails. It was quickly killed when local geocachers narced it out. About a year later, about 300-400 railroad cars suddenly appeared down the line, when the railroad began using it for a parking lot. Later, the railroad was cleaned up, and today it looks like a main line, although it is used only on occasion. For the locals reading this, I'm referring to the NS line between Dutch Road and Waterville, and they pushed hundreds of cars down past Waterville and onto the old Bluebird track. Then they pulled them back a few months later.

What is the present proper link or procedure to make a report to the NGS? I have recently re-found 2 BM's that were previously reported by a geocacher as destroyed (after I recovered them a few years earlier). The link provided in the NGS FAQ is 404 error. I've been meaning to make reports in the past, but felt the reporting should be better left to true professionals who do this every day. However, correcting a destroyed report has moved me off the center. Thanks.

Things around here have slowed down also, and I attribute that to a number of reasons. People don't seem to do many mystery caches (me included), but there are 6-12 local cachers who enjoy them. Lack of quality caches, although some are very good. Sorry, skirt lifters and guardrail caches normally don't qualify. I'm guilty of placing a few guardrail caches myself. Being FTF on a cache now and then was a thrill for many and a reason to get out and cache, but that has been diminished for reasons I won't go into publically. Seems like placing a multi is the Kiss of Death, so those get left out of PQ's. Thanks goodness we have a strong local caching organization with monthly meetings and 2 great yearly events, it's keeping caching alive in NW Ohio.

I don't think Mike's Benchmap app is publically available at the Play Store ....yet. You have to get it from him directly. However, that might be changing soon, when the new version of Benchmap is released. It's a great app, I use it when needed, and will be using it a lot this month when traveling.

Great idea, would look a lot better than all those individual souvenirs. Good job on the animation.

This makes little sense to me. *shrug* Should a traditional in a high T area *also* be hard to find? I have found a bunch of obvious ammo can's in T4 areas. I don't see why you would hold puzzles to a different standard. Why should a difficult puzzle **ALSO** need to be in difficult terrain? Just not logical. That being said, I agree with your other point. Put a geo-checker on the web page. Especially if the location is hard to get to. Wasn't talking about traditionals, was talking about puzzle/mystery caches. A quick look at your profile reveals why you think that way. 23 Blue Squiggleys placed, and about 5 of them have the puzzle difficulty coming anywhere near the terrain difficulty. I say it again, a good puzzle cache (if there is such a thing...) should have the puzzle difficulty somewhat commensurate with the terrain difficulty. It supposed to be about finding the geocache, not doing some inane puzzle.

1: Puzzle Caches. Put them in another category, like the now-defunct Challenges. A: If you have to put one out... (1): Put a geo-checker on the web page. (2): make the actual geocache commensurate with the puzzle difficulty. A 4.0/1.5 puzzle is just lazy and rude. 2: Crappy hints. The hint section is for giving a hint if you wish to. It is NOT for writing "are you kidding" or "none needed", or some other such junk. 3: Caches placed under the watchful eyes of the world, such as by the front window of a store, or the bush next to your doctors office. Really? Is that the best you can do? 4: Micros placed where you could hide a freight train. 5: LPC's. The first 2-3 were neat, the last 10,000 are not.

Seems like a long time ago when I paid for the Charter membership. Back then, it was more of a donation to keep geocaching alive and well. It seemed to have worked. Am totally surprised at that 95 number, thought there would be more than that.

ATV riding is what got us into geocaching more than 10 years ago. We went riding in the Long Ridge section of the Wayne National Forest (southeast Ohio) and promptly got temporarily bewildered (some call it "lost") on the switchback trails there. After finally figuring our way out, I vowed that we would not be getting ourselves into that situation again. A Meridian Gold GPS and a RAM handlebar mount were added to our equipment. Did a little research, and found out about this geocaching hobby. Many public ATV riding areas, at least in the eastern USA, are on established ATV trails. Permits are usually required, licenses required, insurance required, safety equipment required, noise limits established, and so on. Trails are sometimes closed off or re-routed, and after a year you usually cannot even tell there had been a trail there. ATV riders are not the anti-nature earth-destroying boogeymen that some people try to stereotype. Blending ATV riding and geocaching can often be rewarding without ill effects to anything (except your wallet, and sometimes your hide).

Anything with ALWAYS in the cache name, or anything with a blue ? in front of the name.

This is a snake I saw while benchmarking one day in northern Ohio. It was a foot or two away from a benchmark, but its just a harmless little guy. Have seen lots of similar snakes while walking along going to a cache. There was a report of a large copperhead hanging around GC283APin southern Ohio, but we didn't see it. HERE is my log on it. There are poisonous snakes in southern Ohio, but they are very uncommon. None in northern Ohio anymore since the timber rattlers disappeared around the Toledo Airport a few decades ago.

Works like a charm, thanks!! Have been using Firefox as my primary browser for a long time, but never got into Greasemonkey until now. Will have to look at other scripts.

Still looks good enough to me. Enlarging it looks a lot better than squinting at a small image.

Just checked out some BM photos on gc.com, and found that I can use the magnify feature on the browser to enlargen them. I use Firefox 8.0. Just click on the "+" magnify button on the toolbar, and each press makes the image larger. Doesn't seem to be any loss of clarity or detail either. Shouldn't have to do it that way, but it works here.

The coin has been spoken for, thanks for all the interest.

I came into possession of a GEOCAC benchmarking geocoin, and have been moving it around to various benchmarks for a while. Time for somebody else to move it a bit, but there are no serious benchmarkers in my area that I can give it to, and geocoins have a habit of disappearing if just left in a cache. I'll mail it to a benchmarker if somebody wants it, and when you get it you can "grab" it from me and its all yours to move. You can check it out by going to the trackables page and look up TB2KEAF. Let me know, best way is to email me through this site, as I don't check this forum every day.

The photo you posted is of reference mark 3 for PINNACLE 2, GA3593. It is not the actual tri-station mark for that PID. The one you needed there is nearby, in a square concrete setting. We just did that one this past weekend, the photos I posted on GA3593 should help.

I've been using it, and it is a great app. Nice for benchmarking "on the fly", used it this weekend at Cumberland Gap NP to check for nearby benchmarks while on top of the Pinnacle Lookout. Yep, there's one there. Have a Samsung Fascinate here.

22 days and counting.......

Just what I've been looking for. Count me in if there is still room. Samsung Fascinate here.

Anybody aware of any Android applications that would search and graphically display benchmark locations? The non-official Android app for geocaches works well (I guess we're not allowed to say its name while on the Groundspeak forums), so something like that for benchmarks would be great. Maybe something like a DS World Lite, just to give us a search function, graphic location display, and accessibility to individual datasheets and/or geocaching benchmark pages.

Have been using GPS's on ATV's and motorcycles even before getting into geocaching in 2002. RAM mounts are the way to go. Current rides are a Harley Ultra, and Grizzly 660 and Sportsman 500HO ATV's. Have cached all 88 counties of Ohio via motorcycle. Lots of fun.

I'm against giving anyone the power to delete logs they feel are wrong, unless they actually visit the benchmark site and do their own recovery first. Too often there are circumstances that need to be checked in person to determine if a log is wrong. What about those that didn't post a picture? How would you verify the accuracy of those recoveries. How many of us here have made a mistake/s when logging benchmarks? Are we going to insist that all those logs are deleted. What about destroyed logs that are then proven wrong? Are we going to insist that someone log a DNF instead of destroyed if there is no disk to prove it is destroyed. This will be a real can of worms. As to people logging benchmarks for the numbers - well they already log them for the icon & what about those that log benchmarks with the NGS to color in a map? Who gets to define "active, experienced, serious, and knowledgeable benchmarkers"? It is only a game here on GC. John There are many erroneous benchmarking logs, and many threads here on this forum about them. Those logs that have been verified as in error by personal visits from reliable benchmarkers (that's where the "active, experienced, serious, and knowledgeable" comes into play) have been the topic of several discussions on this forum. No ONE person should have the power to delete logs, it could be by a consensus of a review committee, as was mentioned above. Only those logs that have been positively verified as in error would have any action taken. If there was any doubt, leave it be. Even though I do not do this professionally, so I guess its a "game" to me, if I made an error on a BM I'd sure like to be notified of it so I could correct it. My original comments were purely philosophical, we all know that its not going to happen. Now if only the snow would melt around here, I could use a good benchmarking day!

Although counting benchmarks as "finds" would certainly boost the numbers for those of us who actively hunt benchmarks, allowing them to count towards total "finds" would bring on some unwanted problems. Members of the geocaching community who presently do not hunt benchmarks would be enticed to start logging them to boost their numbers. Unfortunately, this would bring many errors in benchmark recoveries that cannot be resolved with todays Groundspeak benchmark rules. There are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of erroneous or outright bogus "finds" on benchmarks now, what would happen if Groundspeak made these numbers part of the total finds? Yes, for many it IS about the numbers. With us benchmarkers, not so much. I'm in favor of a Review Committee comprised of active, experienced, serious, and knowledgeable benchmarkers that would be given the means to delete erroneous benchmark logs. However, not at the compromise of allowing benchmark recoveries to count towards the total geocaching stats.