Crazy Aaron

I have a simple cache idea that I think could be pretty cool. It will be a 5 for difficulty because of special equipment needed but other than that, pretty vanilla. However, I think it is best done on private land where the owner is a cacher because...well, email me and I'll explain. The cache won't need much in terms of land, just some woods or field to hike through. I am located in Philadelphia's western suburbs so someplace within an hour or so would be good. I will provide everything you need. Thanks!

I'm going to support the "frisbee philosophy" here. If an area has a caching policy, great. I'm happy to follow the rules. If it doesn't and has open public access, I don't see any need to open a can of worms by asking permission. Why? Because it is the job of administrators and managers to say "no" whenever they're confronted with something new, unknown, or different. My motto is "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" and it's served me well for a long time. Now, all that said, my primary concern is not the cache, or myself as cache owner but of the cache seeker. Am I endangering this person by having them seek a cache at any particular location? Are they trespassing? Will they look overly suspicious and thus be subject to landowner/police oversight? It is my responsibility to take into account the surrounding land management rules that may apply to cache visitors. They are my "guests" One thing I'll never understand is the inability of cachers to be discrete in seeking a cache EVEN WHEN the cache description clearly states that it has been placed surreptitiously. On the one hand, this is a nod towards asking permission (then people wouldn't have to be so stealthy). On the other, it means that, in many instances, instead of a short lived cache, we'd have no cache at all. Thoughts?

Randy and George are dead on with their attitude towards this and their knowledge of the facts. As I mentioned above, 99% of the time it is wrong (for various reasons) to place a geocache in a cave or even near a cave entrance. Renegade Knight, you don't seem to care about reasons. You just want to do whatever you desire and have no care for the impact or safety of those you lead towards that destination. Your comments that "The upshot is that I don't see anything exclusive about caves that would rule out a geocacher" are wrong.

As a cacher and caver I hear both points of view here. I think that just because a cave has been trashed doesn't make it OK to continue the practice of leading people to the site (and it's not necessarily the cachers but those watching them and wondering where they're going). I'm sure I'm not the first to say this but, I think the old caver practice of "security through obscurity" is in its dying days. The Internet put the nail in the coffin for that. So, what we need is some informative non-propogandized material for cachers to review so they can decide, on their own, whether it is a good idea to place their cache in or around a cave entrance. Individual choice is the only way it is going to work. It shouldn't be hard to explain that 99% of the time, it is a bad idea. Let the 1% slide.

Here in the North East we can get over the heeby-jeeby bug thing pretty quickly. Then the paranoia of 90% Lyme Disease infection rate amongst ticks in this area sets in. A trip to the doctor for a preventative course of antibiotics doesn't really put the fun in geocaching... ticky ticky tick tick

I am working on a few interesting caches for Philadelphia right now. They will be different and of various levels of difficulty. From the discussion above, it seems that each person has various definitions of the term "difficult". It could mean: a) Physically difficult to get to (bushwacking, inclines, etc) Take a long time to do (maybe in multiple trips, maybe a multi-cache of unknown length) c) Are hard to find (well hidden) d) Need brainpower to solve (puzzles) Am I missing any possible criteria? Obviously everyone here is into geocaching for a different reason. Should a difficult cache stick to a criteria and thus only appeal to one type of cacher? Does a breadth of difficulty make a hard cache more fun? I'm very interested in thoughts on this topic.