Tsnake

I agree. Especially when there is some down time between using the app and you go "back" and it reloads the query.

Excuse me if it has been suggested before, but I find it annoying that when I choose to view a cache on Geocaching.com from the iPhone app, I have to log into Geocaching.com after it loads in the Safari browser. Would there be a way to automatically log in to geocaching.com when you choose to view the cache on Geocaching.com from the App? Thanks, Tsnake

I've done several like this. Basically you solve one puzzle that leads to you to stage one. Stage two is another puzzle, etc until you get to the final. I enjoy them. Just make sure you let people know they are expected to solve multiple puzzles.

I pulled a PQ, then used GSAK to filter by cache size. I then took the number for each cache, divided by the total number of caches and multiplied by 100. That gave me the percentage of each cache size in relation to the total number.

This is an offshoot of "What cache size have you found the most of?" This question got me thinking. I have found mostly micros (37%), but what is the size distribution across my local area? For me (Metro East St. Louis) Micro 52.66% Small 23.96% Regular 14.50% Large 0.00% Other 8.28% This is only the ones I haven't found, so the true numbers may be slightly different, but as you can see, most of the caches close to me are micros.

Micro (338 for 37.39%)

I've seen it a lot. Especially among groups of cachers that know each other. I is definitely annoying to look at the past 5 logs and only see chatter. You learn to live with it because it is going to happen and it's the CO's job to police his own cache's logs.

Under the user routes on the www.geocaching.com/my page, you can create a route. You enter your starting point and destination, then it automatically creates a route. Once that is done, you can make a PQ based on the route and adjust the distance from the road that you want to maintain. One thing to not though, it looks at straight line distance. Thus, you can have a spot that is only a mile off the highway, but it could take 30 minutes of back road driving to get to it. Good luck

Ammo cans really aren't that hard to find, at least none of the ones I have found were, and I like the hunting part of caching. So placing a can for trades along with a micro, would give a good hunt along with the ability to trade. Even if they don't find the actual cache, they would probably find the can and could still trade too. It's just a thought I had with what happened here. I guess it's sort of like how some put a dummy cache along with the a real cache. Man, those drive me crazy though. :laughing: But this would be a trade spot instead of a dummy cache. Like I said, just a thought, was wondering what others opinion might be. I agree, I dislike ammo cans. I'd much rather have a devilish micro over a super simple ammo can anyday. I don't trade items, so that may be why... I thought I read at one time that the size of the cache should be compatible with the location that you are hiding it in. I have always interpreted this to mean that the middle of the woods can easily conceal an ammo can, so you should use an ammo can. A parking lot cannot handle an ammo can, so you don't use one, you go with a small or micro. Some of that may be my own bias, because I don't like micros in the woods. My primary complaint with that though is that many people don't take the time to get good coords. They drop a cache, mark the spot and get moving again. Thus, you have people looking for ages in the woods, covering a 15-30 foot radius looking for a tiny container. In the process, they end up tramping ground cover and disturbing the natural flora of a place. This in turn could leave to an area banning caching because of the damage that is incurred. This does not relieve the cacher from taking responsibility for his actions and trying to limit damage to an area.

I don't get that one? Should have been SKLH. It's the same thing as LPC, but to give it a twist. Don't really like it, but I have seen it several times. Had to ask the cache owner the first time what he was talking about.

I haven't seen any rules denying putting out a power trail. You most likely need to get clarification from the reviewer as why it is being denied. I know many locations have a power trail or circular with no problems.

Not in Florida. Being on school property without explicit permission is an arrestable offense here. Come now, that is not quite a fair comparison. Sure, the law exists, but isn't it there, similar to a no trespassing sign, so that you can after miscreants immediately? I mean I can imagine using the law against a group of teens passing around a bottle on the field behind the school, but not against a group a kids playing soccer (or Frisbee) on the same field. Off topic: I always thought that was the strangest part of the earthcache guidelines. Since there are no containers involved, and most are placed on public access properties, are the owners having to prove, explicitly, that other people can stand at a given spot of public land? I would think that, since they are on areas that the public is allowed to be, getting explicit permission is a bit redundant. It's not a guideline I feel strongly about, but it did strike me as rather quirky. I've got to agree with you on this one. Many of the Earthcache pages I've looked at are for places that people are probably gonna visit anyway. If your at an Earthcache location, there is no way to distinguish who in the crowd is a cacher and who is a tourist. I think the earthcache guideline is a bit nuts. I found a cache recently that was placed in a nature preserve. I asked the CO who they got permission from so I could look into doing an earthcache there, but they informed me that they thought public land was open to placing caches. Therefore, they can place a cache there and have no problems, but if I try to put an earthcache there, I would be denied.

As said before, everything is debatable. The strength of your argument will determine if it gains support or criticism. I am perfectly fine with most of the guidelines and don’t see a need to change them with any passing fancy. There are some trends that I don’t care for that are developing. For example, power trails. But as long as there is no guideline against it or no harm to the world at large, let it stand. I think more difficulty arises because of inconsistent interpretation or implementation of the guidelines. If someone feels slighted, they are going to come the forums and raise a stink, which does nothing but cause problems a majority of the time.

So, technically speaking (no pun), should these be rated as a 5 difficulty since you need extra equipment to solve? It may be moot because I have seen plenty of caches that require the use of Google Earth or some other program to get the correct coords.

Kidda sounds like you reviewer is not a very nice person "Are you telling me you didn't read and don't understand the guidelines? ". Seems to me that could have been stated in a different manner. A container is "an object used for or capable of holding, esp for transport or storage, such as a carton, box, etc ". So, your magnetic strip covers the log strip from the front, the pole covers it from the back, and the lines where they meet cover the top, bottom, left and right. Thus, a container. Especially if the log sheet is waterproof, you elimate damage to the log. In my area GC1B9H0 hidden in 2008 and GC13GZ5 hidden in 2007. So there is a precendent, but as the moderator said, it may have been phased out in 2008.

Call it what you want, either it laziness or ignorance on the cache owners parts. It is the duty as a cache owner to know you can place a cache in a given location. That should make it simple, if you don't have permission, you don't place the cache. It doesn't matter what other COs do in your area. You're responsible for you on decisions as a cache owner In many situations, this will make the placement of a cache difficult or impossible. In my area, we are pretty lucky that the local caching association has done the leg work to get most parks and rec divisions to adopt a caching policy for the land that they are in charge of. So, it is easy to find the right people to contact or the policy provides the adequate permission. There may be many locations that you think would be good cache spots, but take the time to get the permission so that there won't be any problems. As noted above, if there is a No Trespassing sign, I like to see some note on the cache description that references that it is still okay to look for a cache at that spot. Maybe reviewers should be required to get names and numbers like you need for an earthcache.

Why not just make the ammo can the cache location? But I do like what happened in your case.

You may also see TFTH (Thanks for the Hide) LPC (Lamp Post Cache) KLH (Southern Kansas Light House) which can applied to any of us Midwest states that don't have a light house withing 100s of miles.

I agree with twoodward. If you are not going to maintain a cache, then don't place the cache. Some people would be comfortable maintaining 50 caches, while others may only be comfortable with 10. It all depends on the amount of time you will be willing to invest in keeping you caches in good shape. I too post quite a few DNFs. That doesn't mean they are lost or that I am not good at finding a cache, but I want people to know what I am doing and the luck I am having on finding a certain cache. I have seen untold caches where logs say something along the lines that I have looked for this cache X times and finally found it today. Yet, if you look back through the logs, there are not any DNFs on the cache. It gets me because I depend on DNFs to determine if I am going to spend my time looking for a cache. We have one cache that gets DNFs all the time, but that is because we made it difficult and different from most of the caches in the area. We have also rated the difficultly to reflect the fact that it is harder to find. So, if I see a DNF, I don't go check on it everytime, but I still check on it every couple of months to see if it's damp, needs more sway, etc... It all comes back to the amount of time you are willing to invest in being a good cache owner.

I have cached across the states and several countries and find that what is considered a 2 terrain in Illinois is very different than a 2 is Washington. So, it will always be subjective in that regard. I find that the difficulty rating seems to be more consistent across the board. The think the difficulty rating gets better as cachers get more experience and know what is difficult to find and what is not. As far as the averages go, I think it has more to do with sample distribution. If you look at any given query run, a large majority will be located in upper left of the cache matrix. As you go down or to the right, the numbers drop off to the point that in many areas you cannot find caches that fill all the possible combinations. So, unless you make a concerted effort to ignore the "easy" caches, your average rating will always be skewed towards the low end. This can lead to a lot fewer options and the fact you may miss some truly good caches. If you go out and grab everything that you can, you’re going to have a low average.

To me, virtual caches make more sense in an urban environment than in a country environment. I have found several caches where you end up standing in an exposed location waiting for people to disappear so you can find the cache. But IMO, many of these have no value anyway, so I would normally skip them unless they were part of a different type of cache besides a traditional. As far as how to implement the return of virtuals, either leave it up to the reviewer or make it the responsibility of the reviewer (depending on how passive aggressive you want to be). It is my understanding that the reviewers must look at locations as well as other requirements to determine if a cache will be published. The question then becomes what the requirements for a virtual would be and if a reviewer could determine if the cache requirements are met. I have found that most of the virtuals I have found are either strange or educating. Therefore, that is something I would like to see maintained. The CO must then prove the to reviewer what makes the location strange or educating. One must then decide if the reviewer can keep his/her bias out of the review process. It would be a shame if reviewers would not approve a cache because they don't something is interesting or educational. As mentioned before, Waymarking.com can become the home of virtuals, but I find it extremely hard to use and I find the fact that there are hundreds of categories "silly". Thus, if it would come down to virtuals being populated by a bunch of McDonald's and Target locations, I would rather virtuals not come back. If they can be maintained to be a majority of historical or "Americana" locations, I would be all for them coming back.

I've seen this in several areas. First and foremost, contact the person to see if it can be worked out personnally. If that fails, bring it to the attention of the cache reviewer. I have placed several caches, and the biggest hurdle is getting permission to place the caches. If the cache owner can't prove permission was granted, I think you have a good arguement to keep further caches from being placed. As part of that, bring to the reviewers attention that he is not maintaining caches. If the caches are simply archived, chances are the cacher is leaving the containers in field, and thus littering.

I received mine in the mail a couple of days ago. Number 085. Total surprise. Thanks to the mystery coiner.

http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=...amp;#entry47371 This should get you to the correct macro for GSAK

Similar thing has happened to me on several occasions. I started a TB hotel near the intersection of two major N-S and E-W interstate highways in the hope that people would be able to move coins and TBs in any direction. A local cacher dropped 8 coins from one of his trips and the next day they were all gone. I ended up making it a premium member only cache to try to keep unfriendlies out. It seemed to work as I had nothing go missing for months. I wasn't getting many finds on the cache, so I reverted it back to a regualar cache. Two weeks ago, I had several more coins go missing. I noticed that when the cache was premium, I could see who had viewed the cache listing and how often. It would be nice if I could still do this with a regular listing. I realize it wouldn't do me much good if someone kept creating new accounts, but it would allow me to build up quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to cache our local coin thief. My 2 cents, Tsnake