OurWoods

If you are looking for pirate treasure you should check out Sampson State Park in Romulus NY. There is plenty of pirate booty to be found... Welcome to Geocaching and good luck!

5.0 Update for the ST Map

I reccomend reading the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook Pg 54 deals with Mountain Lions. It also covers lots of other topics you might face during geocaching.. Bears, quicksand, snakes, alligators, killer bees, charging bulls.. For Mountain Lions it says; Don't Run (the animal already knows you're there, and running makes you seem like prey).. To make yourself look bigger (such as holding your coat open).. Do not crouch down (shout or wave your hands to show you arent defensless).. Pick up childern.. Back away slowly or wait til it leaves.. Throw stones if the lion is still being aggressive.. Fight back if you are attacked trying to hit it in the head around its eyes.. It also says that mountain lions like to leap down from above and deliver a "killing bite" to the back of the neck (breaking the neck and knocking you down). So protect your neck.. Perhaps a kevlar neck guard? It also says avoid hiking at dawn or dusk.. When they are more active.. The best advice anyone can give about any situation though is to simply educate yourself about your surroundings, whatever those may be..

Okay after much looking this image seems to be the best. It looks accurate. If you go up one level from there, you can see the code in 2 different styles including a braille version which says "explore to learn" but that isnt the answer.. Anyway this image appears to match the one on mars..

If you look on the picture of the prototype there are three symbols, a circle a dash and a line... The image is way too poor to disguinish the dots from the dashs. of course maybe there are just 2.. will have to wait and see what the clues are

Mr. Met is a full sized bobble head doll in a rubbermaid container. It's too big for just about any cache I've been to.

At the events around here, that I have attended, no one has done that. And really, why would you? Unless you are physically taking and placing the bug, I don't think you should log it. If one of my bugs got taken to an event where 30 people logged it, I would be mad. In my opinion only the person who takes the bug, or places it should be in the log. Just because you saw it doesn't mean you helped it along to its goal, therefore you shouldn't be included in the bugs history log. Edit to add: Unless, of course, the bug's page states it wants that sort of inflation.

Can't wait! Though my bug never made it out of NY during the race (thanks Dustoff21 ) I can't wait to play this new version!

nevermind

my adoption offers havent gone through on GC.com either.. The owner moved to Colorado.. both have gone through on NC.com though I emailed KeyStone who helped me out, but I never heard back from the GC people (yet)

I received a MeriPlat for Christmas, before that I was using a SporTrak Map.. I have used the MeriPlat a few times now, and have noticed it emits a low "hmmm" buzzing type noise. Is this normal or should I try to exchange it? It is loud enough that I can hear it while walking on the trail. I could never hear a noise coming from my SporTrak.

I really liked youre idea too. While there are no TB Hotels in my immidiate area there is 1 or 2 geo/bookcrossing caches (though one is full of rotting books and needs to be trashed out after the 18inches of snow melts ).. anyway.. I really liked this idea, and am going to place one in my area this spring. Thanks for the idea AlCacher.. I even have a cool name picked out (cool to me anyway) based on the movie Congo... Don't be afraid to post your ideas, even if they have been heard before, they haven't been heard by EVERYONE, and someone might like it enough to use it.. There are always going to be those kind of people who speak up on every single topic, even though they don't know anything about it, have nothing productive or nice to say. Just ignore them (most people do anyway). Cachers in general are alot nicer then people in these forums act. Look for a new cache from me in 3-4 months.

I went to the army surplus store by me and they charge $9 for "50 cal" ammo cans. I did find another place a short drive away that sells them over the internet, but will let cachers pick them up at his house for $4 each. That's the cheapest I've found locally.

This is a log from one of my caches: This in a patch of woods owned by the county/state about half a mile wide and 3/4 a mile long.. Bordered on one side by a highway, and on the other side by a marsh and pond. I never even thought about hunters being back there. I now posted a warning on the cache page. You never know.

If I didn't find then I post a "Did Not Find" If I am revisiting a cache I have already been to I "post a note" A "didn't find" shouldn't be an alarm to a cache owner, unless they start to pile up. Sometimes conditions aren't right and you just can't find it. that's just me though..

That's an awesome park, before I moved to Rochester I lived not to far from there and took my dogs swimming there all the time. They have a great dog beach. Next time I'm in MD I'll check out your cache. Congrats on placing your first cache!

Mine would probably have to be the "Dash for the Cache" games at Caching Picnic/Gatherings.. The New York Capital Region GeoCachers Picnic had a great dash for the cache, where you had to go for 5 different caches, all were hidden in decon boxes, and had a different artistic hole punch inside you had to punch your card with all 5 different shapes. There was a bunch of groups all racing around trying to find them, and they were all hidden VERY well. I found several with other people right in the general area, but because the boxes are small you can be stealth and hide them back quick. (We won, yay!) Another really cool adrenline rush was the poker run at the NYGO picnic last summer, all the cards had bar codes and you brought them back to be scanned.. I loved that mystery factor. We can't wait for some more geocaching events this spring and summer! Not tradtional caches, but eh.. Nothing like a little competition to get your adrenaline going! In terms of general caches.. when ever I think I am going to be FTF I tend to be a tad more excited then usual.. The unknown aspect is cool.

Remember that the coordinates 12 34.567 on a cache page are not going to point to the same place as a coord that looks like 12.34567 they are totally different formats, as such they are two completely different place so you have to convert one format to the other.. or vice versa.. There is a good site that explains it is Markwell's Geocaching FAQ. Scroll down to the part about converting coords. There are lots of great progeams that can do it for you, but in a pinch it's always best to know how to do it yourself. That Geocalc program is super simple, I use it myself. To enter Coordinates in geocalc enter them as you see them on the cache page (copy and paste). Then press Go. Or enter them like N 43 13.015 W 077 45.192 (for example). Then copy and paste the ones that are in decimal format (ddd.dddd) to use in S&T. If you are entering the decimal formated coords make sure you enter the minus before the west portion ie 43.216917,-77.753200 you shouldnt need to put N/W. If you want to do convert a bunch at once, the easiest thing to do is (imho).. Get a .loc file of all the caches in your area. Then open it up in GeoBuddy a free program after its open click save as.. then in the drop down menu for formats select "Streets and Trips CSV" and then save it. Then in S&T go to import data wizard and open the file.. You have to click a few more things, and viola! All the caches are loaded on your S&T. You can click them and see the names... That is the simplest way I know.. I am sure there are other fancier ways

I've dropped my Magellan Sportrak Map dozens and dozens of times. My cousin fell 15-20 ft off a ledge and dropped a Garmin Geko 201, and he fell off his bike and the Geko 201 went flying... Both still work just fine. I think Garmin Rinos are supposed to be really durable as well, but I have no expierence with those. Check out the units and software forum, they might have some more tips..

2 pair of gloves, shovel (a small foldable plastic shovel should suffice), and a metal detector.. I started caching last winter here in NY. I got snow shoes for Christmas, but no snow yet to try them out. Some people stop caching in the winter, but I don't plan to! There are a few benefits of snow caching; no foliage to interfere with GPS reception, you usually have the park to yourself, no bugs. If you don't like following tracks, watch the logs for the last found date, and wait for fresh snow to cover tracks. Of course be sure also after you find the cache to walk in all different directions on your way out, and to turn over piles of snow in a few more places so you don't comprimise the location of the cache.

Look at the hint if there is one or any pictures, read the logs on the page and if that doesnt help any, you can always mail the cache owner and ask for an additional hint. When was it found the last time? It is possible its missing or moved. I've searched for film can caches 3 times. First one was was supposed to be in a tree but was on the ground across the parking lot with the log book exposed. Second had been shredded by an animal or something. Third turned out to be owner confirmed missing. Don't give up! I'm sure lots of people can give better advice, but I agree with you. Trampling the surrounding habit shouldn't be needed.

I'm sure lots of people would like it. Not everyone likes to hop out of the car and log the cache then be done, some people like an adventure. However, it would probably get fewer finds then a super easy cache, as alot of cachers only want easy ones. It's good to have lots of choices though.

the closest cache to me is .2 miles, and it's a offset/multi type dealy. It bummed me out cause I wasn't even first to find it. I knew where the end place was as soon as I saw where the first coords pointed to (a war memorial.) This was also the only time I met another Geocacher on the "trail" and didnt speak to him/her. This guy was also from my area and was racing to be FTF (for some reason the cache showed up as new to the 2 of us days after everyone else), I did beat him, but to no avail. The final location was in a park, and to get to it you had to cross a bridge, and the the bridge had just been removed for repair. I forded the stream thinking.. "who else would do this?" when I found the cache I was sad to see I was 4th!!! 4th!!! Bah! Geocachers let nothing stand in their way! There was a navicache located .3 miles from me in the other direction, I was first on that, but it wasn't a big accomplishment as the "second to find" team came about 3 months later and a grand total of 4 people have found it in about 6 months.. Ah well.

I had an ST Map as my first GPS it is a good unit very easy to use and simple to learn, and I also have all the different software. The best bet for your money is the Topo Software. That has the topo features, plus the Streets in it. Which is more useful then it sounds. 4mb fits a pretty good sized area in it. You should be able to always have enough room to have the maps for a days worth of caching.. Unless you are driving an incredible distance.. even then it wont be a problem. After you have the maps caching w/o them is totally different. My map screen feels naked if I dont have something loaded in there. I bought my topo cd used from the Garage Sale forum for $25 and it still is serving me well.