Stargazer22

I don't think it is a lack of imagination, just the application of common sense. I've seen my share of caches that are hidden according to the rules, especially in urban surroundings, where the creativity of the hide is the cause of geocachers tearing up the surroundings and causing damage to property too, maybe not a tree or ground, but still damage. So for me the whole 'burying causes damage and might get geocaching banned' argument is moot, since the same applies to all non buried caches too. You could hide a bloody magnetic nano in a lamp post in the parking lot of your local ACME and get geocaching banned on their properties worldwide. Same effect, even though the cache wasn't buried. You totally missed my point. My point was not about damage to the surrounding area. It's about how land managers perceive our game and decide to ban caching on their lands because they think cachers are going to show up with shovels in hand. Land managers do not have to understand our game to ban it. To me common sense dictates that we don't hide caches in ways that can mislead land managers to think that our game may be bad for thier lands. Common sense would say it's not worth the risk. But that is exactly what I want: let the land manager decide if he/she wants to allow a buried cache and the possible consequences or not. I just feel that the current 'no burying whatsoever' rule overshoots its target. And for me the same applies to other hiding forms, just check if it is allowed with the appropriate owner/organisation. It's sure not what I want!! I don't want to put any land manager in the position where he might ban caching. Common sense tells me not to do that. Land managers in the US are very sensitive to people digging in their areas, possibly due to the popularity of metal detecting. Most lands for public use here include in their rules of use that no digging is allowed. Maybe it works differently where you are but here's how it goes over here.... Cacher calls land manager - "Hello sir. I am a geocaching enthuiast and would like to know if I can hide a container on your land. I would like to bury it in the ground so my fellow geocachers will think it is a really cool way to hide my geocache, and it's really the best way to hide what I have in mind. My common sense tells me I need to dig on your land to make my hide work." Land manager answers cacher - "Geo-whatting?? People burying things on MY land? How do I make sure no one can do this on MY land??" Just asking can get caching banned. Then all the other cachers who would have placed guideline compliant caches in the area are out of luck. Not a good idea, when burying is not an integral part of caching (nor does it need to be). Why insinuate to some uneducated land manager that it's part of the game, when Groundspeak has been trying to stop just this perception for years? It was just one buried cache that got caching banned in our National Parks system, blocking many tens of thousands of acres from cachers. I think the "no burying whatsoever" guideline is one of the reasons that some of the more enlightened land managers DO allow caching on their lands. They know they never have to worry about someone burying a cache on their lands. They don't have to worry that there might be some cases where burying is allowed. It makes it an easy decision to allow caching on their lands that way.

I don't think it is a lack of imagination, just the application of common sense. I've seen my share of caches that are hidden according to the rules, especially in urban surroundings, where the creativity of the hide is the cause of geocachers tearing up the surroundings and causing damage to property too, maybe not a tree or ground, but still damage. So for me the whole 'burying causes damage and might get geocaching banned' argument is moot, since the same applies to all non buried caches too. You could hide a bloody magnetic nano in a lamp post in the parking lot of your local ACME and get geocaching banned on their properties worldwide. Same effect, even though the cache wasn't buried. You totally missed my point. My point was not about damage to the surrounding area. It's about how land managers perceive our game and decide to ban caching on their lands because they think cachers are going to show up with shovels in hand. Land managers do not have to understand our game to ban it. To me common sense dictates that we don't hide caches in ways that can mislead land managers to think that our game may be bad for thier lands. Common sense would say it's not worth the risk.

I'm with Briansnat on this one. Burying caches just shows a lack of imagination, and opens up the possibility of some land manager creating a new ban on caches on land he controls. It's not worth the risk of losing more areas for us to play our game, just so someone can place a cache without having to use their imagination and creativity. Many times folks who want to support the burying of caches use the "they are squashing my creativity" line as support for their cause. How about showing enough creativity to find a way to hide that cache without burying it? I've seen some really cool ways of hiding a cache in plain sight that are very difficult to find without learning to think outside the box. Now those are creative!

The only caches of mine that have been repeatedly muggled have been muggled by bears! I started out with lock-and-locks. They make good bear toys. They are ammo cans now. I don't have any hides in urban environments.

Palmetto and Clan Riffster have demonstrated 2 ways to be able to know about the other cache that you encroached on. You could also have politely asked your local reviewer to check the coordinates for you prior to placement. That is at least THREE WAYS of knowing. Cache hiders should also realize that they could always come up against someone's stage of a multi or puzzle when hiding in an area where they haven't found all the caches. Having been in this game for at least 3-4 years longer than I have, you should already know this. Sorry, but you are being your own worst enemy on this one.

Seems like you've got it! Generally, any kind of a 'find', whether first or not, implies that you had to search to 'find' it. If you are the one that put it there, you already know exactly where it is (or should be, unless someone moved it). So you can't really 'find' it. Don't worry about what kinds of questions you ask, feel free to ask about anything that you don't know or understand. I have a kind of unique position where I work so not many people know about what I do. I get a lot of folks who approach me with, "Sorry for the dumb question, but....". I usually think, GREAT, those kinds of questions are the easiest for me to answer!

I have one, Salty Proliferation, that has been out since 4/26/08, that's 684 days today, or 1 year, 10 months, and 13 days. It has been found by two finders (Thanks to Clan Riffster and Nativefly182) on the same day and not found again since.

I'll never understand the mentality of people who enjoy "messing" with another person. Can't you find ways to have fun that don't involve interacting with others in a negative way? Makes me think of some of the guys I went to school with. I majored in Computer Science Engineering and there was a subset of guys there who thought it would be great fun to learn to hack other people's computers just because they could do it. Thankfully most of us were of the anti-hacker mentality. I'm sure one or two of those guys are still out there hacking away, keeping the anti-virus companies in business.

I vote no. If you didn't search, log a note. If you searched and didn't find it, log a DNF. Simple. Adding new 'buttons' like this will only encourage people to not leave a descriptive log. Of course I guess it would work for anyone too lazy busy to leave a real log.

That's great Riff! It's nice to see a story that ends on a high note. Now you need to find a really remote spot that needs a nice waterproof container. You should give it a cool name to reflect how you got the cache, like "Kindness to Strangers"!

That's why it's called a multi. You find multiple stages that lead you to the final. You get credit for doing a multi when you find a multi. If you want one-for-one, stick to traditionals.

Your GPS is doing just fine. If it gets you within 20-40 feet of the cache it has done it's job. Remember that the hider's GPS may have had only a 20 foot accuracy when he hid it and took the coordinates. Your unit may only have a 20 foot accuracy as well. This means that you may be as far as 40 feet from the cache when your unit says zero. You will have to use your eyes and senses to find the cache. I wouldn't start by searching for micros. Those can be very difficult to find if you haven't found very many. A typical 3 star difficulty micro may take you 30 minutes or more to find. Higher difficulties may take even longer or multiple trips to find. Most kids new to caching won't have that much patience. Some micros are smaller than a dime in size. If you have to search a 40 foot radius for something that small you can understand why they may take a long time to spot or several tries to find them. Start by searching for 2 star and below on difficulty and regular or small size caches. The larger size alone will reduce the number of possible hiding places. Check recent logs and look for caches that have several finds recently. If you see a high DNF to find ratio that may mean that the cache is there but very hard to find. Don't be discouraged because you are having trouble finding micros. I almost always cache with my wife, SwampyGirl. I located a micro one day that was hidden on a palm tree root. She said she wanted to keep looking to see if she could spot it. After 10 minutes of her looking directly at it she still hadn't seen it. I started giving her "hot" and "cold" clues. Finally she picked up the root and had it in her hand. She gave it a good long look and put it back down and started searching again. She had it in her hand and didn't see it. And this was after we had over 400 finds. I got her to pick it back up again and as she would turn it over in her hands I would say "you can see it now", then as she turned it away, "you can't see it". After several minutes of this, she still didn't see it even though it was in her hands. I finally had to show it to her. Her mind just didn't grasp what she was looking at. We all have days like that sometimes. I've even missed ammo cans before that were right under my feet. Having a hard time finding them sometimes is just part of the game. If every one we looked for was an obvious find when we got there, the game wouldn't be as much fun or challenging. Don't give up, just try changing your tactics slightly until you start finding a few and get more experience. Most of all, Have fun!

You'll probably appreciate this nano story then. The lengths I went to in order to save a nano! Went to GZ in the woods to find an old ford pickup tailgate (yeah, I know, it should have been CITO'ed out) to find a magnetic nano on one end of it. I had stood the tailgate up to search it so it was vertically oriented. I was showing SwampyGirl where it had been hidden when I fumbled it and it went into a crack in the trailgate and disappeared inside. I spent the next 45 minutes working to retreive the blinky from inside the old tailgate. It finally came out of the crack as I was shaking the thing, only to go flying off into the sand! After a few more minutes of sifting through the sand I finally got smart and went to the Jeep for a long box end wrench I had in the toolbox. After dragging it through the sand for a couple of minutes I finally heard the metallic 'click' when the magnet grabbed my wrench. Success! I signed the log and VERY carefully put it back where it was when I found it. Funny that I spotted the cache in about 2 minutes after arriving at GZ but we spent about an hour there working on it!

snip.... Salty Proliferation Hidden 04-30-08, FTF 11-15-08 (Six months! Yikes!) No FTF prize. It seems there's a direct relationship between the D/T rating and the time between being hidden & FTF. Riff, those were nice stats you quoted. I definitely see a relationship between D/T ratings and FTF times. However, I beg to differ on Salty Proliferation. I put in a $5 bill as a FTF prize. 'Someone' must have grabbed it when your back was turned. It's been out 661 days as of today (1 year, 9 months, 21 days) and there have still been only the original 2 finds on that one! I knew I was putting it in a remote spot but I figured more of the Nefgans would have been up there by now.

Threads like this one come up about once a month or so. Inevitably, the artificial 'competition' being injected into the game is the source of the problem. Worrying about FTFs and how others play the game is a good way to ruin the fun. Maybe that's why you aren't enjoying it as much as you could be. Geocaching is like losing weight. Do it for yourself and be happy with your own results. Trying to compare yourself with others and making some kind of competition out of it can have a negative impact. Since this site is only a listing service, there is nothing that says that caches listed here must be available for a FTF for the general geocaching public. Caches may have been listed on other sites prior to being listed here, or used for personal geocaching fun before being listed here. Be glad that they listed another cache for you to find. Being upset with them for the way they listed it only reflects poorly on your own attitude. I am very glad that FTF is not officially recognized by the site and they do not attempt to make caching a competetive game.

Wow! 2500 finds. I wonder how they got those high find numbers?? Hopefully some of the cache owners who know their caches were missing will adjust those finds a little bit. Edit for typo

This won't affect my geocaching schedule at all. It does, however, mean that my hunting schedule will need to change. I'll have to gear up for groundhog season now.

We found one like this a couple of years ago during a weekend long event we attended. The cache had one of those ear-piercing alarms mounted on it and would continously go off as long as the lid to the ammo can was raised. It was hilarious, especially since we did it on a night caching run at about 2 in the morning. We found another one that was rigged with a realistic looking rubber snake. The cache was in a stump and the snake was tied to the cache with a short piece of monofilament line. When you lifted the cache out, the snake would come shooting out right behind it. It was a good way to find out just how quickly we can drop a cache!

I wouldn't touch this one with a 10 foot hiking pole. From the tone, it sure sounds like they have no idea what geocaching really is, and all they want is your money.

Hey Jerry, if you find yourself caching in Chuluota in the evening, head a bit north from GC1HXPE "Don't Fence Me In....Reprise" to the area of Kiwanis Cir. There's a small herd of domestic rabbits living amongst the shrubbery. Not sure of the breeds, mostly white & black. I figure some one dumped them. What's surprising to me is that they've survived and flourished there for at least two years. Sean, thanks for the tip. I haven't found that cache before so that will be a good excuse to take Mel out for a possible bunny surprise! I won't mention them to her, I'll let her tell me if and when she finds them. I'll have to think if I can figure out a way to make a practical joke out of it for her. A few months back we were caching out in the Seminole Forest area and saw a bear trap parked out there. As we approached it, I cautiously took a quick look inside to confirm it was empty, although the door was down on the trap. No bear inside. Mel didn't see me look. She was being very cautious about approaching the trap. I knew it was empty so went over and started looking at the door latching mechanism. She stayed about 30 feet back. I called her over to look at the latch mechanics (lame excuse) to get her over to the trap. Once she was beside me (about 2 feet from the trap at this point) she asked if I had looked inside yet. I said no, but I would look in one of the vent holes. As I looked into the vent, "GRRRRRR", I made the loudest bear growl noise I could make. She jumped about 4 feet! We still laugh about that one. Maybe I can convince her that the rabbits are like the ones from Monty Python - viscious bloody killers!!

I'll chime in with the others here and say that if you don't plan to receive the emails from your caches, then please don't hide any. The site does not offer the option because it is important that cache owners see the logs on their caches in case maintenance on the cache is needed, or the reviewer needs to contact you about your cache for some reason. Besides, why wouldn't you want to read the cache logs to see who is finding your caches and what they have to say about their experiences? Hiding caches is not something you should do and then ignore them. We have enough irresponsible cache owners as it is.

Thank you for saving the rabbit. Several years back my wife and I were working as volunteers for Orange County Fire and Rescue during an emergency disaster drill. It was about a month after Easter and we were approached by an obviously tame rabbit in the park where we were doing our exercise. We figured it had been abandoned in the park by someone who got it for Easter then didn't want to keep it. We wound up taking it home and quickly learning how to care for a rabbit. Since then we have always had at least one house bunny at home. We have two right now. They both use a litter box like a cat. If you decide to try and keep it and want to try litter box training, DO NOT use kitty litter. Rabbits can eat kitty litter and it can clump up inside them and kill them. Instead, go to your local feed store and buy a bale of hay (timothy hay is best), and use that in their litter boxes. The hay will abosorb liquids and the chlorophyll will act as odor control. The rabbits like to eat the hay so they will jump in the box and begin using it amost immediately. We've been using this method to train bunnies to litter boxes for over 10 years now. It requires almost no training, as rabbits enjoy eating hay. They will typically use one end of the box for eating the hay and the other end for doing their business. One other thing - if you ever take your rabbit to a vet, DO NOT let them proscribe Amoxcyllin. This is a very common drug used on dogs and cats but is FATAL to rabbits. We lost one this way to an incompetent vet, and it was a hard lesson to learn. There is an organization called the House Rabbit Society on the internet that might be able to help find a home to place your bunny. They also have a wealth of information about raising house rabbits including health information, etc... We've had house rabbits for over 10 years now. They make great pets. We have never had any odor problems and the last 2 homes we have rented did not ask us for a pet deposit since it was rabbits. When we moved out of the last place, we got a glowing recommendation from the landlord. Good luck to you and thanks for being a caring person.

In my mind, this is so wrong on so many levels. Pete Agreed. And what the heck is a "blinkie"? I know, and I completely agree. I wasn't thrilled to see a cache placed specifically on an item that I thought looked more like something we should CITO than use as a hiding place. However, the cache was hidden by a very prolific and high profile cacher in our area and I didn't feel like making an issue of it at the time. Some call them blinkies, some call them Mr. Magnetos, some call them a PITA! You can see from the size that finding one of these after losing it in a pile of sand can be a challenge!

We found a cache once that was a blinkie on an old tailgate from a pickup truck, lying in the forest in the middle of nowhere. I lifted up the tailgate on one end to look at it more closely and found the blinkie in the latch mechanism on one end. No problem. Opened it up, signed the log, and was replacing it back on the tailgate when it slipped from my fingers and went into a crack in the metal, disappearing inside. Spent the next 45 minutes getting the little bugger out of there. When it finally came out, it went flying into the sand and disappeared. Back to the jeep for some tools, I used a long box wrench, pulling it back and forth over the sand until I finally heard the metallic 'click' when the magnet in the blinkie grabbed the wrench. Believe me, I was REALLY careful putting it back where it belonged that 2nd time! Luckily, I haven't damaged one or lost one to the point where the owner had to fix or replace it.

Yeah, it's a Florida thing. Jetskier is famously (or is that infamously!) known for finding finals to mystery caches without solving any puzzles or getting any hints. It's amazing how the guy can manage to find them, in areas with lots of hiding places and no real clues.