Bloencustoms

Mine is a jab at all the competition minded stats junkies. There's no way to have a clearcut "winner" at geocaching. So, I figure the winners are the people that have fun getting outdoors and finding caches, and even having fun not finding them. Whenever you have fun, you win.

Yesterday at an event cache, the Garmin vs. Magellan feud erupted into an outright brawl. Geocachers began throwing food at each other and throwing each other's GPS receivers on the ground in an attempt to render them useless. One Magellan user began striking people in the head with his Meridian Platinum, untill cracks appeared in the screen, and the batteries began to leak electrolyte paste all over his arm, at which point he ran away screaming from the caustic burns. An inventive Garmin user tied the lanyards of two E-trex receivers together, and was hurling it at cacher's legs like a bolo. This was terrifying, if not all that effective. In the aftermath, amidst the strained beeping of half crushed PDA's and laptop computers a single DeLorme USB receiver remained functional, but with nothing to attach it to, it was as useless as the rest of them. A temporary peace has been agreed to up until April 17 (CITO day) but it is unlikely it will hold. This bitter conflict has been raging for years, and has taken it's toll on credit cards and checkbooks. Rumors are spreading that Garmin has a terrible new weapon in it's arsenal, the 60cs, but it has yet to be used in battle against Magellan's entry-level Sport Trak series. Only time will tell if peace will prevail, and a fragile peace it is.

There certainly isn't anything wrong with searching around public places, but that doesn't mean it won't draw the unwanted attention of nosy bystanders, or overzealous law enforcement. These people are trained to look for anything out of the ordinary. I'd rather not do anyting to draw attention to myself. Given a choice between having to explain my (perfectly legal, yet highly suspicious) behavior to a cop or passing on a cache, I pass.

Shreveport is in the opposite corner of the state from where I'm located. Today we are having a little event cache in New Orleans. If it goes well, I'm going to try to have them more often. I know it's a long drive, but you are welcome to come to any events we have down here. So far, I have attended two Louisiana events, and on both occasions we had cachers attending from out of state. At the most recent campout, we even had a cacher from Alabama stop in to join the fun. Anyway, good luck on your next hunt.

Yep, adding the pages to your "favorites" in your browser is the way to go. Iff you click on tools, then properties, you can set a homepage. I have the "searching all caches" page for my state set as my home page. This way, whenever I open my browser I can immediately see if any new caches have appeared since the last time I was online.

This is not an attack on urban micros, or any other type of cache or hiding style. I am curious to see if other cachers might pass on caches that put them in very public locations. I personally would rather seek urban caches with high "exposure" with a friend or two. (Nobody want's to be alone when they get carted off to jail.) How many of you are as paranoid as I am about getting hassled for acting strangely while hunting a cache in a public place? Would this cause you to stop your search? Once again, I'm not suggesting that anything needs to be "done" to "fix" the situation. There is nothing wrong with these types of caches. I have skipped a couple of caches that made me feel uncomfortable and returned later. I just want to know how cachers feel when hunting caches in high traffic areas.

The mention of the police scanner got me thinking. I wonder if it would help to avoid being hassled while looking for a cache. For instance, you might hear the "suspicious person" call go out before they actually arrive to interrogate you as to why you are feeling aroung in the shrubbery. Might be a good thing to have while driving.

When did all of this hate for trads surface? I'm tired of seeing all of the threads like "denied, traditional cache unfit for listing" and "why was my traditional cache not approved, your thoughts please". At what point did TPTB decide to have this bias against traditional caches? They are the perfect solution for areas where you can't place a virtual cache. Many of the traditional caches I have found are interesting, educational caches that have brought me to areas I would not have seen otherwise. I fail to see the "overabundance" or "proliferation" of traditional caches that everyone is talking about. Traditionals are a part of this game even as much as locationless caches are, if not more. I don't think traditionals need a separate section like benchmarks. And I don't get the argument that if you could place a virtual, you should try that first. Many traditional caches can stand on their own merit. I think much of the problem is people worrying that traditional caches will block the placement of their virtual caches. Well, tough nuts.

Well, The Godfather part III, or the first season of the Sopranos, where a character mimics Pacino.

Oh, my. I think I'm going to be

I think the mention of "wacking" or "thwacking" speaks to the inaccurate image environmentalists have of the general public. Do you really see people toting chansaws and brush hooks when you envision the "average human" out for a hike? It's a humorous image indeed. Pbx mentioned that the impact a cache has is primarily it's human origin. If a human went out into a wilderness area 50 years ago, and planted an indiginous tree, you wouldn't be able to percieve it's impact unless you knew it was planted by a human. We are made of the same organic compounds that all of earth's inhabitants are comprised of. We are as natural as a sunrise. Should that tree be cut down because it might not have grown there were it not for human influence? How long does human trash have to remain in the environment before it ceases to be trash, and becomes a priceless artifact? Fast forward 50 years and assume we haven't managed to kill everyone and the world is much like it is today. Suppose there are geocaches that have managed to survive in the wilderness with occasional visits and transfers of ownership. These old caches would be priceless tangible relics of a slice of popular culture in the early years of this century. Who knows, there might event be a bunch of activists seeking to "protect" them from visitation by the average bumbling humans. At what point do you make the distinction between nature and humanity, and why must a distinction be made at all? Imagine a species of primates that was somewhere just short of humans in advancement. What if they made simple tools, and altered the environment to better their lives? Is that permissible because they are animals? It sounds a lot like what primitive human cultures did, and still do in remote parts of the world. I often wonder if environmental extremists (not run of the mill environmentalists) think the world would be a better place if 90% of the human population simply disappeared, and the remainder ran around barefoot and clad in loincloths. Whether you believe in creation or evolution, one thing is true of humans. We were made from the same clay as the rest of the earth, and as such are no more, or less entitled to roam it as any other creature on four legs, or two. If geocaching is unacceptable, (and we agree that it is no more intrusive than countless other human activities), then human presence at all is unacceptable. Finally, none of the cities and towns that are here started as anything other than 100 percent pure wilderness. Would you sacrifice your home, and those of your family and friends so the land could be returned to it's natural state? Nothing screws up a nice view like a suburb. Kinda makes a little geocache sound a lot more reasonable now, doesn't it?

From another angle, If the question is "should it be allowed?' then for areas where the activity of caching doesn't break the rules, it already is allowed. A cache placed in a park off trail (where leaving the trail is forbidden) is not allowed. So, it shouldn't have been approved in the first place. If a cache meets the current guidelines of the site for listing, and doesn't break any laws, rules, or regulations imposed by the land in which it is placed, it should be allowed to stay. If the question is, "Should people be conducting human activities in the wilderness?", then that's a bit harder to answer. A tree, deer, moose, chipmunk, fern or mushroom will never know the difference between an ammo box and a rock. The cache itself isn't going to affect them one bit. On the other hand, a person who is capable of understanding the difference might find the evidence of man's presence offensive. After all, the reason they hiked ten miles was so they could "get away" from civilization and the evidence thereof. A well hidden cache should not be visible to the casual observer. This is necessary to ensure it's longevity. A beneficial side-effect of it's concealment is that it won't present an eyesore in natural surroundings. In areas where off trail hiking is allowed, it is understood that the area can support that kind of use. A cache placed off trail in such an area would be perfectly acceptable. If the trampling and branch-breaking are too much for the area, it likely will not allow off-trail hiking and geocaches would be disallowed automatically. (Because you have to hike to get to them.) Anyone who does a little research will know that animals often have a far greater impact on an area than a cache and it's visitors ever could. Think of deer scraping and rubbing their antlers on trees, stripping the bark from them. Beavers flooding valleys, cutting down groves of saplings and building dams. Bears ripping open rotting trees and scattering beehives in search of honey. Squirrels burying caches of nuts. Wild boar rooting up the leaf litter in search of food. Bison creating wallows in the land that last for centuries. A man moves across the land using half as many feet as most animals. A hike to a cache and the subsequent search really don't have much impact at all relative to the "natural" processes that go on every second out there. Yes, people do leave trash in the woods. If you want to stop that, educate people as a whole. Geocachers are made up of all kinds of people. Some are responsible, some are not. This is true for any group venturing into the wild with any purpose in mind. Is it the geocache itself that spoils the wilderness, or the fact that it brings more people out there that concerns you so much? What separates humans from animals that makes their presence so repugnant to environmentalists?

When I first started, I used to wedge my yellow etrex like that. It worked ok for all but the most agressive turns. Unfortunately, it had two downfalls (actually more if you count the ones caused by the agressive turns). One was that it started to leave an impression in the otp of my dashboard, the other was that it didn't work well when I had the data cable attached. My solution was to purchase a cheap universal radar detector mount and cut a slot in it. I slip the belt clip on my Vista's case through the slot, and it holds it in place just fine.

Another point I'd like to add concerning "human presence". What about the humans? Nothing spoils the wilderness like humans do. The last thing I want to see when I'm in the wild is evidence of human presence. Once, I found a toothbrush carelessly left beside a stream in the Whiskeytown Natl. Recreation Area in CA. I freaked out and ran about wailing and gnashing my teeth. When I came out of my wacko state, I realized that I had entirely forgotten to trash out the toothbrush, and freaked out all over again. The second time I came to my senses, I nearly freaked right out yet again when I realized how much carbon dioxide I must have exhaled into the pristine wilderness around me. It might be colorless and odorless, but under the right conditions, it could aid in the formation of carbonic acid and dissolve a few atoms off of some cave formation somewhere. The whole experience had me so flustered that I was totally unprepared for what happened next. As I was leaving the area, I encountered one of the worst abominations, the most horrible blight upon the land ever concieved in the darkest reaches of the netherworld... another human! I was aghast. I could barely breath (good for the environment) and I froze solid in my tracks and muttered "You have a nice day too.", hoping that they wouldn't shed too many skin cells as they hiked up the trail. The experience has changed me. I have gone to great pains to avoid any evidence of human presence when venturing into the wilds. I no longer take a mirror with me, for that very reason.

I have seen some really neat virtual cache pages, but I haven't been to any that I enjoyed as much as the physical caches I have found. Given a choice between only ever doing virtual or physical caches from now on, I'd choose to do physical caches. I'm not opposed to finding virts, but if they were the only type of cache to look for, I'd go find something else to do with my GPS.

Wow, I thought I'd gotten that hook out! Ok, if a cache is hidden from view and the only way to know it is there is to have viewed the listing for it, how does it affect the "wilderness experience" for a person who is not aware of it's presence? Is it the idea that when you look out upon a vast expanse of land, there might be some object left there by a human that bothers you? If you have enjoyed hiking through the wild before you knew about caching, has that knowledge spoiled the experience for you? There is almost no place left on this planet that has not already been explored. The only way to feel like a true explorer is through suspension of disbelief. The trail you walk on was made by a man. Yet you can still feel like the first person to turn that corner and see each new vista for the first time. Don't let the fact that a few carefully concealed caches might be out there spoil your enjoyment of the great outdoors.

Yep. JMB, if you lend me your cellphone, I'll call a friend with a boat and give them the coordinates. Then there will be a way out of here. I think Rusty touched on what I was thinking about. What use is recreational land if you protect it to the point that nobody can use it? We already have lands set aside for that purpose. If geocaching is too hard on the land, so is any human presence at all. pbexplorer, would you vow to never visit the wilderness again ifeveryone else agreed to do the same? That's the only way to truly protect it. If the goal is to preserve the land for future generations, should that come at the cost of the present generation's deprival? Wild places are beautiful. I'm sure you will agree. But the only way to know this is to visit them. We are a country, and we share our public lands. No one person is more deserving than another to experience that beauty. The ways in which we choose to experience it are as different as one person from the next. Caching is simply another way to experience it.

Ouch! Let me get this hook out... Ok, I don't believe a geocache has enough impact to warrant banning them from wilderness areas. In fact, the only places caches shouldn't be allowed are those that don't allow people to visit at all. If the area can support any public human activity, it can support caching.

It's important to read the cache descriptions. It's also important to label caches correctly when they are created. Mislabelling caches renders PQ filters useless. Ever notice that multi virts and multi physical caches both fall under the same category?

Interesting question! I'd probably kick a little $$ to the cache owner, but don't hold me to it. If it was a multi-million dollar jackpot, I could see perhaps donating some to some local parks in the name of geocachers. Kinda hard to say no to caching when a cacher is pumping money into your park. I'd also give some to public TV which has greatly enriched my life. As for the rest? I'm prety sure you need at least 400 horsepower to get those FTF's. I'd have quite the cachemobile.

Forensic Cacheologist?

I think that the next time you decide to go find a cache, you ought to think about it a bit and perhaps makes some more forum posts first. How can you expect the cache hider to take your log seriously if you have no posting experience? That's supposed to be funny, BTW.

Almost all GPS recievers use WGS84, and DD'mm.mmm as default settings. All you need to do is reset your unit to it's defaults, and it should be right on. After doing so, I'd delete the caches you loaded, and reload them again.

That really friggin sucks. Anyone should feel comfortable to post in here regardless of their find count. I have yet to understand why someone with several hundred finds holds more intelligent integrity than someone with less finds. More isn't always better. I'm in total agreement. Tghe forums are for everyone. The idea that people "need to grow a thick skin" is repugnant. That may be the way it is, but that doesn't mean it should be that way. Rather than have the forums full of thick-skinned insensitive users, why not tone it down a notch so new users who come here for help and inspiration can ask their questions without fear of ridicule?

I've percieved hostility in the forums. I think Carleenp summed it up well in her post. There is a lot of subtle sarcasm and people who may be too blunt or sarcastic in their posts. And the reader's perception of that sarcasm and bluntness does indeed have a lot to do with how hostile a post appears to them. I am a little too quick to be angered by hostile replies to my posts, and have gotten PM's and email abut some of the responses I've made. Then again, the way I see it is if someone feels the need to publicly attack someone else, then they ought to deal with a public response in kind. I often wonder why people can't bring themselves to disagree in a diplomatic fashion. It's almost a game to see how deep beneath the layers of sarcasm they can bury their true intent. I never felt the need to respond to a post privately. (Although I have responded to PM's and emails.) The fact is, some people are simply incapable of defending their position, and don't have the tools to do so without employing personal ridicule and attacks. I admire those forum members who can disagree thoughtfully and politely. It takes a lot more mastery of the language to do that, than to be sarcastic.