Team BowMint

Man, the scouts have twisted a lot of people. The concept of "leave-no-trace" is really bizarre to me, especially when talking about geocaching. The wole (sport?) is about leaving somehting for others to find. Look, I don't enjoy finding other's garbage in the wilderness, but a trail, trail markers, camp-fire ring of rocks, bottle of water, wood pile etc? I quite enjoy finding these sorts of outdoorsy things. I was never in the scouts. I did hike the Appalacian Trail though and you learn that you leave NOTHING behind; no trail, no trash no fire rings, no TP, no food. Of course you're going to find trail blazes and shelters and fire rings at designated camps. But For some, nature means that you are there with nature and only nature, even if it is an illusion. You want to believe you are the first to be in that spot even if thousands have stood right there before you. I would imagine that geocaching has brought many folks closer to nature that moght not otherwise make the trip. That is OUTSTANDING in it's own right! Bravo for the hobby!

My experience is that most caches are located near preexisting game-trails. However, I placed a cache about 250m from parking. I was shocked when after 9 searches, a well defined geotrail had formed. It was to the point that the city parks manager asked me to move the cache. So I moved it so that it could be found while standing on an unofficial dirt mountain bike path. (http://coord.info/GC2AEME) This trail was in the grass and weed in the spring, so likely the most vulnerable place and time. However, I see this as a benefit. Trails like this keep the searchers from doing damage (less significant I will admit) all over the area. I like edscott's perspective. No mater how much 'damage' a geotrail makes, the local animals are making more. Does is really matter if there is a 1' path beaten into the grass? Compare that to the total amount of grass in the area. Of course, in a maintained park, or a 'sensitive' area, these points may not be valid. These points are related to 'typical' environment. All good points. My concern would be, however; if we as a group are altering the terrain by placing a cache then are we being good stewards of the hobby? As cachers, are we not inherently ambassadors and as such shouldn't we make sure our actions don't reflect negatively on the community?

We call these "Deer runs." A worn area or bent down grass area leading into the woods off of a trail/path caused by many footsteps off the beaten path... You can always tell, when caching, where to leave the established trail/path to go bushwacking by the deer paths... In a way, it's poor Leave No Trace-manship... Not sure how they can be avoided though. Eventually, these deer paths will become trails and then start eroding without trail crews to help stop the erosion... Has this been addressed? Any ideas on how to avoid creating inadvertent trails? I can only think of one; don't use a deer path. But unfortunately, this is the path of least resistance and thorns/briars and the natural urge will be to use it. It’s much harder to walk through the underbrush. Plus your compass points thata-way. Any thoughts? Yeah, humans are God's (or Mother Nature's) creation too. Unless there is obvious damage to the area which will NEVER, EVER, recover, just move about your business and think about bigger and more important issues. I hear what you're saying. I just like practicing leave-no-trace... I want others to be able to experience nature as if I had never been there. This was kinda imprinted on me when hiking the AT... I'm not stressing over this, just thought I'd ask if it has been considered and thought it'd make a good conversation...

Unfortunately, I only call them Deer runs because that is what they look like to me. The paths I am referring to in this thread all lead to a cache and were formed by Nikes not hooves... My kids picked up on this quickly and would try to bolt off the established path onto a Deer run if we were close to the cache because they knew where it would lead. I had to change the Team's "Rules" a bit to stop this practice...

This comment on a different thread prompted me thinking... We call these "Deer runs." A worn area or bent down grass area leading into the woods off of a trail/path caused by many footsteps off the beaten path... You can always tell, when caching, where to leave the established trail/path to go bushwacking by the deer paths... In a way, it's poor Leave No Trace-manship... Not sure how they can be avoided though. Eventually, these deer paths will become trails and then start eroding without trail crews to help stop the erosion... Has this been addressed? Any ideas on how to avoid creating inadvertent trails? I can only think of one; don't use a deer path. But unfortunately, this is the path of least resistance and thorns/briars and the natural urge will be to use it. It’s much harder to walk through the underbrush. Plus your compass points thata-way. Any thoughts?

Could you expand on "Proxy" for me please?

False. Smart phones use a combination of a few satellites and cell towers and work pretty well where there is good cell signal but if you get in a low reception area they don't work nearly as well. A hand held GPS uses all available satellites so it doesn't matter were the cell towers are. Battery life is another factor, when using the smart phone in GPS mode they eat batteries. If you ever decide to hide a cache you will definitely need to use a GPS, in fact if I understand the guidelines it is required. Using my phone's GPS along with the APP GPS Status I usually get 10/10 sats and a GREAT signal... Battery life, however is a HUGE factor. I have an extended life battery for my Droid HTC and it will still run down. Fortunatley the type of caching we do now is car based so it stays plugged in en route... this helps.

Good Thread to read Phones are fine for certain types of caching...

The EXACT same thing happened to me in my first week of caching. An itty bitty was magnetized in the middle of a no parking sign. We signed the tiny log and while placing the nano back, the magnet separated form the body and the body fell into the DEEP hole the no parking sign was in! We removed the sign which was by no means secure in the hole; my kids stuck their arms into the hole up to their elbows looking for it but no joy. I logged this as a NM and e-mailed the CO offering to buy a new one. I never got a response and I noticed the cache was back up and running a week later... I guess this is the nature of the beast with these tiny caches...

I posted mine yesterday. For those of you who don't know what we are talking about: the official geocaching app for Android phones has an issue on certain handsets, including the HTC EVO. It's a battery hog - which isn't too surprising, and by itself would be no big deal. The problem is that it continues to drain the battery even after closing the app. Even if you go into the settings menu and "kill" the app, or use an app killer program, it still somehow manages to consume power. Lots and lots of power. The only way to stop it is to turn the phone completely off, then turn it back on. I have found on the HTC Incredible, you can go into the battery widget and Force Close the app from there... A hassle, but you don't have to re-boot the phone at least... I've tried this and it still runs on mine after. On what phone?

Force close in the Battery widget that you have surely already installed...

I posted mine yesterday. For those of you who don't know what we are talking about: the official geocaching app for Android phones has an issue on certain handsets, including the HTC EVO. It's a battery hog - which isn't too surprising, and by itself would be no big deal. The problem is that it continues to drain the battery even after closing the app. Even if you go into the settings menu and "kill" the app, or use an app killer program, it still somehow manages to consume power. Lots and lots of power. The only way to stop it is to turn the phone completely off, then turn it back on. I have found on the HTC Incredible, you can go into the battery widget and Force Close the app from there... A hassle, but you don't have to re-boot the phone at least...

I think the huge ammount of folks that smart phones have introduced to the world of geocaching alone is worth gratitutde. No way was I going to spend money on a new GPS and cut into my flying lesson's budget to go find tupperware. But then my brother showed me the Andriod Geocache app for $10.00 and 2 months later and an extended battery for my HTC Incredible and my team is over 70 caches! I have had nothing but good times using my Driod for caching. It has gotten us close enough to all caches and the one's that seem questionable as far as ground zero,w ell a quick read of the previous logs reveal that others have found that GZ is a bit off too! I love the convienience of being able to spontaniously use the Driod in the field without having to worry about PQs and such. Until I go to hike and cache in canyons or rainforests, the Driod will do for me. Besides the next GPS I buy will be for the plane....

For mileage, to show more accurately the route the bug took or e.g. perhaps the caches were micro caches, too small for you to drop off the bug but you can show the owner that it went to those locations or e.g. the bug wants to go SW, but you have a very famous landmark near you with a cache by it. The owner would probably be interested to know their bug went there so you could take it to that cache first, do a "dip" and mention the special significance of the location, and then take the bug off SW and leave it somewhere in the direction it needs to be or e.g. the mission says it wants to visit zoos. The cache by your local zoo is a micro but you could take it there, do a "dip", maybe take a photo of it by the zoo entrance and add it to the dip log, then place it into another cache some distance away. You get the idea? MrsB I do get the idea now! Thank you for the information and your help!

Exactly what I'm hoping for, a solution not to fix the issue of bugs being stolen or "misplaced" but a way to fix the misinformation. If lazy CO's or bug owners wont do it, allow those of us that want to help do it!

No disrespect and please understand I am a complete neophite to this hobby still; but this, to me, is the wrong answer. There has to be a better way...

All great ideas IMHO.. I use the Driod software and don't have an option, (that I've found) to log a TB in a cache wev'e found. I have to sign on at home or use the Droid's browser and do it that way on the tiny screen and we know that's a hassle. Allow folks in the field to immediately log if a TB in the inventory is missing!

writes mystery novels...

Well, an easy fix, or at least a help, would be if everyone would log that the item is missing. Seems around here, no one is doing it... Seems like good etiquette would reason: If you find a cache that is missing the item listed in the inventory, log it as such so the person behind you will know not to come lookin if a TB is their goal that day...

Good! Now, where do I get the instructions of which you speak?Nevermind, I found them... How do I identify my local reviewer and why isn't s/he looking at this issue in the first place?

So our team loves the idea of Travel Bugs, moving other's along and starting our own. While we are still new and our data is relatively slim, we have already found what seems to be a disturbing trend regarding TBs. We like to seek out caches that have TBs or coins listed in the inventory. 95% of these caches have been devoid of what the inventory states should be there, 95%!!! That sucks. The first TB we found was a red race car in a race; we were super excited. We put the racer in a cache in less than a week of having it and we watched the cache to see who would get it and were it would go next. The next entry on the cache log page said there was no TB in the cache, it WAS there, so they stole it or some muggle stole it in the interim....??? so: 1. Why does it take so long for folks to clean up these missing bugs? Why can't they just virtually remove them from their cache inventories so teams like us don’t waste time looking for phantom TBs? Can’t there be a TB police force for each region who cleans this up? Some TB’s have been listed in a cache for 8 years and clearly are not there, shouldn’t the CO remove the TB from his inventory??? 2. We just spent a lot of time and effort making up cool TB's for a race, we read a thread on how to get them moved a long and how to keep them more unattractive for collectors by drilling holes etc, what do you suppose the chances of these TBs getting moved are? 5%??? 3. Does anyone have a more positive outlook on TBs? It’s discouraging for us noobs…

So let me get this straight: I can take a bug with me to visit say 6 caches around my home and log the bug in and then out of each cache and then just leave it in one and see where it goes? And if I'm correct in my thinking this is OK, then why would you want to? Just for milage?

How do you mean? Is this called dipping?

These are then basically designed to house travelers? I take it they are near highways or airports or the like?

What does dipping it mean please? Also, I'd like to tag onto this topic instead of creating a new one. Re. Travel Bugs; I have discovered that there are many caches that represtent via the cache page inventory that they have TB or coins in them. I seek these out only to discover that the bug or coin was placed in the cache in 2008 and it is no longer there. Why do folks wait so long to retire their bugs/coins or to at least virtually remove them from the caches when it is clear they are missing? I would find these caches eventually anyway, but It'd be nice to know that the inventory was correct and the system is working...