zoothornrollo

We completed the Texas County Challenge (254 counties) back in 2010. When we started out on our summer 2011 roadtrip with PQs just loaded with caches, we realized that we didn't have a plan for picking and choosing the ones we wanted to stop for so we just arbitrarily decided to do the next cache after crossing each county line. Since then, we have planned our roadtrips to pass through new counties and now have cached in 1083 out of 3142 U.S. counties and have completed the Oklahoma and Louisiana County Challenges. I would love to see posts about the experiences of others who keep track of their counties.

Hoping to get to this cache in a few weeks. We don't have 4WD on our pickup, but it seems like we should be able to get to this cache without any problem. Any advice or information about the condition of the road up to the pass?

Thanks for the link. We have already contacted the district office, but got a general response.

South of Yerington GC4CM8T is at the top of the star. Looks like NF land just to the west.

We will not be cooking or using a campfire, only sleeping in the back of the truck.

We will be out in Nevada next month to do the Nevada Star. Just wondering how feasible it would be to pull off the road and sleep in our pickup truck out near the star. We usually camp in developed campgrounds, but they are few and far between out in that area. We travel in a pickup with a camper shell and just need a place to pull off the road, climb into the back and get some sleep before continuing on the power trails nearby.

Just like the titles of some caches, figuring out the meaning of a hint can enhance the experience. If it makes no sense to the cacher, so be it. Others might enjoy it. No one is obligated to leave a hint at all.

We have cached in 49 states so far. What one CO in east Texas designates a 2/4 would rate a 1.5/1.5 in the mountains. We need 2 more spaces on our D/T grid and will finish it someday, hopefully with older caches instead of ones someone put out recently with the intent of providing local cachers with ratings for their grids.

Our first experience with a multi put us off them for a while when we figured out that the final stage was miles from the first stage with no real assurance that we had the correct final coordinates. Since then, however, we have sought some great multis. Most memorable was GCFA7D "South Kaibab to Bright Angel" at Grand Canyon National Park... 6 Stages total, 7 mile hike down on the South Kaibab Trail and 9 miles up on the Bright Angel Trail. Each Minnesota State Park has a multi as part of their "Avian Adventure" series... we did several last summer and each one takes you to 3 or 4 points of interest in the state park.

We have attended only one GW - the one in Warren, PA. - because it was in July. A consideration for us more than location is the calendar date. Late May is just a terrible time for us teachers and for families with children in school. Have it in late June or July and we can make it to almost any location. Just a thought... We love Idaho! Lots of geoart, too.

I rarely check in on these forums, but this thread caught my eye. We live in Houston, TX and are anxiously counting down the days until our summer roadtrip to NM, AZ, NV, and CA. Reading about all of these adventures and seeing the awesome pictures (please, everyone, identify the locations) whet my appetite for our upcoming hiking and camping adventures. Last weekend, we made the 3 hour drive to Lafayette, Louisiana to do the Louisiana Star. We have now completed the Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana stars and plan to do NM, NV, and CA stars in July. Happy Trails, all!!!

I cant get the Kindle to show the information about individual caches when looking at the maps. Caches show up, but when I hover over the icon, the information box doesn't pop up. Anyone else have this problem? Any fixes?

I am so glad that I found this thread. Mr. Zoot and I were discussing this very issue because we have noticed a few cachers in our area have been replacing "missing" containers when they come up empty at a site. We agree with previous posters: putting out a container in someone else's location is not acceptable. We think that is just a case of wanting a smiley just to boost a find count, plain and simple, under the guise of being "helpful and friendly." Replacing a wet, mushy or missing log is something altogether different. We did that ourselves twice in the past week at seldom-visited caches. We have no problem claiming the find because we actually did "find" it.

My husband and I do all of our caching together and really don't like to go out in groups (with an occasional exception when we are at an event). It is hard enough to be stealthy with the two of us, let alone a group of 4 or 5 when we are caching in high-muggle areas. I think everyone should sign the log with their individual names...that's how we did it at an event last weekend; we passed the log around and everyone signed it.

I would peg it at 8. We go out every weekend and plan 2-3 day trips to areas that are dense with caches. Since we live in a large urban area, we have many unfound caches within 50 miles of our house. We have 2000+ finds in the last 16 months. Where we tend to draw the line is: phoning a fellow cacher to be told where to look (we have only asked an owner for an additional hint about 2 or 3 times); "power-caching" in large groups and sharing the solutions to puzzles (we do like to go out occasionally with some of our school-age geobuddies if we are going to be in an area that will interest them and we are not pressed for time); searching in the middle of the night for FTFs (the FTFs we have are found between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. - we are up early anyway and prefer to be on the road before daybreak when it is still cool and there are few muggles out and about). We do spend time on the local forum every day and look for future caches a lot. There are so many places we want to visit and we get much enjoyment from visiting historical sites and hiking trails we never knew existed. I anticipate that our find rate will begin to slow down with the price of gasoline becoming a consideration in far we can travel.

We are contemplating a trip to Port Aransas/Rockport/Corpus Christi area in July. Perhaps we can time it to be in your area on the 19th. We haven't cached that part of the state yet, so I am hoping we can get down your way.

We are from Houston but have made 2 trips up to San Augustine County. The Pastor and Pastor's Wife have put out several series along the back roads of the county, many of them pertaining to his family history. The cache pages are very interesting to read and some of them display his talents as a poet. Be forwarned, many of the roads are unpaved and on National Forest lands. We haven't hiked the Four Cache Loop yet, but have heard many area cachers talk about it in glowing terms. We will do it when the weather cools down again (sometime in 2009 ).

That's only 8 states, BTW. MA = MASS. I'm guessing it was meant to be ME for Maine.

My husband and I do all of our caching together and we tell our grown children where we will be if we do a short out-of-town trip. I do admit that we were looking for an excuse not to attend my stepbrother's Christmas party/family gathering last December, but decided to go anyway because we could search for the caches near his house and make the trip worthwhile. He lives about 45 miles away, so I guess you can say we were "multi-tasking" on that trip.

We found a cache tucked away inside the tank of a toilet in the woods.

It is almost impossible to read my Legend HCx without the backlight on. Is there a way to increase the contrast on the unit, so I don't have to use so much battery life?

There is a cacher in my area going by the name of "Mousetrap" who leaves mousetraps in ammo cans as a sig item...I've never seen one set to go off, though. This might be a little off topic, but have you ever seen cuss words written on a cache log? Last summer I was in a local park with one of my students and her mother orienting them to geocaching when we pulled out a log and saw a cuss word written on it. I was somewhat mortified about it because the child was only 10 years old. I have never seen another one since then and I have almost 2,000 finds....not a bad ratio, but very unfortunate that it happened when I was with this student.

"Oh YAY! It's a hike in the woods." My better half and I have been camping and hiking in all of the lower 48 states for 31 years now. We like to camp in national and state parks for a few days and do several day hikes. We traveled like this with our four kids even when they were less than a year old and were carried in a baby carrier on my back. After having said this, the most interesting and surprising thing about geocaching is the discovery of oodles of hiking trails in urban areas around my home that I never knew existed. Our favorite day of caching involves a hike of 3-5 miles on trails that have caches every half mile or so. Two days ago we were on a trail near a creek and we had to crawl across a log on our hands and knees to get to an island to find the cache. That was a satisfying find!!! Another favorite of mine was a lonely film can tied to a magnolia tree at the end of a one mile trail that hadn't been visited in a year. We will do the "magnetic keyholders on the guardrails" and "film cans in trees near the mall" caches if we are in the area, but those are not the type of caches that keep us interested in this game. We will walk away from a "pill bottle in a bush in front of a fast food restaurant" cache most of the time. When we do resort to those, you can hear me muttering "I hate bush caches." I am anxiously awaiting a road trip this summer that gets me back into the mountains and forests and on the hiking trails.

I haven't read all of this thread, but it seems to be a good place to ask this question. Does GC.com do anything if a cacher's e-mail bounces back to them? I've sent multiple e-mails through them, and haven't received any reply. It might be that the cacher has changed e-mail accounts, and hasn't received any of my pleas to put the TB back in action. I would think that when an e-mail is sent through them, they would find out if it wasn't deliverable, and could at least de-activate the e-mail link on that cacher's page. I'd really like to know if I'm being ignored, or if they don't even know that I'm wondering.

Have come across copperheads three times in the Houston area in the past year. Makes you wonder how many you come close to and don't see.