J-Way

[insert obligatory reference to the hazards of attempting to find any cache without reading the description first, much less one with the higher difficulty rating typically associated with night caches.] Edit: Drat, Kit Fox beat me to it. I don't think I've ever seen a "night only" cache listed as a traditional, but I HAVE seen many traditional caches that could only be hunted at certain times. Caches in parks that are only open during daylight hours, caches in areas only available during business hours when nearby businesses are open, caches at businesses that are off limits during the day and can only be hunted after 5:00 PM, caches that are only available on certain days, etc. I have one that is in a daylight-only park, and one that the property owner requested NOT be hunted at night (she wanted it available only when the business is open, but I talked her out of that one). It's not fun to have a cache archived because the land owner revoked permission after non-description-reading cachers were trespassing on private property during off-limit times. But back OT, this request comes up ever few weeks or so (twice this week, so far). A few people like it, most responders don't like it, the existing attributes that identify night caches are mentioned, and the subject is dropped until next time.

Terrain: Since the only access is via expensive commercial ferry, private boat, or swimming, I'll agree with the 5-star terrain. Caches on islands with public ferries, especially if people live full-time on the island, would not qualify (no difference between a public ferry and a toll road). Difficulty: I fail to see any way to justify listing this as a 5-star difficulty. You show up at the designated location (ranger station) at the designated time (9AM) and sign the log. Classic 1-star event. A simple one-night primitive camping requirement is not a 5-star difficulty requirement. So unless you're planning on sneaking around the night before and stealing people's GPS receivers, or hiding the ranger station in a remote corner of the island, or releasing a pack of rabid squirrel monkeys, this is NOT a difficulty 5. But you didn't come here to ask what we thought about your rating, you came here to advertise the event. So now you get credit for listing (and probably also for attending) a 5/5 event, whether it meets the guidelines or not.

That's what I go with. I usually call it a game, or occasionally a recreational activity. Any activity can be called a "hobby", so that doesn't help a non-cacher understand what it is.

Clan Riffster: Logic does not apply to protectors of the environment. I'm working on a project in the desert where we already have final approval for construction. This approval was obtained a few years ago when the project was first proposed, but then the project was shelved for a while. Construction will involve building temporary construction pads at 300+ sites, obliterating everything in about a 200-ft square around each site. Plus access roads to the site. Plus other construction damage. We're supposed to start digging this fall. We needed geotechnical information for design, so we had to get soil borings at 150ish of the sites. In spite of already having approval for construction, it took FOUR MONTHS and many many thousands of dollars to get approval for a drilling crew to punch a 12"ø hole in the ground. We finally had to send geotech representives, reps from our client, reps from BLM, and reps from various cultural and environmental groups on a tour to visit each site to look at and approve every single boring site, access route, etc. More monitors will have to follow along with each drilling crew every day, I guess to make sure a tortoise doesn't sprint out of his burrow and attack them. The irony was that after spending TWO WEEKS in the Sonora desert in May, having to move test locations to protect this bush or that empty hole or the possibly painted rock over there, we get to an area where another company has already started construction on a similar adjacent project. The looks on their faces when they saw the destruction from the existing construction pads was almost worth the heat. Our pads will be even bigger. The bush, hole, and possibly painted rock will be obliterated in a few months. Yes, this survey needs to be done before construction to keep from damaging sensitive areas of the environment. But don't waste money by re-doing surveys and delaying projects. I'm really not surprised that California is going bankrupt.

According to the Garmin website, the MSRP on the 60CSx is $399.99, unless you want the "Pacific" version which is $535.70. Since you appear to live in Canada and would get the "Americas" version, your savings is only about $104.49 instead of $240.49. But it's still a decent price from a reputable re-seller. If you want cheaper you'll probably have to buy used from eBay or from the "GPS Garage Sale" forum here. Please note that this unit only comes with a general base map. You'll need to purchase additional maps if you want topo (for off-trail hiking) or turn-by-turn navigation in your car.

While needing maintenance, the other cache is still there and the owner has logged in within the last month. So the chances of it getting archived by a reviewer are pretty much nil. Plus, some people see a wet log as "normal", probably a result of finding too many caches in poor containers. Pretty much your only option here is to move your cache, update the coords, and try again. Well, I guess you could sabotage the other cache, but that could get you banned.

I thought all reviewers were really sock-puppies run by the puppymonster?

Just to clarify, I disagree with putting it on a cache but I wouldn't deface it. It's close to the line for me, but it doesn't appear to be vulgar. Other people might have a line in a different place and would consider that to be porn. I would simply put all your caches on my ignore list so I wouldn't accidentally find one while with my son or showing new cachers around the area. I'd hate to have someone permanently turned off from caching if that were the first cache they ever found.

I was told it was on a "retirement tour" by the people signing the log as I went through the museum. I'm glad I'm not the only one shocked that people would attempt to log this, and I'm also glad the cache page was locked It was interesting to see an ammo can that had been in a forest fire, though. And I loved the official log(s) from GWV!

I think it's gotten a lot better recently. One thing that helps is to change the number of items displayed to 50. Most of my lists are less than 50 items, so there's no need to change pages. Lists longer than 50 items require far fewer page changes, so less chance of hitting that error.

I agree with Jackalgirl. That's nude. Maybe appropriate as a piece of art (there's a nude statue in a public place less than a mile from me right now), but maybe not as cache art. I'd hate to have to answer questions from my 4-year-old after he saw that sticker.

Yes. I've never seen first-hand evidence of this, but I've heard many tales told in the forums about: 1. Prolific cacher (very high find count) hits an area. Cacher's signature stickers are found in some logs, not in others. Maybe the start and end caches on a several mile trail loop have signatures, but none of the middle caches show any evidence of visitation. ALL caches in area are subsequently logged as found. Did the cacher find all those non-signed caches or not? 2. Virtuals are often logged as a "Found It" even when the cacher hasn't been within thousands of miles of the location. Sometimes the questions-to-answer are located using internet research, sometimes the cache owner doesn't get the emails anymore, and sometimes there are no verification requirements whatsoever. 3. Cacher is trying to finish some challenge and needs to find a particular cache, but cannot for some reason (can't get to the location, can't find the container, not enough time, etc.). Gives up, logs it as a find, and goes on to the challenge. 4. Cacher (usually new) gets bored with the standard game and starts randomly logging finds for whatever reason. This usually doesn't last long.

So create a radial PQ, manually remove some of the caches (I assume using GSAK?), then somehow using the revised list to create a Bookmark list? Sounds intriguing.... There's no way to do it "officially". Maybe someone could write a GSAK macro for this, though.

According to the owners of the letterboxes, one of them has been published (Reverberations, GC1RPAZ, the one at the church) but the other is still being held up. It's too close to other caches in the area. Everyone wants it at the museum (the owner of the storefront, the owner of the cache, etc.), so it might get an exception, it might not. BOTH of the containers at the train were for GCHJ5A. The event organizers felt that a hide-a-key only a few feet from GZ of a Mega event would be overwhelmed, so they replaced it with an ammo box. They put keys in it and magnets on it so the description would still fit. So only one smiley for that even if you signed both logs. There was one more cache at the museum, but that cache was on a "retirement tour". The cache was archived after the container was heavily damaged in a fire, but apparently it is carried around from event to event so people can still log it. I didn't sign that one because I don't want to claim a "find" on a cache that's listed in an area where I've never been.

I "found" (i.e., followed the crowds) four unpublished caches at GWVII. There were two letterbox hybrid caches ("Reverberations" and "GW7 Memories") where I was handed a slip of paper with the names and coordinates. The hand-carved stamp for GW7 Memories was carved by Team Bear-Cat. Does anyone know if they will be published here? Are they in the queue? Also, there were two containers within a few feet of each other at the caboose. One was a hide-a-key and the other was a custom-camouflaged ammo can. Anyone know what's up with those two? They appear to be hidden at the posted coordinates for the Mystery and Wherigo caches, but the finals for both of those were elsewhere.

You don't say....

Go to your "My Profile" page. Look on the right side, down near the bottom, for the "Premium Features" section. Click on "Set up Notifications". You can have the notifications sent to any email address, and most mobile phone service providers have a way to send email messages to your phone as a text message. For Verizon it's nnnnnnnnnn@vtext.com. The n's are your phone number with area code. You'll have to set up notifications for all cache types you're interested in, and you should note that the coordinates and description are NOT included in the notification email. You have to surf to the web site for that info. [Edit: Or, do what MM said. Apparently I type too slowly.]

Depends on the reviewer. Around here it's a hard rule, with few if any exceptions. In other parts of the world it's more subjective. You have to request an exception to get within 528-ft, but it's possible. And then there are cases where two caches are within 528-ft but are inaccessible from each other, such as when separated by a sheer cliff, wide and deep river, or major limited-access highway. I completely agree with this. In some areas, the view in spot "A" might be identical to the view 550-ft away (trees, grass, a trail, maybe a rock or two). In other areas you could have completely different ecological and/or cultural experience only 300-ft away. I've canned two great cache ideas (IMHO ) because of the 528-ft rule. One was a letter-box style follow the instructions trail in a local park that was blocked by a guard-rail cache on a road way up the hill. I eventually listed this one on Terracaching.com with good reviews. The other was going to be a series of letter-box hybrid caches ending at a hidden monument to the Trail of Tears. But the final was blocked by a small cache in the back of a park about 400-ft away, but you'd have to drive about a mile to get there.

I'll second the regional thing. There might be dozens of identical hides in one area, so all the locals know about them. They'll be rated 1.5's. Someone from out of town would rate them as 3 or higher. But it could also go the other way... someone places a new hide for an area rated 3 that is hard for the locals to find, but someone from an area where this hide type is popular can find it in seconds. As for terrain, there are hundreds of caches in the desert in Southern California rated as 1-2 where a 4WD vehicle is required. Why? Probably because anyone caching in the area would already have a 4WD, so it's no big deal. Someone from out of town in a rental car would be in for a major hike in intense heat.

What you mean is, they can't get their GC.com find count incremented. They can certainly log it as a find on the site on which it is still listed.It is possible to log a "find" on an archived cache. Therefore it is possible to log a find on a banned member's caches, whether they have been archived or not. Some of these caches are abandoned in place with an intact log book. Some remain in place but are re-listed on an alternate site. Some are removed, but people log them as finds anyway to boost numbers. Some so-called "cachers" even go to the trouble of searching for banned members and intentionally logging finds on all their archived caches. The banned member DOES still get the log notification, assuming the email address is still valid. But because they can't log into the site, they can't delete the logs.

If you find an archived cache in it's original location and sign the log then I say you have every right to log a "found it" online. But make it clear in your log exactly why you're doing it (found the cache and signed the log), maybe even trying to contact the owner first. I do, however, have problem with "finding" caches that are part of a "retirement tour". The cache has been archived, but the original container and log book are wandering around from event to event. The owner allows people to sign the log and claim a find. There was at least one such cache at GWVII. Logging it would result in my stats showing a "find" in a part of the country where I've never been. I see this as lying to myself, something I try to avoid doing. But, different people play the game in different ways

Some reviewers see the 528-ft "guideline" as an absolute minimum distance decreed by the Great Frog. 550-ft would be better. Others see 528 as a goal, but will accept lesser distances (obviously "reform" reviewers). The reviewer who took that question is apparently from the more conservative school. I was doing a volunteer stint in the shop at the time, but was listening to the speakers. My problem with the answer was that I don't think it actually answered the question. As I understood it, the background was that the questioner hid a cache and got coordinates. Plugging the coordinates into Geocaching.com shows that the nearest cache is 535-ft away, so they write it up and submit for review. The reviewer rejects the submission because he/she shows it as 525-ft from the nearest cache. The question was, why were the numbers different? The reviewer gives the referenced "speech" about going to find somewhere else to hide a cache; 528 isn't a goal to shoot for but a number to avoid. The questioner tries to clarify, and the canned response was "satellite drift". This was also an incorrect response, because the questioner was talking about hard coordinates and math. The questioner had coordinates, and one piece of software returned distance of 535-ft and the other piece of software returned a distance of 525-ft. Why? What software do the reviewers use? The mathematical distance between two points should always be the same, so why the difference? How can a cacher avoid this problem in the future? And yes, an answer to that last question is to use a higher number as a base line, such as 550-ft, or to find a different place to hide. (Webscouter: I saw you and your hat in the audience later, but I didn't get a chance to say "HI")

I was able to find 10 different cache types (icons) Saturday. With a little pre-planning, a careful cacher should be able to get 11 next year including the Ape cache! Well, assuming you haven't already found it. Congrats to WA! Ooops... MOOOOO!

There is a committee consisting of event chairs from the previous GeoWoodstocks.So SOMEONE already knows. I've heard the head chimp at GWVII is vulnerable to liquid bribes...

Someone posted a DNF on one of my easiest caches, so I checked on it. I couldn't find it either, so I went home and disabled it until I could get a replacement container out the next weekend. Then someone finds it on Friday. I'm suspicious, so I email and ask where they found it. Turns out someone had put it back on the wrong side of a boulder, which is why I couldn't find it on the first trip. But I liked the new place even better so I left it there. And no, I didn't log a DNF the first time nor did I log a "Found it" when I finally did locate it.