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Thank you, Mountain Woods, for making the trip from Missouri, and Thank you, Vulture1957, for making the trip from Oklahoma. Thank you, Benchmark Blasterz, for NOT taking that trip to Colorado. We enjoyed your company, and listening to your talk. Yes, the Event at J & J Pizza, ended up being a training session for Geocachers. Many of them came to learn more about Waymarking and we couldn't disappoint them. Next year, the Texas Challenge will be at Seguin, TX. It is located about 25 miles east of San Antonio on I-10. I am in charge of the Committee that will be planning that Mega Event. I will be very busy for the next year. I will be too busy all weekend to host a Waymarkers Gathering Event. If someone else would like to take charge of setting something up, I will do what I can to get it in the schedule. I still have Waymark Stickers available at $1.00 each. I'll pay the postage for delivery within the US. You can contact me at 8nuts1@gmail.com Edit to add the last line.

Thank you. He hasn't tried to talk me out of much, but if he had I'd listen. Some days are good; some days you come out of treatment and sleep 10-12 hours to recuperate.

My experience today tells me this is all fine. Most people don't bother with NM's and NA's or even mention the state of the cache in their logs and anyone who cares enough to post NM or NA has to trail out to the cache first to see what state it's in no matter how much evidence there is to support that it's a piece of unmaintained junk. Ergo all this talk of the CHS and all the effort of integrating it into the system seems, to me at least, to have been a complete waste of everyon'e time as the net result will ultimately be that nothing will improve whatsoever. If this is the party line I'm going to surrender to the party line and just log my find and move on, regardless of what's at GZ. The race to the bottom is complete.

I think this sums up my problem. COs are what makes the game happen. As much as we owe the reviewers that have to put up with COs, we owe the COs more. So if they whine, we should listen. But you talk as if you're thinking, "How dare they whine. They should be grateful we're finding their miserably little caches." The longer this goes on, the more I think that this big push for "quality caches" is a big reason why there are fewer quality caches. The better a CO is, the more likely being called "whiny" will make them lose interest.

Brutalfly, I helped a local teacher who wanted a grant for GPS units and to teach geocaching to her students. The caches would just be for those students, so there was no need to publish them on the GC site. We walked around the school, chose different cache types for different hiding spots. She did a great job planning this activity for her students. On the flip side: I was asked to talk about geocaching (specifically latitude/longitude) to my son's 3rd grade class. I informed the Principal and secretaries in advance what was planned, so they wouldn't panic if a kid reported a suspicious container. Everything went great until it was time to go outside and find the cache, only to learn that the kids who were just outside during recess found it first and were so excited to show everyone else. "Put it back, put it back, quick quick!" Haha.

I just want to reassure you guys that I talk with my principal all the time and we have nothing but the safety and security of the student we teach in mind. We briefly chatted about this and would never make things public so other can come onto the school property. What we normally do is form a committee and discuss these types of ideas to the fullest extent we eliminate anything that could put children in danger especially with all the school things going on. I do have 3 children of my own and would never do anything to put them as well as my students in harms way. If we did do something like this it would be kinda like an Easter egg hunt but just for our school and our students only. There would be no tracker for anybody to come onto the property. Just wanted to clarify all that. We do fully exhaust all good and bad things that could happen before we decide to do anything.

Umm...yeah. Neither of those discussions would happen. Are these hypothetical families also going to talk about the "Friend League", the parents humbly admitting that most of the people listed as "friends" are people they never actually met? "But Daddy, it says they're your friends! My whole existence is a lie!"

I really need someone that has a Garmin 700 to try to talk me through some steps on setting mine up for Geocaching. I have googled all the help and watched the youtube videos but I am still no where close to getting the gps to where I can use it. If anyone could and would help me I really would appreciate it. Thank you. I am replacing an Oregon 450

I have just bought a Garmin 700 and I am having all kinds of problems trying to get it set up. Can someone direct me to someone that might can talk me through setting it up. Google is really not much help to me.

It sounds to me that you didn't understand what was going on. Without seeing the exchange, I don't know what's going on, either, but if the reviewer had to ask what was wrong after you posted your NA, then you should start with discussing privately with the reviewer how your NA could have been more complete. Well, I'm betting you were using the new user interface, so your actual NA was just the modern canned NA, and the reviewer was having trouble figuring out what the problem was based on the Found or DNF log, but all the more reason to talk it over with him.

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I'm planning a trip and would like todo a pocket querrie. Or what ever it is called. I can't do it. Geocahing does not respond to any of my Messages. Can anyone help me with it. I'm new to using a phone. I'm back to caching after some years. I got the premium membership yet wondering why I wasted the time .. Is there a class on this. Is there a place where I can talk to a person? Is there someone who can talk to me like a three year old without a phone.. I don't understand the lingo..of the phone.. pinch, blahhhh.. Isthere anyone near who can help me/ I'm going to quit due to no events...no where to learn no emails answered .. I'm aggravated as hell. I'mplanning a month in advance and I can't get anyone to show me the ropes.. I probalby won't even be able to find this page again. Been asking for a week and now have three weeks until schedule departure. Does anyone have the time , energy to help me.. I never knew I have to be an expert on the laptop and phone to play a game that is outdorors.. smh. I'll have to find something else.. I'm so tired of it.

And previous threads will prove you know my name isn't Bert. So let's talk about insults a bit longer...

Then if that's the case, after three pages just in this thread alone, you must just like to hear yourself talk. If you communicate clearly and effectively, a single post is all that's needed.

Thank you all for responding to my post. From reading these forums, I thought naively, like a Field of Dreams, that if I put great caches in amazing places, they would come. My friend (actually, she's my daughter) and I often work together on caches and we have several collaborations that I am proud of. I used the Nature Preserve as an example because I follow both caches and the difference is stark. I think I just needed to know that it is normal and dedicated COs care lovingly for caches that others rarely visit, and thats ok. So thanks for the pep talk. I'll keep hiding caches that I would like to find in amazing places I would like to share. And go search for that ammo box in the woods you've been thinking about. It will remind you of why you started this hobby while you make some COs day.

i would contact the cache reviewer for your area. each reviewer has quirks they allow and dont. they should be able to help you with the rules. the one major rule i see is no caches on school property. the other would be the amount of gps's needed to accomodate that many people and to have to explain to that many people how to program coords into an infinite variety of gps's that would be there. we helped with one a few years ago and these are just a few ideas. sounds like it would be fun though. have you been to any geocache events/meetings? maybe talk to a few local cachers and get there 2 cents. they might want to help thats how we got into ours. cache on

Thanks everyone. I guess I was aggravated but mostly curious if there was an unwritten code of cacheing conduct. The trail spans 4 towns so far and there is talk of extending it all the way to Lake Michigan. It has been fun biking and cacheing. I just feel like it's less than courteous to span a trail the distance of 2 towns with what appears to be lesser caches when there are many others who would like to place a hide.

I'm curious why you would consider quitting the game just because someone hid a bunch of caches along a trail. You already said you weren't planning on hiding any caches there, so what part of it do you feel has impacted you to the extent that you would consider walking away? I would genuinely like to know. The answer to this will probably vary depending on the region and community. Around here, we don't have a lot of places where you could do something like this simply due to the terrain and type of environment. In general, cachers around here don't hide more caches than they can maintain, with the odd and expected exceptions. They could talk to the CO and see if they could cooperate on hiding caches along the trail. If they only wanted to hide a cache or two, they could contact the CO and see if they can leave a few spots open. This varies depending on the person and region, so there isn't a way to give a specific number. In a desert environment, a retired cacher could realistically hide a huge number of caches that require little to no maintenance, and would have enough time to maintain the ones that do. In an environment that has snow on the ground for half a year, a working cacher could realistically hide and maintain a smaller number of caches that would require more maintenance and have less time to do so. There are many other factors at play, too. If these caches are all being hidden by one CO, you could set up a filter on your email to filter out emails that contain the string "Created by: [insert CO name here]", which would be present on any of the publication emails for that CO's caches. If the caches are all part of a series with a common element in the name, you could filter on that too. My suggestion is to not get too worked up about what others are doing. Everyone caches for different reasons and in different ways. Some like to hide lots of caches and find few, some hide few and find lots, and many other combinations in between. As long as someone else's play doesn't directly affect you, try not to let it get to you.

Clever. Get any "interesting" images of others "posing" for the camera? I've only done a few webcams. On a couple I self captured an image. For the one at the Alamo I called my wife and she captured the photo. I don't know if it had more charm but it was nice to talk to my wife while standing in front of the web cam.

Hello I am an old new player, I love the Trackables attached to things and I really think the GeoCoin is amazing! When you find a Geocoin (I have not yet) you catch and release but i was with some one and i sure wanted to keep that coin, im sure we all do at time, so do players save this find? a personal photos? or is the trackable page on GC enough for everyone? I heard on a podcast people keep books but I am not sure what that means. Also in regards to coins when i hear people collect them they are purchasing and keeping I assume or are there coins in the wild intended to keep? I personally got a retried geocachers possessions and they had 3 new First to FInd Coins. One of them is trackable. How do I use this, Is it registered and given to the first person who finds and thats it or does it move on? or is that mainly a personal keep coin since i actually own it? I have a Few sets of tags and I cannot wait to set them in the wild, i would prefer that they are only logged by people who find them then just discover them via an internet leak, is this something I should bother being concerned about? Thank you I appreciate the discussion and the oppertunty to talk about these things, its really not nice out side deep snow and cold here so when the spring comes I want to be ready to produce quality caches and ensure I am caching trackables and other longs properly and fully. I appreciate you time in clearing this up for me i find a conversation and taking a seperate chat is very helpful and while im talking on it i get some great dialogue and learn better terms to search more specifics

My log from 01/06/2016 was also deleted, more than two years after the Picture Taken log was posted. Like Réd I don't recall that the name of the cache included the admonition "(NO photo across the road!)." I also don't recall the big pictures and arrows being on the cache page, but heck, we were geocaching via iPhone 4. Those are some pretty small screens. If we had seen it we definitely would have taken note. Unlike Réd, I did receive some responses from the CO. His first response was, "Having to be fair to everyone we had to delete over 20 logs." Based on the maintenance log he left on the site he claims, "Upon back-checking it was found that logs were submitted by other means possibly by cellphones or apps that did not show up in e-mails to be reviewed therefore bypassing our 'Reviewer' for Webcams and EarthCaches." In other words, every one of those who submitted a log with a picture taken across the street must have cheated the system, preventing him from the opportunity to delete the log when it was first posted. I posted from my iPhone while at the Webcam. My dad posted that evening from his iPod back at the hotel. My sister posted that evening from her laptop back at the hotel. The CO's second response was, "Actually there were a few that posted Notes and MUCH later changed them to "Found" - I only check the ones I have coming in by e-mail. I have only this one on record from you http://coord.info/GC3E9QK" In other words, he has accused me of posting a Write Note that bypassed the system and prevented him from being able to review, then MUCH later changing the log to a "Found" log. He lies. I questioned his idea of fairness, saying that I could see him deleting logs the same day or even within a week. Swift action give cachers a chance to rectify the problem. But to delete them 2+ years after the fact? There is no fairness in that! His response was, "Geocache Description: As of the 4th of July 2013." I appealed to him that he should show some reason with this, that I (and my dad and sister) had planned and executed milestones over the last two years, and this specious action on his behalf has a ripple effect. It has (1) caused the log of Mingo to not be a milestone for either my sister or myself, and (2) caused the qualifying milestone caches (Mega, Webcam, Virtual, and Event) I had executed for 9- and 10-icon milestone challenges to no longer align. If these challenge cache owners decide to check my qualifiers now (apparently there is no statute of limitations) they can also delete my logs for these caches. The description of Webcam Caches that appears on the Geocaching.com website says in part, "The idea is to get yourself in front of the camera and save a screen capture from the website where the camera is displayed in order to log a find." When first published the logging requirements for this Webcam Cache was precisely that: "Get your picture taken by the camera and post it online." According to the cache page, on July 4, 2013 the CO added an Additional Logging Requirement -- One has to stand in a particular area of the camera for the "Best place for a photo that even your mother would recognize." For what purpose? The CO isn't going to recognize me. And the ironic thing is that the CO includes a picture as an example of where to stand, but the subjects aren't even standing in the place he says people should stand... on the sidewalk! Talk about your mixed messages! Is it kosher to change the logging requirements on a retired cache type to something other than what geocaching.com says is the "idea"?

What if the owner says "Yeah, I drilled into the tree." Then what would your response be? Well, I wouldn't have brought it up to begin with, but if you're asking the CO because you feel strongly about drill holes, then I assume that response wouldn't satisfy you (assuming it didn't include an explanation for why the reviewer approved it despite the drilling), so then you'd talk to a reviewer.

You plug it into the computer via the USB cable and if it shows up as a mounted drive, it's talking to your computer. Now, it may not "talk" to websites because today's browsers don't support the communicator plugin. But geocaches are downloaded as gpx files and simply go in the <device name or drive letter>/Garmin/GPX folder. You can do this individually from each cache page by clicking on the "download GPX" button, but I recommend that you download caches in bulk using pocket queries and/or lists. Additionally, some folks find it useful to manage geocaches with a 3rd party program such as GSAK (windows) or iCaching (mac). Both programs will also let you bulk-import and update caches with pocket query downloads and direct API access. They'll also bulk load the caches onto your GPS, including using the GGZ format, which can make your GPS load and run faster when loading tens of thousands of caches. The point is that the geocaches are just files stored on your device, and your GPS, when plugged into the computer, will connect as if it were an external hard drive or thumb drive. You can read and write to it accordingly. The "Send to GPS" button used to automate that process using the now defunct communicator plugin, but it's just as easy to download files and save them directly to your GPS.

Hey, all! Many several years ago, I purchased an eTrex GPS and found it relatively easy to use. Once I figured out geocaching for my iPhone, I put the Garmin away. About six months ago, I decided that the Garmin might be a better bet than my iPhone (not that I'm complaining, but I don't know exactly what to do about caching with my phone if I don't have cell service), so I dragged out the Garmin. It was in no shape to be used, so I permanently retired it and, after some research, purchased an Oregon 650t. It looks so cool and I had such high hopes, but, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to get it to talk to either of my computers. Both are less than two years old, so all specs are up to date, and I've downloaded the required thingy from Garmin several times, but NOTHING IS WORKING. So my question- since I can't get the crazy thing to work with my computer, can I just put coords in manually? And can I use the blasted thing in remote places like Rocky Mtn NP, Yellowstone, Glacier NP, etc, that have little to no cell service? Sorry for the long-winded post, but I'd sure appreciate any help anyone can provide. Thanks!! Lolli

HI I am having issues getting the software to download to safari in High Sierra OS so that i can get the GPS to load some 'send to GPS' caches. I would prefer to use a GPS as i'm eating through data and am not finding thee iPhone i have to be accurate. Any ideas on how to get the Mac and the Garmin Etrex to talk? cheers claire