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I guess I am in a minority here on the forums then (though from my limited time here, I don't think so). Granted, my caching has slowed this year compared to last, but that's been due to circumstances that forced geocaching to the back burner for a while. But I still use the forums to glean useful information, bounce ideas around, and hopefully add some input that others find useful, if not entertaining. I don't necessarily like to hear myself talk - and I definitely don't think my opinions are gospel. And, frankly, I don't get that vibe (hot air, like to hear themselves talk, think their opinion is gospel, etc) from most of the participants here either. I enjoy participating, interacting with other geocachers. Yes, I'm new to geocaching and new to the forums (relatively speaking). What's with reviving all these old threads??

Well, first of all, to answer your question, of course you log the find. Why wouldn't you? As to the outraged property owner, what did you do to make him mad and why couldn't you resolve it? Did you talk to him or just ignore him? It seems as if you were in the perfect position to resolve his problem, but that requires you immediately accept his position as valid and apologizing profusely on behalf of the geocaching community and trying to understand his position about where his property was and whether the cache is on it. It could just be on his property, or it could be you accessed it through his property even though there was another way to GZ. For all I know, you tried to do all that, and he was just irrationally belligerent, so I'm not accusing you of doing anything wrong, but I think it's important to recognize that even irrationally belligerent is a valid response if the cache was -- or just you were -- really were on his property. As others have mentioned, naturally you'd post an NA in addition to your find unless you work out with the property owner that there really isn't a problem with the cache itself, and even in that case it sounds like the lease you need to post is an NM explaining what needs to be done so that this person's property rights are violated.

I prefer the real small gatherings. Little chance of the natural shifting to only folks you know. - New people think it's a "clique" thing, and for the most part it is, simply people you're familiar. I like to stir things up a bit. 3-4 people, I'd have a couple unactivated signature geocoins to pass out, and probably have a few trackables to exchange (depending on their goals). We don't discuss find totals, but will mention caches we've enjoyed the most with others. Sometimes we don't even talk about this hobby. Hang out with an ice cream, coffee, whatever ... and make small talk.

The old search is still there. They just have to change back the links, talk about an easy fix. Of course that would mean admitting they were wrong.

No not Leeds but we've all been beginners at some point. I wasn't going to be able to complete the summer challenge some years ago as there were no nearby events on a free night. We were going away for the weekend so I looked at caches in the area and there was an event at the pub just down the road. We had to eat out anyway so we got a meal, a drink, a natter, a cache in the pub grounds and a souvenir all in one outing. Since then I have been to various events. The format differs slightly but there's usually a log book being signed and the clink of dog tag TBs gets ears twitching. Somebody will talk to you. You might even find somebody else looking "new" and talk to them. The next event will be easier as you recognise names in log books as you cache. Go and enjoy!

Sent my info to Laval K-9: 2.27.21Name received from Laval K-9: 3.6.21Sent my gift: 3.10.21My gift arrived at destination: 3.15.21I received a gift: 4.19.21 I had the surprise of a mission in my mailbox tonight! Thank you Semmels123! The Triceratops coin is impressive and the light up tag is cool! I totally noticed yours when I was doing the Geocache Talk "live coverage" of the Texas Counties Finishers Event. Thanks for all the Kansas and sweet treats too.

Compairing numbers as always - the more the better!? Who is the "better" hider? It is not about the numbers but about many other factors. I "only" have hidden 37 caches in 12 years (plus events which I don't count). My current goal is to hide one (in numbers: 1) cache per year so even less then before. My latest mystery cache took me more than 100 hours of creating and in this time I could have thrown out 100 simple traditionals. So please do not look for the pure numbers if you want to "judge" others. I don't want to compare my overall effort in cache hiding to someone with several 100 hides. And I know that there are great cache owners who created one cache that took them years to build - I don't want to compare with them either. It is not about the numbers but about if you (!) like the caches. And that's subjective, of course, so I don't want to talk about cache quality here (*). :-) Jochen (*) Mine are the best, of course! :-)

And there's the difference. I don't agree with the highlighted statement. Again, we're asking different questions. I agree we're discussing our opinions. I don't pretend to be presenting the only correct answer. But I'm justifying my position, I'm not just pushing one answer. So, for example, please explain why the number you think is better is concrete and meaningful. I think we all agree that all registered geocachers isn't meaningful. I'm using the time period of the last month because it excludes people that have already quit, particularly the fly-by-night phone cachers that everyone loves to complain about. The complaint against that is it cuts out the ardent but occasional geocachers, which I don't deny is a valid concern, but I see absolutely no way to count them concretely. I've also explained why I think I'm interpreting the OP's question as more about boots on the ground and why it seems unlikely they're thinking about people that talk about geocaching without actually looking for geocaches. In other words, I'm discussing our opinions to flesh out what numbers we could actually count and what meaning they'd really have. The observation that we all have different opinions is as obvious as it is unhelpful. What I'd be more interested in are actual ways to count something that would produce a more interesting result, not just people complaining that I'm not including this or that group that they hold close to their hearts.

Each summer I usually host two ice cream socials but haven't hosted one since 2019. I've hosted 16 ice cream socials in the same location, a great homemade ice cream shop nearby. I also enjoy hosting GIFF events, I rent a movie theater out and people donate to help pay for it. I'm in NJ but I get attendees from NJ, NY, PA, and CT regularly. It's a lot of fun. Of my 102 geocache hides, 40 have been events. I've learned that "if you host it, they will come. And talk about geocaching."

Like "child molesters and people who talk at the theater."

Hi, the new system won't upload my fieldnotes at all as in my visits.txt file there are more than a thousand drafts from the recent years and the system tells me that it can't upload more than a 1000 drafts at once and nothing happens. So I conclude that it tries to upload all of them. So probably it is just for the first time as I have never used the new system before (because of that reason!)? That's not very self-explanatory so thank you very much for your information. If I understand you correctly I have to upload an empty visits.txt ONCE to activate the "don't upload drafts before ...." feature and next time using the new system it will only take the newer ones? But if I ever switch back to the old system I have problems again as the systems don't talk to each other? Thanks again. Jochen

I agree that you've pointed out a problem we should consider. It actually never occurred to me before that there was no checking of ALs for overlap, but I suppose that's because there are no rules against overlap, as far as I know. Should there be? I have no idea whether there's any kind of approval process for ALs, but if there isn't should there be? All valid question. The specific example strikes me as a big "meh", though. You friend decided to switch back and forth. More power to him if he finds that the best way. I'd be more inclined to do them one at a time, ignoring any redundancy, and possibly using it to advantage by enjoying the park a second time on another day to do the second AL. I'll certainly concede the example and join you in discussing it. But, in the end, I don't consider this a problem and would have no trouble with the resulting rules and procedures continued to allow overlapping ALs. I'm particularly concerned about forbidding two ALs exploring completely different aspects of the same area. I'd be OK with that if we talk it through and decide to do it, like traditional cache distance requirements, but I'd also want to consider a more EarthCache approach where ALs can be close as long as they don't overlap in subject matter. To me, the only clearly demonstrated problem here is that AL creators have no way to find out about each other so they could avoid such overlaps if they wanted to. Any thoughts about what we can do about that? I have no interest in doing an AL, so I don't know whether there's anything mechanisms already in place that failed in this case.

In response to complaints from community members who want to talk about the souvenir challenge, I've hidden a number of off-topic posts from view.

That's a good question that I can't provide a full answer. Let me just focus on my video and then provide observations from my time out there. I lost count of the number of trips I've made to Nevada and the desert areas of the surrounding states, but at least I've seen a lot. The side road itself was always next to the main road. It's how the sage was cut. The parenthesis curves we turn onto are what I'm wondering about. If these were created by geocachers getting as close to the cache as possible, I wonder why they didn't go right next to the caches. You'd figure people would begin driving even closer to the cache as time went on, yet there wasn't any evidence of that. However, every now and then you might see trucks and campers pulled just as far off the road. The dirt roadsides are also graded every year or two, and you see a lot of tracks from those vehicles. Though it's possible some geocachers might drive over the sage, I'd say geocachers form an insignificant part of the problem as you see quads and offroad vehicles every now and then. And the number of shotgun shell casings and litter that's out there, too... I never did get to do the alien head geoart. I knew it was walking, so the three or four times I was out there, the groups I was with always skipped it because of that. Honestly, it did occur to us to drive it, but then it was followed up with a "you're not supposed to do that" and the conversation ended there. On some other trips, I remember following a power line road and some other roads. Many times, I really wondered why there was a road out here to begin with (prospectors?). Caches tend to follow those roads--you can even see them on satellite imagery. Seriously considering going off road to get closer to caches just never came up. We'd just follow the roads where they led and stop as close as we could while still on the road. That was just what you did. At times, you could tell when one car drove over to a cache. Doing so certainly wouldn't make the clearcut paths you saw in my video, though. And when we saw something like this, we'd just think they were lazy morons who risked tearing up their vehicle or puncturing a tire. Not many caches were that far out there, and those that were a hundred meters distant were just seen as part of the game to walk that final distance. I did get to do the Heart of Mojave Desert geoart (shaped like a Gx) with mondou2 and others. We left the cars in the parking area and walked the distance. There was never talk about driving it and, at the time, I didn't see evidence it had been driven. If I may make a tangent, I remember they were shoving water bottles into backpacks. I walked up, took two bottles and put them in my hiking pants pockets. They looked at me strangely. It was supposed to warm up to 110F (43C) that day and that's all the water I was taking for an eleven mile hike (the outer heart, then I'd be able to guzzle and stock up at the cars again before the inner design). I'm always dehydrated--I still am, while typing this--so the water I take with me is more for emergency purposes instead of normal use. I just don't like having anything on my back or weighing me down. Let's see, then there's Yerington. I guess I've been there about half a dozen times. Larry's caches were usually beside the road, so I didn't see any evidence of offroad driving, unless you want to count if a sage came close to the road. He'd just find a road and put out caches along it. There was the state star series, but we walked that. Sure, there was a way to get off the road, but you had all this sage in the way and it would have been faster just to walk. Other places and power trails, you usually had a berm from people coming by and scraping the road every year. I wanted to do the eagle series, but I knew it was a walking one. Larry told me some people had driven it. I didn't want to do that, so never did find the series. That's fine: there were other things to find. Really, if you want to be critical of cachers' impact upon the desert, I'd suggest instead being critical of all the foot trails cachers make from the car to the cache. It's not major, but you can tell people have walked that way, same as people who have used the desert for other reasons. They don't last--the foot trails, not the other people--which at times is somewhat of a disappointment when you have a few dozen sage bushes to look through and then have to realize it's a small rock pile some thirty feet away. But, in conclusion, I'd say the only ones who can answer this question fully are the cache owners and those first to find the caches. I can only provide my observations and try to make them as unbiased as possible. You're always going to have the inconsiderate people doing stupid stuff. The best we can do is set a proper example.

Actually, that wasn't sarcasm. I didn't know someone had already done that. Thank you for giving me more credit than I deserved. (I don't listen to podcasts, don't read blogs, don't receive Groudspeak's newsletter, don't watch videos, don't read much of the forum except for Wherigo, and am generally out of touch. I just go out and find crap, and that's enough for me. I'd rather play the game than talk, read, listen to, or watch something about it.)

I've done the ET Highway a couple times, Route 66, and other power trails. Here are some answers: Why would you do that? I hope it's with others. Since I'm usually alone, it's a treat being with others. And when you do a thousand or more in a day, you get loopy and everything is funny. The run isn't about the caches anymore. It's about having fun with others--oh, and here's the next cache. But you're also doing it for the numbers. Why numbers matter to someone is a personal reason and changes from cacher to cacher. At first, numbers mattered to me (in 2006) because I wanted to find a lot to demonstrate to others I wouldn't slow them down if they invited me to go caching with them. Later, it became about getting to 10K because it was five digits. Still later, it was about how far I could go. These days, it's about activity level and output. I want to relax and find whatever most of the time during the year, but I still want to average around 5K a year because that's a good level for me. All I need to do to do that is take two or three trips, each a week long, during the year. This forces me to take time off work. Without caching as an excuse, like last year due to the pandemic (and I'd imagine most of this year), I wouldn't take time off work and would instead put in ridiculous amounts of uncompensated overtime. Last year alone, I put in ten weeks of uncompensated overtime. You see? I'll pour a ton of effort into something. If it's caching, I'll get a lot of numbers. If it's work, I'll put in a lot of uncompensated overtime. I'm going to do something because I don't know how to let up and all this time and energy must go somewhere. By the way, I'm the type of person that might not even be able to have fun at Disney. I'd make a list of things to do for an ideal experience. Then, when I'm there, it becomes all about doing that list and some other spontaneous things. When asked if I had a good time, I'd say I accomplished the list, which would have been the whole point. I'll then have to think if I enjoyed myself. I guess I may have, but that was secondary to making sure I did the list. How can you find 1000 caches in a day? That's easy. Line up caches next to a road, make the hides easy, and have the caches be the minimal distance apart. Have two to four people in a car. Start early. When I did the first ET Highway, we started at 4AM and later took a break around 6PM for two and a half hours, then finished just before midnight--but that was the first large power run I was on, so everyone was inexperienced. We could have done better and found more that day. These days, if you're doing a number run, it's normal behavior to stamp logs and swap out the cache with the previous cache. You see that a lot. That behavior should be constrained to caches within the series. I don't like it when people do that for other, non-series caches. If you have two cars, you can leapfrog on a road. The lead car keeps finding the next cache. The trailing car, once it finds a cache, eventually passes the lead car, becoming the lead car, and finds the next caches until it's passed. You keep going like that. I'm okay with doing that because it keeps people together. Some people do what I call "divide and conquer". I was in a car with xxxxxx when yyyyyy called. He was in a neighboring state, said he was doing this other power trail, and asked if they wanted to share finds that day. xxxxxx said sure. The only reason I was fine with that was because I had already found that other series. Other times, a crowd of cachers gather (around twenty) and they split up and find different parts of a series of caches. Since I'm not fine with that, I'm not invited that often for number runs. True story, but I'd better not reveal the names. It's possible to solo a 1000 day, but you'll be exhausted afterward. I did one solo and it destroyed my interest in solo power caching for a few years. I did it because I was in a foul mood that I couldn't find anyone to cache with. I don't consider this an achievement and don't want to talk any more about it because I hated what led up to it and my time doing it. I never want to do that ever again. Am I sure it's possible? Definitely. On one trip, someone in the passenger's seat was bored, so began timing us using a stopwatch. I noticed that and it became a fun game. We'd start the stopwatch the moment the runner was back in the vehicle. The driver would drive to the next cache, the runner would get out and swap caches, then run back to the car. The bad times were around two minutes because the runner and team had trouble noticing the cache. The best times were close to fifty seconds. If you averaged a minute per cache, that's 1,440 in a day. But if the caches were all in obvious spots, the road straight, and you knew what you were doing, you could have some sub-minute times throughout the day. No one finds 1000 caches in a day Yes, they do. Even on my first ET Highway run, we did it. We signed every log with a team name and put each cache back where we found it (no swapping, no stamping). That was not the first and only 1000 day I've had. That said, 1000 days are rare and it takes ideal circumstances to pull off. While it's easier to leapfrog, it's doable with one vehicle. Fox's Number Run Team Role Theory From my observation, the ideal team is four experienced cachers in one vehicle. Here are the different job roles, what they do, and why they matter: Driver: The driver is responsible for navigation to the next cache and targeting the one after while the runner is out of the car. An incompetent driver will not consistently park close to caches, costing the team both time and critical stamina. The driver needs to be good about getting as close to the cache as possible. Also, the driver is responsible for the team's safety. If a runner has to cross to the other side of the car, it should always be around the end of the car not pointing towards the next cache. The driver and runner need to communicate to make sure the runner is safely inside the vehicle. Due to the amount of time required to get back into the vehicle, belt up, and start going forward, the driver should be the last that must get out for a cache. Navigator: The navigator sits in the passenger seat and is responsible for several things. First, the navigator is responsible for being aware of where the team is in the series and how the roads and caches connect on a macro scale. The navigator should prep the driver when a branch is coming up. During the cache run, the navigator is looking out the window, trying to spot the next cache as the vehicle is approaching. If the navigator spots it, that information is relayed to the runner. If the person in reserve is resting, the navigator takes over the role of stamping the logs and making sure the runner has cache. Runner: This is the person who hops out for the cache. Swapping roles should be based upon the runner's stamina, but role swapping should always be done before the runner is fatigued. If the runner cannot find a cache in an agreed-upon time, the reserve cacher or navigator should get out and assist. Once back in the vehicle, the runner communicates to the driver his or her save arrival, then hands the cache to either the reserve cacher or navigator. At times, when we had a van with a door that could stay open, I stood on the threshold and hung on to the roof rack. This gave me a better view of the cache site as we came up. I could also jump off before the vehicle came to a stop, using the vehicle's momentum and saving my stamina. To communicate to the driver I was secure, I stomped my foot when I was ready. Only then did the driver move the vehicle. Safety is a priority. Reserve: The reserve cacher is recovering. During this time, the reserve cacher is responsible for communicating to the runner any pertinent information about the next cache. Either the reserve cacher or the navigator can stamp the cache log, but the reserve cacher should be the one to hand the cache to the runner and take the cache from the runner upon his or her return. The reserve cacher is also responsible for distributing food, water, and equipment to the other team members. If the next cache is on the opposite side of the road, the reserve cacher will be called upon to exit the vehicle and retrieve the cache. For the most part, the reserve cacher's primary purpose is to recover prior to swapping to another role. Make sure everyone takes their turn as a reserve or there's another role that recharges them. During a run, the team should agree how to swap and which roles can be swapped. For example, every half hour or twenty-five caches might be an easy way to keep track of when to swap. Never agree to swap only when a runner is fatigued. The point of swapping is to refresh the team so everyone can cache longer. The swap should happen before anyone in any role is fatigued. If you wait too late, you'll burn through stamina and the team will be more tired than it otherwise would have been. Also, pay attention to who is suited for which role. If someone can't stop very close to caches and constantly needs help, that person should not be put into a driver role. Likewise, if someone has mobility issues, the person would not make for a good runner. I cached with a team whose driver needed a lot of assistance and I personally saw the cost. I was later able to swap to the driver spot and put this theory into action. I saw a massive improvement in energy all around: the navigator got excited, the runner wasn't as tired--it was stark and quite obvious. When it came time for my turn to swap, both the runner and navigator--the original driver was asleep in the reserve spot--both enthusiastically said I should continue driving. I did. Personally, I'm a stellar driver and trip planner, so I need no help when it comes to routing and managing both the macro and micro parts of a route. I'm an above average runner, but I've seen some phenomenal runners. Fox and Numbers I'm excited to reach 100K at some point. I have what I call a bucket list project. Since I've never traveled anywhere except to do geocaching, I've assembled a list of things I've wanted to do but geocaching got in the way of doing. Once I hit 100K, I'll pick two things from this list and do them as celebration. I will, of course, find a dozen or so caches a day during that time, but the entire purpose of those trips will, finally, not be for geocaching. I thought of soliciting ideas from the forum, too. One trip I will take, though, will be to somewhere in Japan to try out some onsens and get some photos of nature. I don't know what I'll do for the other trip yet. All I need to do is have two weeks in Yuma to do 4K or a week and a half in Yuma for 3K and then a week around South Dakota or London, Ontario for 1K or 1500K. But I have to wait for the pandemic to be over, though I'll gladly risk myself if I can find the right person or people to take with me as I seriously don't want to do this alone. The bucket list trips must not be done alone or I might devolve into just caching because it's easier just to go to the next cache and the next one instead of figure out what else there is to do in an area and drag myself over to do it.

They made the choice to talk about their lunch on Facebook. Maybe even limited that online discussion to "friends" (not public). The AGF list is not a choice.

Well, I did find that Costco has the 64x for $199 which is a great price. Most of the 60csx's are going for $130-150 on ebay, so I may as well spend a little more and get a new one! I did use my new phone and Locus to find a cache today, and it was one I'd looked for twice before, so I was happy to finally find it. The Pixel 4a 5G works well even in the trees. My old phone, a Samsung Galaxy J7 Crown (a cheap straight talk version) did not, and I had been pretty far off before. Thanks again everyone for all the discussion and assistance. My daughter and I are looking forward to doing more caching this year and I think we're already off to a good start. Oh, and one of the goals this year: dispersed camping in the Olympic National Forest. And wouldn't you know, several spots are marked in Locus, I'm guessing by others users. Very cool, and worth the cost of entry by itself!

of course I don't want to risk my expensive device, as I told before geocaching is specific activity, that could really benefit from watch app since in normal circumstances I wouldn't walk on rocky cliff with smartphone in my hand, but when geocaching I don't really have a choice.. You shouldn't drive and talk with your phone at a same time, but if you have to, if your work is to drive and talk to clients at a same time, you have a safer option of buying hands free set, but with geocaching there is no safer alternative.. and its not all about risk of braking device.. do I really have to give an example of every possible scenario? ok, lets say you're geocaching on that rocky cliff with smartphone in your hand and you slip, you're falling.. you'll probably by reflex going to try to safe not only your self, but your device to and by doing that your injuries may be bigger, but if you would have an extra free hand to grab on something, you may end up with lighter injury.. ok, ten-thousands.. how much do you think it costs? millions? billions of dollars? its just an app, not a space rocket, it shouldn't be unaffordable for descent company so far I've heard only one decent reason not to make watch app, its technical reason of apple watch not having magnetic compass, although it still would be nice to at least have watch app for reading hints, descriptions, logs... all other reasons is basically stating that Groundspeak is barely making a living and just can't afford such big luxury like creating simple app.. that makes me feel like I'm getting into lost cost, like windows phone users did..

Wait a minute. It says "that negatively affects society" and not "that made the society change something". A disaster doesn't necessarily have the effect that the society changes something. What do they do after an earthquake? The accident negatively affected society by killing several people. And maybe they haven't changed traffic patterns (as if that would stop a drunken driver), but at least they created that memorial to maybe make some people think before they enter their car with alcohol in their blood. Edited to add: It's not that easy to find photos of these memorials for Europeans (the provided link doesn't work here), but finally I saw them in a video I found. Now that I have seen them, I would also suggest the Citizen Memorial category, because the plaques don't even mention the accident, but instead talk about the killed persons.

I ran into some technical issues when I tried to post this before so this may be a duplicate post. Please ignore and remove this one if it is. Thanks. ================================ Hi there - I'm trying to put out a cache that has a picture but I want the picture to be a surprise so that people only see it when they click on the right link. However when I upload the picture to the actual cache, it shows up in the gallery and is listed at the bottom of the description as well. I don't want it to be visible there (or anywhere else ideally). Is there a "official" solution to hiding the picture somehow? As far as I know you're not allowed to use 3rd party hosting sites any more so I didn't even bother trying. I've also read some forum posts that talk about adding the picture to an archived cache instead and then using a link for it in my new cache but my concern is the picture is still "visible" in that archived cache. People could come across it accidentally there (or maybe on purpose). Is there any other options out there or is there a setting somewhere that hides pictures from the gallery and the cache description listing? I was thinking about maybe loading the picture into my unpublished archived cache because, as far as I know, no one else can see those caches, but I can't edit those archived caches to add any pictures. Plus I'm not sure if the website will allow other people to see those pictures anyways. ie I'd be able to see the picture because I have rights or permissions to my unpublished caches but no one else does. I also considered loading pictures via a Reviewer Note on my new cache and linking to them from there. Those Reviewer Notes get "removed" when the cache is published but do any pictures associated to those logs get deleted too? Or would the links keep working? It's hard to test all these things out obviously so I'm hoping someone knows the more official way of doing this. I don't want to implement something that may suddenly break a few years later either when GS changes a policy, like the 3rd party hosting thing. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

So, suppose I tell you that your proposed location is 110m northwest of the final coordinates for "Cacher Conundrum," a five-star puzzle cache that only four people have ever solved and logged in the past three years. Armed with that intelligence, you track down the container and sign the log at the same time when you move your cache to a spot that's 162m away. What do I get for being helpful? A flaming email from the CO of "Cacher Conundrum," who also posts to three Facebook groups, and files a complaint with Geocaching HQ that I gave away secret information and ruined the puzzle cache. Having had that happen to us enough times, reviewers nowadays are constrained to be less forthcoming with details. Depending on your reviewer, you may get a hint, like "you are less than 161m from "Cacher Conundrum," GCABCDE, or you may get a hint that you should strongly consider moving to the southeast, or you may not get any guidance at all. So, that's how come. In a world where people hack lab caches and share the final coordinates of puzzle caches in Facebook groups, the inevitable outcome of such a feature would be to spoil every puzzle cache, multicache and Wherigo cache, plus a fair percentage of letterbox hybrid caches. There are people who like placing and finding these cache types. Geocaching.com has chosen not to alienate them by ruining the ability to keep the actual locations a secret. "But all I need is a distance and direction," you might say. So, the cheater simply enters enough coordinates into the planner tool to permit them to hone in on the actual location through triangulation. Think that can't happen? Talk to the travel bug stalkers who watch for drops of trackables in unpublished caches so they can figure out the locations and log a pre-publication "FTF." Talk to the group of cachers who hid traditionals in every conceivable spot within two miles of a 5-star puzzle, knowing they'd eventually "battleship" their way to a hit, and then they could do a scorched earth hunt within that area. I foiled them by publishing their cache even though it was 200 feet away from the puzzle final. Reviewers are smart humans*, you see, and that is better than an automated system. *Many reviewers are dogs.

Amazing. Just as we talk about it in this thread, I've got another finder in the process of working through it! You brought the cache some good luck by starting the thread! Will be interesting to see his log. Stage 4 is pretty easy since the distances really do call for driving, though it can certainly be done easily enough on a bicycle, so there's that to sort out if pedaling, I guess. As for power, it's a secret! Stage one is a particular power hog due to distance between xmitter and posted coordinates, and propagation requirements. The others employ high gain (very directional) antenna systems.

As of Thursday, stats showed that there were 7 more geocaches with the Challenge Cache attribute than mystery caches with "challenge" in the title. That spread has reduced month over month (we track it every month on the Challenge Talk podcast) and this is the closest they've been yet; but it shows that there are either non-challenge caches incorrectly tagged with the attribute, or valid challenge caches without "challenge" in the title.

[OT] Have you actually read the First Amendment? (Hint: Groundspeak is not a government agency.)[/OT] It doesn't have to be a govt agency. There are plenty of cases where the gov has stepped in and ruled that people have the right to say what they want when being censored by private parties. This forum might be owned by Groundspeak, and they can do what they want with it, but they can't control my right to TALK about something. I think that's the point we're missing here. I'm not violating their terms. I am merely TALKING about something. On an mlb forum, for example, I am allowed to TALK about steroids, even though it is illegal and a clear violation of both the law and of the mlb terms. However, I am not DOING anything, and therefore not violating them. If they ever censored me, I could take them to court on the basis of First Amendment rights and I'd win, and they know that. Think about it...if that weren't the case, how could Sportswriters talk about it freely? It's just TALK. It doesn't violate anything. I think you guys might need to go back to law school ;-)