Jeeps&geocaching

[rct5]

I was wondering if there is any way to search and find caches that require an offroading vehicle. I love to geocache but I'd like to get some proper use out of the ol' jeep. I can't seem to find any in or around the Hershey/Hummelstown PA area. I'd like to hear some nice stories about jeepocacheing if you've got any.

 

Thanks!

[+VegasCacheHounds]

Well, as far as I know there is no way to search caches based on the attributes, but what I've done in the past is find an area that I know has off-road trails, then search for caches based on that location.

 

Also, you may want to post this in the appropriate regional forum, as more local folks there may know of some good ones for you.

[+Old Bill]

You might also pick up National Geographic's Topo! and put the waypoints for the caches into it. This will give you some idea as to the terrain you are likely to encounter.

 

If all else fails, move out to the Southwest. Plenty of Jeep trail caches!

[+trail hound]

You may be interested in this cache.....Not to far from you

GCPFP0

[+QDman]

If a 4WD is required, it should have a terrain rating of 5. If you become a Premium Member, you can do a Pocket Query for caches of that rating.

[+Sue Gremlin]

We take our Jeep with us on the majority of cache outings. On several of them that we have done down in the pine barrens, we were glad we have a Jeep. Without it, we would have been screwed.

On one of our earlier cache outings this summer, Joe's log for this cache has a photo of the mighty blue Jeep pulling some poor guys out of the sugar sand. They had been stuck there for a couple of hours. The Jeep Rocks.

 

(O|||||O)

[+whatevah.com]

I hate reviving old topics, but...

 

If you don't mind driving for a couple hours, the Pine Barrens in NJ have a ton of caches. I knew there were a few there, but today when I was playing with the Google Earth plugin for the Geocaching website, I saw over a hundred in the area of Wharton State Forest, one of the legal offroading areas. Depending on when you go, and which areas you visit, you'll need good mud tires (and, of course tow points, and another Jeep with you to pull you out) as many of the trails get very muddy.

 

The local offroad clubs are doing a Trail ride/Cleanup this weekend, and I'll take my brother (geocaching partner) and mother out for a little geocaching+offroading while the offroad clubs are having fun on the trails.

 

Note to anybody wanting to do 4x4 caches:

-make sure your GPS is tracking your route as soon as you get off the main roads (so you can find your way out)

-go with another 4x4 vehicle (so you can get pulled out).

-don't forget to bring food and extra clothing incase you get really stuck and have to stay out overnight.

 

And, of course, make sure the areas you'll be driving on are really approved for legal offroading. (The popular offroading area near me is only approved for driving on the established trails, a lot of people don't know that, so they get a nice ticket from the police. My brother and I spent a nice rainy day caching in that area, picked up 10 nice caches, and stayed on the legal trails. Fun!)

[+Munin]

I faced a similar situation when I bought my Jeep a few months back. Here's a few approaches I've taken for finding offroad caches:

 

- Open a topic in the regional forum. I'm in New England, so I went to that forum and started a topic asking for suggestions on newbie offroad caches in my area. I got back several good responses. Nice thing with this approach is that you can tell people what degree of difficulty you're looking for, how far you're willing to drive, etc - and they can tune their suggestions appropriately.

 

- Pocket Query searches: PQs are a premium member feature, and probably one of the biggest reasons people pay for the premium membership. Basically just set up some pocket queries, and started searching through the results for common phrases like "4wd", "4x4", "offroad", etc.

 

- Manually browsing old log entries. PQs only contain the most recent logs - if the last offroading cacher to visit the spot was a while back, you might not see any mention about offroad access unless you read/search through the old log entries. This is rather slow and time-consuming, so usually I'll just pick a cache that looks like fun, then check that one and a dozen or so nearby caches to see if any of their old logs mention offroading potential.

 

- Manually browsing cache attributes. There's a cache attribute for "off-road vehicles allowed" - looks rather like the outline of a Jeep. Cache attributes are a relatively recent option on the cache pages though, so owners of older caches may not have gone back and added them. Figure that you've found a winner if you see the offroad attribute icon, but caches without the icon may still be worth investigating further. (Of course, if you see a cache that has an offroad icon with a red slash through it, you can be pretty darned certain that offroading is not going to be welcomed there.)

 

- DeLorme Gazeteer. Pick one up for your state (and maybe neighboring states if they're close enough). It's not exactly the same as having a room full of USGS topo maps, but it can still help you locate areas with higher concentrations of unimproved/abandoned roads that might be potential offroading hotspots. Hop onto geocaching.com and check out caches in those areas, see if any are near those old roads. (The TopoZone link on the cache pages can help you assess the proximity of the cache to nearby 4WD trails.)