Can't Place A Geocache While 'traveling'?

[AKJim]

Hey whats the deal? I was told that I can't place a cache while I was 'traveling', I suppose because they think I can't maintain it. I'm new to geocaching, but so far my kids and I really like it! Now I read about several cachers here in MN who appear to take 'Road Trips' from one end of MN to the other, looks like they throw caches out the window as they go! One Fella, a 'King' of some sort took a road trip from the TC area all the way down to SE Mn dropping off 15 caches on the way! Looks like every reststop along the highway has his footprints all over it! I've checked and he has dozens and dozens of caches from one corner of Mn to another.

 

I'm a pilot for a living. I get all over the midwest every week. I have a cabin on the North shore of Mn and have friends who have cabins around MN, We share them with each other. I could maintain many more caches, but according to the 'rules' have to place them near my home. I'd like to place more caches, but want to stay within the guidelines. Who do I talk to about this? I'd like to place more caches near my cabin!

[+Jester2112]

When you place your cache and subsequently fill out the cache placement form, you get the opportunity to leave a detailed note for the cache reviewer. Make sure you go into great detail about how often you'd be able to be in the area of the cache for maintenance and you stand a good possibility of getting your cache approved. Good luck and happy caching.

[Keystone]

Go find a bunch of caches in a large circle around your favorite area. Then hide some, moving farther and farther out within your favorite area. Then maintain your caches well. OK, now hide one 85 miles away. Bet ya it gets listed. It's quite simple, really. Demonstrate that the site is within your "maintainable distance." For a new geocacher, that's hard to do. Start small and work your way up.

 

It is probably not a good way to start by flaming your state's leading hider, though. Cool that a bit; this is the "Getting Started" forum. Thanks.

[+welch]

Hey whats the deal? I was told that I can't place a cache while I was 'traveling', I suppose because they think I can't maintain it. I'm new to geocaching, but so far my kids and I really like it!

Yes, caches placed outside your 'normal' area are considered vaction caches. You can get caches listed in 'far' places by either showing you can and do visit the area often (like by finding the area cahes there) or by finding a local friend or family member that can and will maintain the cache for you (you'll want to note this one the cache page, some reviewers might want additional info).

 

Now I read about several cachers here in MN who appear to take 'Road Trips' from one end of MN to the other, looks like they throw caches out the window as they go!  One Fella, a 'King' of some sort took a road trip from the TC area all the way down to SE Mn dropping off 15 caches on the way!  Looks like every reststop along the highway has his footprints all over it!  I've checked and he has dozens and dozens of caches from one corner of Mn to another.

Since you want to follow the rules, you might want to read the rules for the forums, which say you shouldn't post personal attacks on other people. (I don't your quite there yet, but its not hard to figure out who your suggesting is 'bad'.)

 

I'm a pilot for a living.  I get all over the midwest every week.  I have a cabin on the North shore of Mn and have friends who have cabins around MN,  We share them with each other.  I could maintain many more caches, but according to the 'rules' have to place them near my home.  I'd like to place more caches, but want to stay within the guidelines.  Who do I talk to about this?  I'd like to place more caches near my cabin!

While you're traveling all over the midwest do you have free time? How long would it take to line up a flight to XYZ area so you can check a cache there??

'Home' is relative, if you travel weekly for business or pleasure your finds are problably all over the place and it would be easier for the reviewer to see you can maintain a cache 'anywhere'. If you have no finds and/or don't explain who/how the cache will be maintained the reviewer may decline a listing submission thinking you've place a vaction cache.

[+BlueDeuce]

You can work it out with gc.com that you can maintain a cache from a distance from your usual location. Someplace that you visit once a month, a person in that area who will agree to supporting it, etc

 

That said, I'm glad gc.com requires that you work it out rather than just allowing anyone one who assumes they can, no questions asked.

[AKJim]

I thought it was humorous, a 'king' hiding all those caches. He's a 'King' of cache hiding alright. I didn't mean to sound like I was flameing him, but it does sound that way, sorry. There does seem to be a competition going here in Mn to see who can hide the most caches. I hope theres some areas left that I can hide a few.

 

I got one approved, called Barn Bluff, near Red Wing. I'm off to a bad start with hiding caches because this one, cachers are having a hard time with. For some reason they are not finding it. I tried to make it challenging, but there is a walking trail passing right by it. I can't figure out why it is so hard to locate. Actually, my 10 year old found the spot. Maybe its one of those deals where you have to think like a 10 year old to find it. Somebody better find it soon, or I'm in trouble!

 

Start small, get bigger. Prove myself, sounds like a good plan. Thanks for the advice!

[+dkwolf]

My second or third hide was placed 100 miles away from my home coordinates, and all of my finds had been within 10-20 miles of home until that point. However, I pointed out to the reviewer that the cache is located in my old hometown, and that I frequently go home to my parent's house, and also that my father is beginning to take an interest in geocaching. So, in essence, I demonstrated that I do frequently get to the area, and if I can't make it for a while there is someone close by to help out.

 

Maybe find another cacher in the area that has a few hides under their belt and contact them; ask them if they would be willing to help you out on maintenance of your cache if you cannot get back to the area quickly. Most cachers would be glad to help, it not only adds caches to their local area, but it adds the different perspective of another hider (and from the way it sounds, one that is good at making difficult hides)

 

Edit to add: Minnesota is a pretty darn big place. Caches only have to be 528 feet from each other, and away from public infrastructure. I think you've got plenty of room yet

Edited September 23, 2005 by dkwolf

[+Renegade Knight]

Kestone gives you how the approvers figure out your maintainable distance. Your reviewer (and it may be keystone) may be willing to work with you if you are able to maintain the cache in a reasonable amount of time. I can't tell you what they think is resonable since that really hasn't been set in stone yet.

 

Your other option is to get help maintaining the cache if you can't quite get there often enough. With help to back you up you can often get them approved.

[+Ambrosia]

I think that it's funny that I've sometimes had an easier time maintaining my cache that is 2 1/2 hours away, than the ones in my own town. It just works out that way sometimes.

[+briansnat]

To elaborate on what Keystone said, reviewers will often look for a pattern finds over time in the area where you plan to hide a cache. This is proof to them that you do frequent an area.

 

They will also look at the caches you own to make sure they are well maintained. If you aren't maintaining the caches in your backyard how are you going to maintain a cache 250 or a thousand miles away?

 

Being that you are a neo-hider, you don't have much of a track record, which makes the reviewers less likely to approve a cache hidden while traveling. I'm sure they get "yeah, I go there all the time" notes frequently only to encounter a cache in need of maintenance a few months later and the owner saying "Sorry, I can't get there until next August".

 

Also, as Jester2112 mentioned, write a detailed note to the reviewer explaining that you are an airline pilot and go into detail about how often you visit the area. You may be able to persuade the reviewer. It would also help matters if you enlisted a local geocacher to look after the cache for you while you are away. If you do this, be sure to mention the helpful local's name on the cache page so people have a contact if there are problems.

[+JohnnyVegas]

reviewers will often look for a pattern finds

This makes lots of sence. When I started geocaching my girlfreind was living 90 miles away, so we were finding caches in my home town and hers and in all the towns in between. When the reviewer saw the areas of our finds the reviewer knew when we started hidding caches in this wide area we could maintain them.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Go find a bunch of caches in a large circle around your favorite area.  Then hide some, moving farther and farther out within your favorite area.  Then maintain your caches well.  OK, now hide one 85 miles away.  Bet ya it gets listed.  It's quite simple, really.  Demonstrate that the site is within your "maintainable distance."  For a new geocacher, that's hard to do. Start small and work your way up.

 

It is probably not a good way to start by flaming your state's leading hider, though.  Cool that a bit; this is the "Getting Started" forum.  Thanks.

I agree 200% with Keystone's reply. I suggest you start by placing good, high-quality caches in your local area and therefore demonstrating your sincerity and that you maintain them well, and then gravdually "moving outward" to start placing caches in those faraway areas to which you travel. And, when you place a cache in a fawaway place, I strongly recommend explaining fully to the reviewer -- in the reviewer notes -- that you do visit that area and how often you do so, and also giving the first name and some particulars for anyone in that area who has agreed to maintain the cache for you and who is fully competent to do so! And, I also strongly recommend that you share much the same information about maintenance, but perhaps more briefly, in the "long" cache description on the cache listing page as well. This helps to keep local overzealous "vigilantes" from demanding that your cache be archived because of an incorrect assupmtion that you live too far away to maintain it. In fact, I recommend sharing on the listing page any other notes on critical points which you have sent to reviewers as well, as reviewers eventually delete reviewer notes and can forget what you had told them originally.

 

I recently placed two extreme (Terrain 5) caches 1,800 miles from my home; and here is my story, as it may illustrate how one might go about placing a cache far away from home:

 

My wife and I have, over the past 6 months, placed 16 caches in our local area (moutnains of Western Mayland) which have been very well-received and which remain in excellent shape. We have demonstrated close and careful attention to any maintenance issues or other issues (siting questions, legality of placement, etc.) which have arisen regarding these caches. As a result of the above factors, I was eventually invited by Maryland DNR to become their volunteer reviewer for all applications for geocache and letterbox placements in two local state parks and wilderness areas. This has hopefully established a certain baseline track record of credibilty and trust in the local geocaching world. The relatively high regard for our local caches is also evinced in the often highly-positive or even gleeful log entries made by finders of these caches.

 

I spent the past week in the Jackson, WY area, visiting several friends there. I visit the area at least once per year for at least a week. All of my friends there are either rock climbers, backcountry guides, spelunkers, or all three, and all have very positive feelings about geocaching. My closest friend there, named Greta, is a backcountry guide, and Greta and I placed two extreme (terrain 5) caches together during my recent visit, both in backcountry spots near her home, and both of which she visits regularly. While she has no interest in getting into geocaching heavily, she loves geocaching, and she eagerly volunteered to maintain these two caches, if need be, during times when I am not present. In fact, she even placed the more extreme of the two caches (a magnetic container located on the rusty steelwork under an abandoned railroad bridge 133 feet over Bitch Creek) herself, as I watched, and later retrieved it herself for a minor upgrade. The other extreme cache is located in a windy cave at 9,000 feet, reachable only by a 3.2 mile hike each way with a 2,000 foot elevation change, with a nasty climb up a waterfall on a vertical rock face at the end of the trek. In the latter case, Greta not only hiked in to the cave site with me, but she and I placed the cache deep in the cave together. She even went back inside the cave a bit later to prove to herself that she could find the cache container alone.

 

When creating the cache listing pages for these two caches for submisssion to gc.com, I realized that the reviewer might well wonder about maintenance issues, and thus I explained all the above points (frequency of my visits to area, Greta's credentials/skills, Greta performing maintenance, etc.) clearly and fully in the reviewer notes, and also touching upon the same points briefly in the cache listing page description as well. I even posted a picture of Greta gleefully placing the cache out on the ironwork under the RR bridge on the cache listing page. Further, since the reviewer has likely never heard of our team (Vinny & Sue Team) nor of our cache placement record, I took time to explain a bit about my own background in caching and cache placement in the reviewer notes.

 

Hope this helps, and.... Have fun!

Edited September 24, 2005 by Vinny & Sue Team

[+TeamAO]

Hey whats the deal? I was told that I can't place a cache while I was 'traveling', I suppose because they think I can't maintain it. I'm new to geocaching, but so far my kids and I really like it! Now I read about several cachers here in MN who appear to take 'Road Trips' from one end of MN to the other, looks like they throw caches out the window as they go! One Fella, a 'King' of some sort took a road trip from the TC area all the way down to SE Mn dropping off 15 caches on the way! Looks like every reststop along the highway has his footprints all over it! I've checked and he has dozens and dozens of caches from one corner of Mn to another.

 

I'm a pilot for a living. I get all over the midwest every week. I have a cabin on the North shore of Mn and have friends who have cabins around MN, We share them with each other. I could maintain many more caches, but according to the 'rules' have to place them near my home. I'd like to place more caches, but want to stay within the guidelines. Who do I talk to about this? I'd like to place more caches near my cabin!

Explain the complete situation of the geocache. If the approver still doesn't believe you can maintain it, get a local cacher to where you want to place it, email the approver that they will maintain it if needed. Several cachers have caches thousands of miles from where they live, and they have the local cachers take care of it because the emailed with the cachers before they hid it, and the cachers complied.

[+media601]

I'm off to a bad start with hiding caches because this one, cachers are having a hard time with.  For some reason they are not finding it.  I tried to make it challenging, but there is a walking trail passing right by it.  I can't figure out why it is so hard to locate.

You may want to double check the cache coordinates. Did you use waypoint averaging when you hid the cache? If you're not sure what that means take a look here and go to step three.

[+beejay&esskay]

I got one approved, called Barn Bluff, near Red Wing. I'm off to a bad start with hiding caches because this one, cachers are having a hard time with. For some reason they are not finding it.

The other thing I'd suggest is to look at where Topozone shows your cache. If I read the only finders comments right, he thinks the coordinates are off and that it's on the other side of the hill.

 

I, of course, have no idea if your coordinates are good or bad...but if a lot of people are having trouble it would make sense to check.