Negative Logs

[+j9cache & Mike(j9+M)]

I personally would not have done a micro in a rock pile, becuse I don't dig micros myself, but its a place my husband wanted to do a hide. I could not put a larger container, because the idea was to hide one of those "rocks", available on this website, in the pile, and the pile is not that deep. It is not as huge a pile as some of your pics have shown in that its under a bridge. I thought people liked camo'ed containers more than they evidently do around here. The "rock"is a different color than the others in that pile. If I approach a cache and think I don't want to do it, I don't and wouldn't complain about the condiotions if I did it and hurt myself. I think I will up the difficulty and perhaps add a better hint. Thanks for your input. I feel better about things now. My next ones will not be micro .

[+Renegade Knight]

j9, looks like you are willing to learn from what you have done and so you will have some most excellent caches that only keep getting better.

[+fizzymagic]

I thought people liked camo'ed containers more than they evidently do around here.

I believe that you are confusing "camoed container" with "tedious search."

 

I love cleverly-camoed containers. What I don't like are tedious, brute-force searches. Ivy hides and rockpile hides tend to be tedious searches, so many people don't like them.

 

I guess it all comes down to why you hide caches. People have different motivations. I've seen a wide range around here.

 

Some people hide caches in order to prove to themselves that they are smarter or better than everyone else. We have at least one notorious hider in our area who quite obviously fits this description; he posted a puzzle cache for which he never even hid a container, because he believed nobody would ever solve the puzzle (he was wrong).

 

Other people hide caches to be popular. Those are people who only want logs filled with glowing praise. These people often only hide 1/1 caches, to be sure that everyone can find the caches with no trouble, so there is little chance for a negative log.

 

Still other people hide specific caches with the intent of "getting" another cacher. Often, these caches are placed in good fun, but they can be quite frustrating to those outside of the clique.

 

I try to hide caches so that the person finding it is satisifed with the experience. If the hide is a challenge, I try to make it a challenge with a payoff. The kind of thing where, once the finder finally finds the cache, they think to themselves, "That was cool!" or "I learned something neat!"

 

The logs you get on the cache are a valuable tool in helping you gauge how well your cache placement is achieving what you wanted from it. If negative logs bother you, then you might want to consider changing a hide that results in a lot of them. But expecting people to only post positive feedback for your cache hides is, in my opinion, both unrealistic and counterproductive.

 

I guess my main point is this: Decide why you are hiding a cache before you hide it! If you understand your own motivation for the hide, then you can make the most use of whatever feedback you get.

[+sept1c_tank]

...Some people hide caches in order to prove to themselves that they are smarter or better than everyone else.  We have at least one notorious hider in our area who quite obviously fits this description; he posted a puzzle cache for which he never even hid a container, because he believed nobody would ever solve the puzzle (he was wrong)...

What a hoot! Did he get any negative logs on that one?

[+VegasCacheHounds]

I had origianlly thought that the main idea behind camoflaging caches was to hide the caches from muggles, not from cachers. Man, was I wrong

[+GerbilMafia]

There is a micro cache here in Indiana that is hidden in a picnic shelter that had over 90 DNF's before someone finally found it. This particular hider was praised in these same forums. I guess I don't really have a point, just do it the way you want to do it and forget about it....

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...&log=y&decrypt=

Edited October 25, 2005 by gerbilmafia

[+WalruZ]

Why do you have a cache under a bridge, anyway? The undersides are rarely scenic and are often trash and homeless magnets. They are also hard to search without having the police take an interest in your activities should you be spotted. Regardless of the difficulty of the hide, I would suggest retreating to step 1 and concentrate on location. Geocaching is about going neat places, seeing great things and having fun. Looking through a large rockpile or ivy patch isn't any of those, so don't do them. At the very least, one would hope that your rock is findable enough to not frustrate all the locals. Try spray-painting it red.

 

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All that said, fake rocks can be made at home and do a great job of hiding a cache from muggles while making them easy for geocachers to spot. I made such a container which is in a park in downtown san francisco (GCJQMV) which is in an incredibly high-trafficed area, receives many visitors and has not (yet) been muggled, although 2 previous ammo cans hidden by my co-hider were quickly muggled.

 

Buy some cement. Mix it with some dirt,. (yes, dirt), more cement than dirt, and water. Use as much water as is necessary to keep it from being powdery, but no more.

 

Take your container and surround it with wadded up plastic grocery bags held in place by small amounts of duct tape. Make certain that the container isn't exposed through the bags.

 

Cover the container/bag lump with the cement mixture and shape as you like. Mine come out looking like a sort of hump-backed lump that my locals lovingly call "turds".

 

Let the whole thing dry for a week or two. you can the turn it over and take out the container and strip out the plastic bags. They won't stick to the cement, mostly. What you'll have is a void you can put the container back into.

 

The result won't fool anybody who is looking for something out of the ordinary, but that's not the point. What it will do in most cases is keep muggles from messing with it. It just looks like a random concretey-rocky sort of thing and they ignore it. Many "suburban park" and "high traffic trail" hides are easier to do with this sort of cammo. They also work out fairly well on bare hilltops and such places, as they sort of blend in without blending in too much.

[+fizzymagic]

All that said, fake rocks can be made at home and do a great job of hiding a cache from muggles while making them easy for geocachers to spot.

I can vouch for Walruz's fake rocks. They are very good for reducing the muggle problem. What amazes me is how far up he will carry them to remote locations to hide his caches. Those things are heavy!

[+reveritt]

Hey Walruz--got any photos of your homemade rocks? I have been considering something similar

Edited October 27, 2005 by reveritt

[JohnX]

How to make stuff out of "hypertufa", which looks like stone:

 

hypertufa

[+ThePropers]

I actually think it's awesome you have such honest logs. I wish cachers here were so honest in their logs, as we might avoid so many "film cannister under a light-post skirt" caches.

 

I love when I read a log and it's for some guardrail micro and they're like "Yay! Great cache. Really enjoyed this. Thanks for bringing me to the Home Depot parking lot! Had a great time! Keep up the good work! Your magnetic keyholder behind the guardrail behind this shopping center was so well thought out and ingenious. Would love to see more like this in the area! Yippee Skippy!"

[+Sue Gremlin]

You know, some of us LIKE those micros hidden in lamp posts. They are different and I find them often challenging.

[Team Kryptos]

There is a micro hidden in an old non-mortared rock wall near us. I'm embarrassed to say how much time we have spent on this one. The last time we went out I noticed a lot of the wall is getting torn apart from seekers. The coords are purposefully off with a hint stating "the cache is 30 feet from the coords" Blah! I normally like micros but this one is destructive to the area it is in. On the Ignore list it goes!