Geopoaching

[+Iowa Tom]

There is something about introducing geocaching to the populous that seems like a quandary to me. I am enthusiastic about it and want to tell everybody yet I feel if I do I might regret it later. Advertising via the media will allow anyone to learn that there are many things out there to find and take. I guess that’s the chance we obviously need to take. Any opinions?

 

To sift out at least some of the geopoachers I began designing multi, mystery and puzzle caches to make it harder to find the final cache container. Sometimes the coordinate I give on the webpage is not the real one. I say so in the description then tell the player how to find the true coord via some sort of process, often involving pictures. A geocache sequence that uses pictures in the process of finding the final unit I call a pictocache. [i myself am visually oriented and have found that pictures open up a veritable ocean of ways to be creative. [/i] This pictocache is my favorite of the several that I have done. It may take a few hours to complete and only one person has taken the time to do that.] With a multipart cache, potential geopoachers will have to work for their bread. Another Iowan once said, "trouble makers are notoriously lazy." That is what I depending upon!!

 

To further frustrate would-be thieves, I make many of my containers a puzzle to get open even if they do find it. This one is the most complex in that regard. It's a PVC pipe cache hidden in a very old rusty pipe. In the long hint I tell peiple how to open it etc. Two other caches I had there were taken from that location so it became a contest of wits to see if I could make it hard enough to find and for all practical purposes impossible to get out of its hiding place even IF found…unless they have a coat hanger wire and THE KEY. After finally figuring out how to get the mechanism apart, the player finds they need a key to open a lock. The key is hidden about 100 yards away. I needed to make something to block and lock the tube into the rusty pipe. It needed to match the rusty tube the cache is hidden in. I dug around in my garage and found an old iron plumbing coupling. Just big enough, once drilled out, to hide the small lock. I torched it to burn off any residual paint then I soaked it in muriatic (hydrochloric) acid to encourage rusting. The coupling fits onto the ends of a rusted rod that is inserted through an original opening in the pipe.

 

Making containers that don’t come open simply has proven to be a real boon to me in that it has opened up a whole new vista of variety that can go into making a cache container. Since I really enjoy designing and making specialized containers this has proven to be nothing but fun!!!! I usually give at least a hint so that when a person does find the cache they can get it open without too much frustration. As an example, the lid on one of my geo-birdhouses requires lifting a single nail in the lid. That would be no big deal except that that one nail looks an awful lot like all the others that don’t lift up! The nail is indirectly hooked to a part which includes a spring.

 

Finally, someone might wonder why I use birdhouses because they are so “out there.” Well, I myself tend to ignore the ones I find because they are so ubiquitous. I try to use old wood or make them look old. Because I make them hard to open even if a muggler did find it, the cache will hopefully not be robbed.

 

-it

[Tahosa and Sons]

I like the idea of your Tombstone Cache, and that cache has a cousin in CO. Images most of my caches are so far off the beaten path even cachers can't or won't even look for them.

[+briansnat]

I think there are generally two types of thieves. The non geocacher (we'll call him the Accidental Pirate) who accidently stumbles on a cache and takes it, and the the miscreant who uses a GPS and targets caches for the sake of spoiling other's fun. The latter type generally falls into three subgroups. The nutcase (we'll call him SpoilSport) who reads about the sport and decides it would be fun to steal caches, and the disaffected geocacher (someone who had a run in with other local geocachers, or this website - we'll call him LostSoul) and the do gooder, enviro-facist who sees geocaching as a scourge on the level of strip mines, who we shall call Mrs. Green Jeans.

 

There is one more type who really isn't a thief per se and that is the land manager or owner who finds caches on his land and removes them.

 

Creating these difficult puzzles will not thwart the Accidental Pirate. The only thing that will do that is hiding your cache well enough and far enough off the beaten path that it won't be discovered. Even that won't always work because sometimes what you might think is off the beaten path, really isn't.

 

Of the other kinds, SpoilSport is probably the most common and easiest to deal with. The puzzles will probably stop him (they usually aren't too bright) as will as multis, long hikes and difficult terrain (if he had ambition he'd have more important things to do) and he will usually lose interest quickly and go back to mugging old ladies.

 

The other two are much harder to deal with. Mrs Green Jeans thinks she is on a mission from God (or Mother Nature) and will stop at nothing. 5/5? She's there if she thinks the cache is despoiling the pristine countryside. LostSoul is similar, but he is instead acting out of revenge so you probably aren't going to stop him either. Besides, chances are he already found the cache before he turned to the dark side. He will also know all the tricks and shortcuts making him the most dangerous. Fortunately there aren't many of these two kinds, so they aren't a significant issue (with some regional exceptions).

 

Anyway, creating difficult caches simply to thwart theft is not going to work in many cases. If that is the sole reason you are doing it, it is not very productive. Of course many people find these caches to be great fun and whatever the reason you are creating them, others will enjoy them.

 

BTW, I have this "pictocache" and it has been received well. If it goes missing though, it will probably be due to the Accidental Pirate because of its location.

Edited November 25, 2005 by briansnat

[+edscott]

I think there are generally two types of thieves. The non geocacher (we'll call him the Accidental Pirate) who accidently stumbles on a cache and takes it, and the the miscreant who uses a GPS and targets caches for the sake of spoiling other's fun. The latter type generally falls into three subgroups. The nutcase (we'll call him SpoilSport) who reads about the sport and decides it would be fun to steal caches, and the disaffected geocacher (someone who had a run in with other local geocachers, or this website - we'll call him LostSoul) and the do gooder, enviro-facist who sees geocaching as a scourge on the level of strip mines, who we shall call Mrs. Green Jeans.

 

There is one more type who really isn't a thief per se and that is the land manager or owner who finds caches on his land and removes them.

 

Creating these difficult puzzles will not thwart the Accidental Pirate. The only thing that will do that is hiding your cache well enough and far enough off the beaten path that it won't be discovered. Even that won't always work because what you might think is off the beaten path, really isn't.

 

Of the other kinds, SpoilSport is probably the most common and easiest to deal with. The puzzles will probably stop him (they usually aren't too bright) as will as multis, long hikes and difficult terrain (if he had ambition he'd have more important things to do) and he will usually lose interest quickly and go back to mugging old ladies.

 

The other two are much harder to deal with. Mrs Green Jeans thinks she is on a mission from God (or Mother Nature) and will stop at nothing. 5/5? She's there if she thinks the cache is despoiling the pristine countryside. LostSoul is similar, but he is instead acting out of revenge so you probably aren't going to stop him either. Besides, chances are he already found the cache before he turned to the dark side. He will also know all the tricks and shortcuts making him the most dangerous.

 

Anyway, creating difficult caches simply to thwart theft is not going to work in many cases. If that is the sole reason you are doing it, it is not very productive. Of course many people find these caches to be great fun and whatever the reason you are creating them, others will enjoy them.

 

BTW, I have this "pictocache" and it has been received well. If it goes missing though, it will probably be due to the Accidental Pirate because of its location.

Well said....

[+Iowa Tom]

Hey briansnat,

 

I like your choice of terms for the problem makers.

 

Your "Then and Now: Boonton, NJ" cache is neato. Nice work!

 

Tahosa and Sons, your Images I, is good too.

 

By the way, when I'm honest with myself I think I make the puzzles and hard to get open containers just because it's a creative outlet for me.

 

-it

[+Moose Mob]

The term Spoilsport seems pretty approiate since that is where most of the "cachers gone bad" have come from. Historically, they have been refered to as "Cache Maggots" (note that term Pirates does not fit into this as it has a degree of respect and/or glory towards those who hold the title. Maggots deserve no respect of glory). Leach might be a good term also.

[+deimos444]

Nice analogies.

[+welch]

There is something about introducing geocaching to the populous that seems like a quandary to me. I am enthusiastic about it and want to tell everybody yet I feel if I do I might regret it later. Advertising via the media will allow anyone to learn that there are many things out there to find and take. I guess that’s the chance we obviously need to take. Any opinions?

 

I think you sumed it pretty well. You get the good with the bad.

 

Hey, do you ever give any of your students Fs?

Not saying they do steal caches, but you never know .

[+Rugenstein]

I don't usually post on this forum, however, your topic peaked my attention. I have lost two micros so far (one by the "cache pirate") and I know others who have recently lost 4. This seems to be a problem that is expanding and has the potential of growing even bigger and getting out of hand.

 

I agree that there are some which are lost to the enviro-nazis and there are those who stumble upon them. I do believe that those taken intentionally are at most done by just a few people. I can't believe that there are a large number of people who would take the time to go take these caches (I lost one micro which was a 2 mile round trip deep into the woords).

 

So far, this as such, is just a pain in the neck and takes away from the sport. My concern is that this will expand and people will start getting hurt. Either one of these snakes-in-the-grass will rig a cache to cause property or personal damage or someone will catch one of these individuals and beat the tar out of them. Neither scenario is good.

 

Solutions: One person told me to just keep replacing them and hope who ever is doing it will get bored. Another told me they were going to lay in wait and spring some sort of trap (not practical or safe as far as I am concerned). Then of course there have been a number of good suggestions just on this list.

 

I think I will probably keep replacing them. I have thought of making them premium member caches. I probably will keep replacing them hoping the "maggots" will just get tired of doing it.

 

[+geobc]

To sift out at least some of the geopoachers I began designing multi, mystery and puzzle caches to make it harder to find the final cache container. Sometimes the coordinate I give on the webpage is not the real one. I say so in the description then tell the player how to find the true coord via some sort of process, often involving pictures.

I guess the main problem with this approach, were it to be more widely adopted, is that it would take away from the convenience of using something like Cachemate to carry all the cache information because it doesn't support images. Anyone who uses PQ's to generate a cache list of an area he is going to visit isn't necessarily going to go through each one before hand, and therefore won't know to print out the photos prior to trying to find your cache. Obviously, it's not a deal breaker but it will definitely limit the number of legitimate visitors to your cache.

 

GeoBC

[+Iowa Tom]

Hey, do you ever give any of your students Fs?

Not saying they do steal caches, but you never know

 

Hi Welch.

 

The first person to cause me some grief was a student! He thought it would be cute to say that he was going to "geosmash" my caches, in word only of course. He was jealous that I was giving more attantion to another student that was getting into geocaching a lot.

 

Not a smart move.

[+One of the Texas Vikings]

The first person to cause me some grief was a student!    He thought it would be cute to say that he was going to "geosmash" my caches, in word only of course. He was jealous that I was giving more attantion to another student that was getting into geocaching a lot.

 

Not a smart move.

I would think that appropriate way to handle this is to take the young man aside;

explain the benefits of geocaching and the great outdoors;

explain about the property of others and why it is important;

 

 

Then hit him in the head with an ammo can !

[Geo Quest]

There is something about introducing geocaching to the populous that seems like a quandary to me. I am enthusiastic about it and want to tell everybody yet I feel if I do I might regret it later.

I know exactly what you mean about introducing new people to geocaching. I introduced my wife's teenage cousin to geocaching by taking him and a friend on a hunt. We found the cache and everybody seemed to have a good time. I learned a few days later that they went back to the cache and stole it just for kicks. He told me was going to become the "GEOBANDIT" or something similarly weird, pointless, and stupid. What a punk. I was able to get the cache back and re-hide it.

[+deimos444]

Then hit him in the head with an ammo can !

Gosh but I like to hear from people who are as twisted as I am!

[+edscott]

The first person to cause me some grief was a student!    He thought it would be cute to say that he was going to "geosmash" my caches, in word only of course. He was jealous that I was giving more attantion to another student that was getting into geocaching a lot.

 

Not a smart move.

I would think that appropriate way to handle this is to take the young man aside;

explain the benefits of geocaching and the great outdoors;

explain about the property of others and why it is important;

 

 

Then hit him in the head with an ammo can !

For a minute there I thought you were in educational administration... until I got to the punchline. ...one more year... one more year.. one more year.... Then I can become a professional cacher.