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0 For 3 -- Frustrated


BirdManOfCT

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I am not new to GPS (started with Garmin 12XL about 7 years ago and using Garmin 76CX now), but am new to Geocaching. I tried to find 3 today and did not find any. I'm not blind and I looked fairly well, as least according to the coordinates (give or take 60 feet) and the instructions. Very frustrating. <_<

 

Don't get frustrated, go back and read previous logs to see if they give hints about coords being off or hints about cache location... Some people just hide things in very very tricky ways.

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Which three did you try to find? Please post the names or the waypoint code (the letters/numbers for the cache, like GCHHR1) and we can try to give you some pointers, without giving you spoilers.

 

Sometimes we just overlook the obvious, other times we aren't expecting the truely devious.

I didn't want to look silly for missing the obvious! Here are the three:

 

GCRGB8

GCNWMR

GCPBHT

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Imagine we all have been in your shoes at one time or other. I am still fairly new at this and have had many times where havent been able to locate the cache. Just take a break, re-check all the information, let the geomofo kick in and "PRESTO" you'll fidn it. Good Luck and dont ever give up

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Double check your GPS settings, and make sure it is set to WGS 84. Using the wrong datum can throw you off.

 

None of the three are rated very difficult. Of course, what would be obvious to a seasoned cacher (lamp post micro for example) may stump a new cacher for up to 45 very frustrating minutes my first one lamp post micro).

 

Popular micro containers are 35mm film containers, waterproof match container, Altoids tins and magnetic hide-a-keys.

 

If a cache is listed as a micro, and the type of container is not listed, look for any metal object in the area that a magnet could stick to. Then look at either the backside or bottom of it.

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Try searching for 1/1 caches or caches with detailed hints until you get feel of your GPS and hunting skills. I still to this day will run accross one where I know I am looking to hard, when I just stop and "scan" the area, I find it. Good luck and don't give up. I would also suggest trying to attend an event in your area so you can talk about caches in your area and get an idea of how they hide them.

 

Good luck and welcome!

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Do as Blue Bomb said, "Double check your GPS settings, and make sure it is set to WGS 84. Using the wrong datum can throw you off."

 

GCPBHT Always #16 - I don't want to give this away, and if you want more precise info, please ask. The owner gives a pretty good description, and the hint is right on. To help you with this one, "Always" is part of a certain stores motto (this will help ensure you are in the right area). The hint, "Under the protective cover," is telling you to lift, and look under something (this "something" is very common in these locations - there's prob over a 100 of these in that area).

 

Looking at the others, it seems that pictures (on the middle cache), and the hints should help you alot! Good Luck, and don't let the frustration get to you.

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One of the "things" that draws me to geocaching are the number of skills one has to develop to find the caches. The coordinates will get you in the general area but after that, use your reasoning skills, your powers of observations: Where would I hide it?; What doesn't look quite "right"?. Get yourself a stick to do some poking around. I use a section of PVC pipe - I can feel and "hear" what I hit when I poke into leaves, under logs, etc. Don't let it get you down. You won't find themall. Since you are new, get yourself an experienced buddy to go with you to help you learn the ropes. Geocaching is not only fun, but gets you outdoors as well. I am still new to the hobby but there are 2 caches I have yet to find, even though I KNOW I am right on top of them. That is part of the fun <_<

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Which three did you try to find? Please post the names or the waypoint code (the letters/numbers for the cache, like GCHHR1) and we can try to give you some pointers, without giving you spoilers.

 

Sometimes we just overlook the obvious, other times we aren't expecting the truely devious.

I didn't want to look silly for missing the obvious! Here are the three:

 

GCRGB8

GCNWMR

GCPBHT

 

There is no such thing as missing the obvious when you are new to geocaching. The first few are usually challenging to find, and then suddenly you spot one, and it gets easier with each one you find after that.

 

I would follow the advice that FSUgly gave you, and try that hide again if I were you. It looks like you picked the three best hides for a novice in that area (so your instincts are good!). Let us know when you find one and we'll cheer for you.

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Found my very first cache today!! It was so exciting, to go on the hunt, wondering if it was really going to be there, or was this just some practical joke....then when I spotted it...hard to explain the feeling of mystery, connection to other people and places...lot's of people walking around the area, so had to be very discreet...now I've made my mark for others to find. I am totally addicted!! planning another outing for tomorrow afternoon...<_<

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I am not new to GPS (started with Garmin 12XL about 7 years ago and using Garmin 76CX now), but am new to Geocaching. I tried to find 3 today and did not find any. I'm not blind and I looked fairly well, as least according to the coordinates (give or take 60 feet) and the instructions. Very frustrating. <_<

 

Don't dispair my friend. Some caches still get the best of me. One sounds like it is inside a pipe or somewhere metal. Another one sounds like there is a fallen tree and it is hidden inside the hollow of it - one of the notes states it is not as well hidden so, it might just take some looking around for something out of the ordinary. The 3rd, the hint really doesn't give me anything to go by.

 

There are so many times in which my GPS is pointing me to one spot , I look around thinking "I think the cache is over there..." and although it is 25 feet away, chances are it is at that location.

 

If you look at your GPS, what does the accuracy state? If it shows you are within 10 feet it doesn't mean you are within 10 feet of the cache. The other person's gps might have shown an accuracy of 20 feet... which leaves you with a 30 foot radius (I'm not sure if I used the correct calculation)

 

Sometimes if you walk 50-100 feet away and then walk back, your gps will place you at a different location for Ground Zero.

 

Read through the logs- sometimes there are hints in the logs that will give you more information. If you get stuck, read the hint or re-read the hint. Walk away, come back, look everywhere within a 10 foot radius, then do a 20 foot radius. If you see a hollowed out tree or log, check there. Eventually your own intuition will kick in.... and still... there will be times when you are looking for an hour and just need to come back another day and take another crack at it.

 

Good Luck! Don't give up!

Dave

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I'll have to concur with the others and say don't let it get you down. I'm barely into the sport myself and have already had some interesting hunts and (did not) finds. My first one took me probably 40mins including a trip back to the truck to read the hint again. It taught me a valuable lesson, and that is to remember that even though your GPS says it's 4.7ft in front of you, it may actually be 10.3ft behind you. If your GPSr is showing 15ft accuracy, that is.

 

My first one, I spent the better part of the hunt looking on the opposite side of what I thought to be ground zero from the actual cache. Finding it was like Charlie finding a Golden Ticket. Nearly 60 days and 52 finds later, I find myself standing in subfreezing weather staring at a pine tree for 30mins and being irritated that it was cold and that I had to go back to work. I wanted to find that darn cache. You will too.

 

Also, don't be afraid to log a DNF. there isn't a stat for that in your profile, only you will care how many you log. Like was said before, some DNFs are as big or bigger adventures than the actual find. Welcome to the addiction, and have fun.

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When I first started Geocaching, which was litterally the other day, I was having a lot of difficulty finding caches. Today and only finding my 20th to 24th cache, I'm a hundred times better already. One of the ones I found today was one I couldn't find my first day and let me tell you, I walked straight to it and couldn't believe I didn't see it the first time.

 

So my point is that you'll get much better at finding the caches. If at 24 finds I'm amazed at how much better I am, I can't imagine how good these nuts with 100-1000 finds are. (I want to be a nut, btw).

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Keep at it. You are on the low end of the curve. My first day I DNFed four caches. The more you find the better you get. I was hunting the first leg of a multi when the owner showed up. Even when he had me looking right at it I couldn't see it. Now I spot that kind of hide right off. It takes time to learn the ropes, if it was always easy it wouldn't be worth doing. Good luck, and welcome to the wacky world of caching.

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As everyone else said, it takes a bit of time. There are very clever hides out there, and although I have only found 115 (compared to some cachers around here that have found thousands) my geosenses are kicking in and I can spot them much more easily now. The first day we logged a few DNF's and I was a bit frustrated. Then, as we found more and more, we got our confidence up. We are still logging DNF's, when the cache is right in front of us, but not so often.

Sometimes we can walk up and say, "There it is", and others well....

 

Every day we cache, we find a new and unique way of hiding a cache. As someone else in another post said, it's pitting your life skills of finding things against someone else's life skills of hiding things, and seeing who can out think the other.

 

Sometimes we have found a cache by standing back and looking at the scene, and wondering where we would hide a cache there if we were the hiders. That has helped in the past also.

 

Good luck and welcome to the addicting world of geocaching.

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I had this trouble when first starting out. For me the key was to go after "easy" caches at first. "easy" meant: lots of finds in logs, traditional (big) cache (vs. micro), not 1/2 mile into the woods, not multi-cache, caches that families/kids had found, cahces with lots of recent finds, etc. I carefully screened the caches this way until I got the hang of geocaching.

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CYBret, no, that tutorial is great and I had just bookmarked it! One of the things that I figured out was that I was using the boxes wrong -- duh! I knew the difficulty and terrain values and tried to pick low ones. However, I assumed the boxes were a summary of how easy it was, not how big it was. So, I was looking for microcaches! :laughing:

 

After learning a few things from here and the 101, I'll revisit those three and feel more confident that I'll find it.

 

BUT ...

 

I FOUND MY FIRST ONE! YAHOO!

 

I did GCRCAW during lunch (yes, it was a microcache, too). I hope I wasn't too obvious (see my log). I went back after lunch and it was still there.

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BUT ...

 

I FOUND MY FIRST ONE! YAHOO!

 

I did GCRCAW during lunch (yes, it was a microcache, too). I hope I wasn't too obvious (see my log). I went back after lunch and it was still there.

 

Great job! We're still pretty new at it, and I remember going back to DNF's and thinking...how did we miss it the first time?! It only gets more addictive from here!! :laughing::laughing:

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As a professional at feeling silly and stupid, I'll echo what others have said. quit worrying about that. (I completely embarrassed myself with my first one.) I've found it helpful when looking for something in the woods to look for arrangements of rocks or small logs that nature isn't likely to do. Sometimes I can't find a microcache because I have a certain amount of trepidation about even gently "manhandling" things that I don't own. And don't rely on your GPSr too much. I always get to a point where I realize that I need to turn the thing off and just look around. (Think about where you'd hide a cache in that area if you were the one hiding it, and remember that the word "obvious" isn't all that well defined. :laughing: )

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Our first cache was 9ft into the woods on the north side of a rock. We looked for at least 45min at every rock within a 20yd radius with no luck. :D As we were returning to the car we met an experienced cacher who pointed out that you don't usually see a pile of sticks with a rock on top. Sure enough all we had to do was move the rock and a couple of sticks to spot the ammo can. :laughing: That is also how we got our handle.

There is one cache we have been out 4 times hunting for it. If we had read all the logs first we would have known we didn't have to cross the stream and get muddy :D We haven't given up yet!

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I have been out 3 times (started on 2/12/06) and thankfully we found the 4 out of 5 that we set out to do, I had no knowledge like the 101 page, which I have booked by the way, thx, and was flying by the seat of my pants. I am one of those people that just jump without much knowledge. I have found 7 total now and will go find my DNF if it kills me :0. The point I guess I am trying to make, is I am not sure what I would feel like if we found none our first time out, I didn't even approach this "sport" with the possibility of not finding them. Our first one was a matchstick case in the crack of a tree and my ds/13 found it. After that we had a bit of a clue how to look, next in a tree too, but there was one of those kudzu vines (if fr. TX you know what that is :D) and we followed it around until we found the 35mm case. Since then I have been in the woods where my GPS won't hold a signal and just ticked because I know it IS RIGHT THERE!! but couldn't find it. It is so easy to get hooked, but I am so glad I didn't start without finds. Congrats on your first find, awesome huh? I still want a FTF really bad! I am not sure I would have had your guts to keep trying at the front of this, but I am glad I wasn't tested that way because I have found a new calling. Long winded, but there it is. I LOVE THIS STUFF!!!

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If you were searching for a cache in a tree with a kudzu vine I'm surprised you found the tree let alone the cache! I once read about a couple that bought a house from an estate at auction. The back yard was covered with kudzu. When they cleaned it away, they found an inground pool! :D

Edited by What rock?
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Anyone who tells you they don't have any skunks is a liar. Day before yesterday I found 1 out of 5. I have over 1,000 finds and it seems that I have more skunks now then ever. By the way one of the no finds was rated a 1/1.

 

ps: don't believe those 1/1 ratings they lied in order to make you feel bad.

 

:D

 

oh, lordy, can I relate to this. I have fewer finds...but the DNF's just sniff me out.

 

Congrats on your first couple of finds, and definately stick with it.

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I have had to go back to half my finds at least twice, but each find i get a little better. Some of the finding comes down to knowing the limitation of your GPSr and that just takes time and practice. Eventually you will be able to get even with the other cachers that have helped to fuel your growing addiction by placing a cache that others will DNF. You will plan this cache while cackling and giggling evilly. You will plant it with a mischeivious grin on your face and wait for the DNF and the guys who admit to having to go back two or three or like me to one cache 5 times. HE HE HE. HAHAHA!!!!!

 

Ops sorry lost it there for a minute.

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Getting started, especially when you do it on your own (which I did), can be frustrating.

 

Thankfully, my first 2 caches I found, but another I couldn't. I had to come back to that one 2 more times before I found it.

 

Dealing with micros and camo'd gc can add to the difficulty (and frustration). There are several gcers in my area who do some very tricky hides.

 

Something I discovered that caused me a lot of frustration was my entering in the coords wrong. This I usually discovered after a frustrating time looking, then decided to doublecheck them against the printout I brought with me. Since then, I now always try to download the coords to ensure I don't make a mistake.

 

I still bring along printouts of the caches I am looking for. I always try to get a recent one (ie, one printed off in the last couple of days vs. months ago), plus I now include both the hint and the last 5 logs. Why? Helps to know if some has succeeded or not in finding it recently, plus the comments can help with further hints or warning (not give away, but further help).

 

There are also hiding techniques. Once you learn them, this can help, especially if you know a certain technique has been used. In my area, the 'classic' hide is a container hidden either behind a tree or in the root area of a tree, hidden under pine needles or palm fronds. But there are also camo's and micros hidden in certain ways.

 

As you get more experienced, it will be easier. For instance, at a couple of sites, the coords seem to be off. But as the location being indicated was a poor location for a hide, I was able to look where the cache really was.

 

Also, take the time to read the tutorial and other such items. Those help.

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Just a note to concur and add a little something.

 

Your learning curve for the next few months will be very steep. You'll pick up on things in a big hurry, in other words. Every cache you find will amaze and delight you.

 

And then, somewhere around 100 finds, you'll start to think "Ah. Another one of THOSE..." as you walk up to the coordinates - because you'll have seen several and you'll just KNOW where the cache will be and how it's hidden. (The UPS or Unnatural Pile of Stuff syndrome).

 

You'll start to think of yourself as unfoolable.

 

Then, one day, you'll walk up to a cache coordinate and think, "Ah. Another one of THOSE..." and you'll look where you know it'll be. You may even reach out your hand to grab it...but it won't be there. And you'll look and look and mumble to yourself and kick the dog, and it'll be just like that first cache again. Because the guy who hid it also knew what you know, and he hid the dangblasted thing in such a devious, such a clever, such a downright fiendish way that he teaches you a lesson in humility. And when you find THAT one - the fun starts all over again!

 

Welcome to the addiction!

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I went back to the original three and easily found two of them, largely due to posts in this thread -- thanks! I'm at 9 and can't wait to hit 100. :D About that third one (GCPBHT), I don't know. The only things I can think of is that it is gone (not likely), is under one of the banks of snow (possible), or is in the "protective cover" that says "poison" and I didn't want to open. I'll try again when the snow melts, unless I get some more clues. :huh:

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Which three did you try to find? Please post the names or the waypoint code (the letters/numbers for the cache, like GCHHR1) and we can try to give you some pointers, without giving you spoilers.

 

Sometimes we just overlook the obvious, other times we aren't expecting the truely devious.

I didn't want to look silly for missing the obvious! Here are the three:

 

GCRGB8

GCNWMR

GCPBHT

not to go off in another direction but can somebody give me a link to using and entering the name/waypoint code referanced above. i've read about it and can't find where it was. As you can tell i'm still learning. thanks

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Which three did you try to find? Please post the names or the waypoint code (the letters/numbers for the cache, like GCHHR1) and we can try to give you some pointers, without giving you spoilers.

 

Sometimes we just overlook the obvious, other times we aren't expecting the truely devious.

I didn't want to look silly for missing the obvious! Here are the three:

 

GCRGB8

GCNWMR

GCPBHT

not to go off in another direction but can somebody give me a link to using and entering the name/waypoint code referanced above. i've read about it and can't find where it was. As you can tell i'm still learning. thanks

DAH, figured it out. PLEASE disregard. thanks.

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