Too Easy In America?

[+Sagefox]

As I said in my post, we do have our easy caches, but I think it's more balanced down under.. That's not to say you don't have many difficult caches in America. I 'm sure you have some doosies, but I still say it's getting too easy when you can rack up 4000+ finds in just a couple of years.

 

Another way to look at this though is in percentages of difficult caches found by high-count individuals (or anyone for that matter). Fizzymagic published a program that broke down cache finds by terrain and difficulty. Most people reporting their stats, as I recall but don't guarantee, had around 10 to 14% higher rated caches. So for our 4000 find people that translates to about 480 higher rated cache finds. Someone with 500 finds and lets assume a unlikely hard cache rate of 50% would have found 250 harder caches.

 

I don't know how many finds you have or how many finds you think is appropriate. I'm not singling you or anyone else out but every time this argument comes up people forget that the high-count finders have usually been to more harder caches than the person complaining about high-count finders.

 

Some people just want to find a lot of caches and they have fun doing it.

Edited August 2, 2006 by Team Sagefox

[+AtoZ]

It is called CACHE DENSITY and alot of the high cache do little else. I know I cache with one.

cheers

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

The population of Australia is 20,090,437

The population of the United States is 295,734,134

 

So the US has roughtly 15 times as many people.

 

So 1 Australian cache is equal to 15 US caches

This means that 500 Australian cache finds is equal to 7500 US cache finds

Which then means that, in fact, Australian caches are almost twice as easy as US caches.

 

All of which is incredibly false logic -- but, hey -- if we are using false logic elsewhere then I get to use it too!

 

Edited to add:

 

The population of Antarctica is 0. Therefore, one Antartic cache is worth and infinite amount of any other countries caches - which means they are by far the easiest caches to find anywhere in the world. Anyone finding one should be embarrassed at the sheer simplicity of the feat. It's like getting credit for breathing....from the mouth.

Edited August 2, 2006 by Lemon Fresh Dog

[+Team Tecmage]

I'm not seeking an intellectual cop-out, but I am curious how someone who has not logged one cache here can speak to cache pollution or the quality of hides.

 

Perhaps someone who is annoyed by the fact that another person in another country who has only cached for a year or two has found a thousand caches or more while the someone who has cached for five years hasn't found more than 500 or so since the difficulty level is higher in their area. I'm not sure why they'd care unless the numbers really mattered to them.

 

(edited for grammar)

So the numbers matter? When we started, there was less than 10 caches in our state and it would have taken us a few days to find them all. We started caching out of state in Minneapolis and Kansas City because there were more caches. We learned our way around Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City one cache trip at a time.

 

I don't have a problem with people who live in places with high cache densities. Especially since there are forest preserves an hour from us that have multiple caches in several. I wouldn't call them lame either.

[+BlueDeuce]

I'm not seeking an intellectual cop-out, but I am curious how someone who has not logged one cache here can speak to cache pollution or the quality of hides.

 

Perhaps someone who is annoyed by the fact that another person in another country who has only cached for a year or two has found a thousand caches or more while the someone who has cached for five years hasn't found more than 500 or so since the difficulty level is higher in their area. I'm not sure why they'd care unless the numbers really mattered to them.

 

(edited for grammar)

So the numbers matter? When we started, there was less than 10 caches in our state and it would have taken us a few days to find them all. We started caching out of state in Minneapolis and Kansas City because there were more caches. We learned our way around Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City one cache trip at a time.

 

I don't have a problem with people who live in places with high cache densities. Especially since there are forest preserves an hour from us that have multiple caches in several. I wouldn't call them lame either.

 

Have you ever tried to go for a high number of caches in one day? My best was 13, took me about 6 hours. Doesn't seem like much but I had a great time doing it.

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

I think that page 14, sub-section 2 of the rulebook states that you need to take the difficulty level and multiply it by the terrain, then devide by the lat. and add the long. divided by the age of the cacher (or youngest member in the party - to compensate for encumberment).

 

That should put us all on a level playing field.

[+Team Tecmage]

I'm not seeking an intellectual cop-out, but I am curious how someone who has not logged one cache here can speak to cache pollution or the quality of hides.

 

Perhaps someone who is annoyed by the fact that another person in another country who has only cached for a year or two has found a thousand caches or more while the someone who has cached for five years hasn't found more than 500 or so since the difficulty level is higher in their area. I'm not sure why they'd care unless the numbers really mattered to them.

 

(edited for grammar)

So the numbers matter? When we started, there was less than 10 caches in our state and it would have taken us a few days to find them all. We started caching out of state in Minneapolis and Kansas City because there were more caches. We learned our way around Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City one cache trip at a time.

 

I don't have a problem with people who live in places with high cache densities. Especially since there are forest preserves an hour from us that have multiple caches in several. I wouldn't call them lame either.

 

Have you ever tried to go for a high number of caches in one day? My best was 13, took me about 6 hours. Doesn't seem like much but I had a great time doing it.

 

Yep, we did 22 in a day- took us about 12 hours in and around Kansas City. That state we started in was Iowa.

[gerboa]

Can't all this numbers stuff be killed at birh, just put a link to the same 'ol same 'ol, and let the antagonists email each other. Think of the Terabytes of disk space that would be saved.

[+BlueDeuce]

 

Yep, we did 22 in a day- took us about 12 hours in and around Kansas City. That state we started in was Iowa.

 

Yes, we all miss you. and by the way Ames isn't the cache puzzle center anymore.

 

Glad to see you back in the forums!

Edited August 2, 2006 by BlueDeuce

[+Team Tecmage]

 

Yep, we did 22 in a day- took us about 12 hours in and around Kansas City. That state we started in was Iowa.

 

<snip> by the way Ames isn't the cache puzzle center anymore.

 

 

WHAT!

[+BlueDeuce]

 

Yep, we did 22 in a day- took us about 12 hours in and around Kansas City. That state we started in was Iowa.

 

<snip> by the way Ames isn't the cache puzzle center anymore.

 

 

WHAT!

 

Yep, Iowa Tom basically single handedly took care of that.

 

That's what happens when you have a science teacher start geocaching.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/Default.aspx?id=177459

Edited August 2, 2006 by BlueDeuce

[JohnX]

I have not read all of the posts yet. Has anyone mentioned that the major portion of the Australian land mass is uninhabitable wasteland? How about the population density of Australia? Kind of low I would suspect.

 

How about interesting places like local and state parks, historical sights, public lands and forests? Judging by the original post, places like that aren't very common there, or the OP takes pride in finding caches that are just made arbitrarily difficult.

 

Think how lucky "The 2 Dogs" are! They are certainly living in the right place!

[+JimDub]

Hah! Pikers, all of you. I'm going for a FTF. And, simultaneously, hit 25% of ALL the listed caches in the entire country, AND dig up a little info on that pesky WMD/Nuke thing. Top THAT you one-upping, number crunching Ozzies and 'Merkins. Race ya for it! GCMXZB

 

- JimDub -

 

UPDATE: Turns out I can't get a visa. So I'll just hit the Grapevine Wine district for a chunky 'Mercan meal, which will be just as good. Mebby next year.

 

<burp> 'Scuse.

 

- JimDub -

Edited August 3, 2006 by JimDub

[+DocDiTTo]

In Australia, does the little GPS arrow point backwards because you're actually upside down?

[tttedzeins]

Has anyone mentioned that the major portion of the Australian land mass is uninhabitable wasteland?

 

Think how lucky "The 2 Dogs" are! They are certainly living in the right place!

 

A blatantly ignorant comment.

I live in the Northern Territory (Central) which woulld be part of that 'uninhabitable wasteland' you were talking about.

Although I agree with the sentiment of what the OP is saying, I believe that living in Sydney he has not much room to talk.

 

Try This

one for size

 

or

 

This

 

or

 

This one

 

Another

The last one is a 200m almost verticle climb and with temperatures reaching 45 celsius regularly in summer it is definately a winter cache.

 

In the NT we have 57 caches mostly in Darwin area, I agree it has something to do with population density.

By comparison there are about 790 within a 100km radius of Sydney and over 1200 within a 80km radius of Melbourne. I was recently in Perth and found numerous 'roadside' caches, I didn't do them but they were definately not challenging. Most of the caches in our area are well thought out ones that are tourist attractions or something of the like.

 

I don't believe the OP was trolling, just expressing an opinion. (all be it not entirely correct)

[The 2 Dogs]

Most of Australia is, for want of a better term, wasteland, and only accesable by walking or 4wd drive cars. But this might not be the cachers dream than you think. Australia rates as the most sparsely populated country on earth (if you take away askew figures such as Vatican city or Antarctica and such like), but then distance between towns becomes the major problem. If only we had lower fuel prices, I'm sure there would be many more in and around Darwin and in the centre of the country. I've cached in Darwin and have some placements there and can understand the frustration of not having enough to do. BTW I heard the crocs got another American tourist just a while ago. They certainly find them yummy...Just kidding.

 

Just have a look around on Google Earth, like America we have some amazing sights. A word of warning about Google Earth though. I have a cache near Darwin that looks like a walk in the park from above. It's a micro in the crotch of a tree by the side of the road. What google earth doesn't show is that the area is infested with salt water crocs, especially during the wet, and the temperature is often above 45 celsius.

 

Hey tttedseins!

 

I just purchased a new fourbie, diesel powered complete with long range fuel tanks as standard. It's the second I've bought all on account of Geocaching, Crazy isn't it. Anyway I'm looking forward to really putting it through it's paces up Darwin way soon.

 

Happy Caching

[The 2 Dogs]

To Americans, Australians go geocaching upside-down. Our toilets flush the other way too.

 

That's true! We have to stand on our heads when we sign the logs, although these days we're hard up finding the water to flush our toilets.

 

But you yanks drive on the wrong side of the road, isn't that dangerous?

[+briansnat]

But you yanks drive on the wrong side of the road, isn't that dangerous?

 

Only when there is an Aussie coming the other way.

[Tahosa and Sons]

Some like it easy, Some like it hard. And its a hard decision to make wheather to look for a hard one or an easy one. But we make our own decisions as to what we like to look for.

As an avid hider I don't believe in making them easy to find. And there are caches that make my back country caches seem lame. Its the variety and our choice to choose what we want to look for.

[tttedzeins]

To Americans, Australians go geocaching upside-down. Our toilets flush the other way too.

 

That's true! We have to stand on our heads when we sign the logs, although these days we're hard up finding the water to flush our toilets.

 

But you yanks drive on the wrong side of the road, isn't that dangerous?

 

Our plane fly upside down to. Everything being upside down has its advantages especialy when climbing trees

[+Ambrosia]

It's certainly a good thing that there are a lot of terrain 1-2 caches out there, otherwise I'd have to get a different favorite hobby.

[+Jhwk]

I have a cache near Darwin that looks like a walk in the park from above. It's a micro in the crotch of a tree by the side of the road. What google earth doesn't show is that the area is infested with salt water crocs, especially during the wet, and the temperature is often above 45 celsius.

 

So, I'm assuming the difficulty is 5? Wonder what the special equipment requirement is - BFG, really wicked knife, croc repellant?

[+sbell111]

But you yanks drive on the wrong side of the road, isn't that dangerous?

Very rarely it is, but then I get to whine about it for years.

[+The Leprechauns]

But you yanks drive on the wrong side of the road, isn't that dangerous?

Yes it is. But the good thing is, when people complain about that incessantly, you can put their posts on "ignore."

[+Team Tecmage]

For those with broadband access, and an appreciation of Photoshopping skills, here is a sample of some harder caches????

[+Katydid & Miles Stone]

What are you guys doing up there?

Most of us are trying to make something started in the US even better. If we must compare, why not look at quality caches versus the numbers?

[+Harry Dolphin]

Like many sports, you get out of it what you want to get out of it.

I have three siblings who geocache. We live in four different states (two on the east coast, two on the west coast.)

Me, I'll hunt anything that interests me. I don't always enjoy the caches that I hunt, but I hunt them anyway.

I've seen lots of pretty places in twelve different states.

My sister in the northeast doesn't really cache much. She needs a geocaching partner.

My brother in the northwest has over 2000 finds, and has cached on five continents. That's a great way to find interesting and unusual places when you're travelling. One of his FTFs involved a cobra in a cave near a Buddhist shrine.

My brother in the southwest prefers all day hikes in the mounains in the desert. He has thirteen hides in Nevada, and ninety six finds in three and a half year of geocaching. OP might want to check out some of those caches. They're tough ones!

We all have different expectations of what we want from geocaching. The rewards that we get from it. I'll enjoy what I get from geocaching. You enjoy the pleasure that you derive.

[+BlueDeuce]

Well said.

[ParentsofSAM]

As someone has already said, most American cachers probably couldn't hide a level 4 or 5 cache. I believe that's true. I know this will probably torque some folks, but here I go. Take a look at some of the gallery photos of the typical American cacher. Now imagine them trying to place a highly technical level 4 or 5 cache. If you look at some of the photos from large cache gatherings, it looks more like a Weight Watchers Convention than a bunch of solid trekkers.

 

Eagletrek

 

You just made your daughter (and maybe your wife) cry. I would be horrified if I was overweight and my parent made comments like that! Has she ever attended cache events?

 

Being overweight does not necessarily mean that you can not do pshically challenging cache hunts.

 

Your post is rude.

[+BlueDeuce]

...

 

Nevermind, I already received one warning.

 

You'll know what this thread is about. You don't need me to repeat it.

Edited August 5, 2006 by BlueDeuce

[Luckless]

Here in N.Y. we have the Adirondack mtns. People like to climb the mountains but not everyone climbs all the high peaks. For those who want to climb all the high peaks there is the high peaks club. I wonder if a club for cachers who want to do only the tough ones wouldn't be a good idea. They could either bookmark their favorites in the different states or post them on a website for other "club" members to reference.

Just a thought.

[+Kacky]

 

 

Since I have no idea why this person even cares about how I cache but apparenty he has to open a thread to tell me how wonderful he is, then I have to call it trolling.

Oh admit it, you just like to use your troll icons.

[+BlueDeuce]

 

 

Since I have no idea why this person even cares about how I cache but apparenty he has to open a thread to tell me how wonderful he is, then I have to call it trolling.

Oh admit it, you just like to use your troll icons.

 

Is it that obvious?