Winter cachin'?

[+swizzle]

An idea I plan on using this year to disguise my geopath's is a simple solution of yellow food coloring in warm water mixed in a squirt bottle. The water has to be kept warm to make the (drill holes) that should keep curious people away. I know if I was following a short path and saw some yellow drill holes then I would consider that an end to the trail. Anyone else have other tricks they use to avoid direct paths to caches? I also plan on making other trails and a lot of walking around in circles. Let's hear some geopath cover tricks. Swizzle

[+StarBrand]

• Make excess tracks and circular paths to throw off the trail
  
• Randomly stop and dig through the snow several times on the way in and out
  
• Time caching adventures to be just before a new storm
  
• Bring a dog and make sure it makes its own tracks (all kinds)
  
• and finally........\
  
• Avoid making snow trails at all.
  

[+sbell111]

I've only cached in two types of areas during the winter, one that receives snow pretty frequently and one that pretty much never gets any. Either way, it's not much of a problem.

[+Kacky]

It takes me so long to find a cache, that there are plenty of false trails around by the time I'm done.

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

Bring the kids! They'll be running all over the palce making more trails than anyone could possibly follow!

 

It's worked for me.

[+NorthWes]

• Make excess tracks and circular paths to throw off the trail
  
• Randomly stop and dig through the snow several times on the way in and out
  
• Time caching adventures to be just before a new storm
  
• Bring a dog and make sure it makes its own tracks (all kinds)
  
• and finally........\
  
• Avoid making snow trails at all.
  

 

Uh oh - StarBrand's got the Alaska system for winter caching down...

I like the 'place before storm -- publish after storm' system, as cachers will make enough tracks to handle the deception issue (starting with TUS FTF crew here!) Failing that, I bring along a friend's pair of rambunctious black labs... they handle the snow confusion for me! (My own cache hound does a good job too, but likes to run in my own trail - not like the labs...) Unfortunately, avoiding the snow trail syndrome (STS) is difficult in a 'good' winter! Let it Snow! LOTS OF SNOW!!!

[+denali7]

<claps and cheers for snow, too!>

[+the hermit crabs]

• Make excess tracks and circular paths to throw off the trail
  
• Randomly stop and dig through the snow several times on the way in and out
  
• Time caching adventures to be just before a new storm
  
• Bring a dog and make sure it makes its own tracks (all kinds)
  
• and finally........\
  
• Avoid making snow trails at all.
  

And at least one more:

• Leave a decoy cache-container imprint somewhere away from the cache site
  

Especially effective with ammo cans... bring the container 100 feet or so away, to a spot along one of your decoy footprint trails and near a potential hiding spot like a downed tree or stone wall, and set it down in the snow, leaving a nice clear cache-shaped depression.

[+Jhwk]

I've only cached in two types of areas during the winter, one that receives snow pretty frequently and one that pretty much never gets any. Either way, it's not much of a problem.

yeah, because geotrails don't exist.

[+sbell111]

I've only cached in two types of areas during the winter, one that receives snow pretty frequently and one that pretty much never gets any. Either way, it's not much of a problem.

yeah, because geotrails don't exist.

Not so much, in my experience.

[+Kacky]

I just started caching in the spring, but I snowshoe a lot, and the trails get obliterated pretty fast. A little wind takes care of just about everything except snowmobile tracks.

[+GRANPA ALEX]

Neer have this concern with urban micros in the Carolinas . . . no snow, no trails on the asphault . . . sorry!

[TinyMoon & The Pumpkin King]

We cache in the Frozen Wastelands of Upstate New York, where our snowfall ecxeeds that of Fairbanks Alaska, where the folks who live in Brewerton and Barnes Corners park their snowmobiles on the roofs of their houses ! Any geotrail we leave going to a cache will be !GONE! in a matter of hours, and anyways geo-activity around these parts pretty much "flat-lines" after Halloween/Thanksgiving anyways.

[+Cache Heads]

In our area, we avoid making tracks in the winter by rinsing our feet off before we leave the beach

[+BadAndy]

Since Idaho is truly heaven on earth, many of us usually just levitate above the snow until we're at the cache.