Geocache Dead zones

[+genegene]

Im just curious if any one else has placed a cache that seemes like it never gets found. I placed one in a very easy to reach spot and it only has 3 finds on it. I place one 2 weeks after that one and it now has like 20 hits. Has any one else run into this senario also, and what have you done to help fix it. The dead zone im in is October Mt. state forest, in Mass. The hot zone seames to be in Pittsfield Mass. 4 mi. north. Does any one else see dead zone cache sights?

[+Miragee]

I have some caches that have only been found three times since last August . . . but they are on a hiking/biking trail and it is two miles to get to the one on the summit.

 

Another one at a trailhead for a nice hiking trail rarely gets found, but it is quite a drive out there from the city and now that gas is $3.44/gallon I don't expect it to get found . . .

 

I finally placed some caches in town just so I would get some "Found It" emails, and even some of those only get found once every month or two . . .

[Tahosa and Sons]

Many of mine in the back country only get found about 3 to 4 times a year. I've been thinking of putting a lamp post with a skirt on it in the hills about 5 miles in just to entice them into looking for them.

[+Rockin Roddy]

Place MORE caches! Not just throw them out in bushes or whatever to up the caches, but place some good caches in the area and watch the cachers come! Give the cacher a reason to visit...but make it a cache you can be proud to own!

[+tomfuller & Quill]

I hid one on June 2, 2006. It is 15 mi. ATCF from the nearest cache. Several cachers have taken the time to solve the mystery. I think logscaler & Red are going to find it today. If you want STF you have to solve the puzzle for (A. Spring GCWE3D) and then travel to the area West of Silver Lake, Oregon in Lake County.

If I hide several more within 5 miles of this one I might get more people to come out to this area of Oregon.

Tom Fuller

Crescent, Oregon

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Many of mine in the back country only get found about 3 to 4 times a year. I've been thinking of putting a lamp post with a skirt on it in the hills about 5 miles in just to entice them into looking for them.

Yes, that will work, but only if you put the lamp post cache in a large paved parking lot and if you build a wide paved road right to the parking lot. Oh, and you will need to provide a number of other lamp post caches and guardrail caches within a 1,200 foot radius, to achieve a cache density sufficient to make the "easy numbers" people think that its worthwhile to make the 5 mile drive.

 

And, a note to the OP: yes, it is simply a maxim of geocaching that easily-accessible urban caches will always get a lot more visitors than rural wilderness caches which require a hike.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Place MORE caches! Not just throw them out in bushes or whatever to up the caches, but place some good caches in the area. . .

And exactly WHAT is wrong with just tossing a cache container out the car window into the bushes, taking a

"drive-by" waymark, and publishing it as a cache? That is how I place all my caches!

 

 

 

 

[+NorthWes]

Im just curious... Does any one else see dead zone cache sights?

 

Mmmm... couldn't resist the play on words here... yup - I saw trash zombies at a recent cache find - two 45 gallon garbage bags later, the area still looked like a dead zone and I was out of space to haul away trash! And no, it wasn't even a graveyard cache!!

 

But back to the original intent of the post... as others have said, between gas prices and perceived physical effort, the close-in drive-up will always see more hits. Funny though, my 'distant' caches seem to produce the best-quality 'found-it' cache logs! That makes me happy when I choose places for cache placements that I'd like to share for their inherent natural beauty - regardless of how few visit.

[vagabond]

FKROL beat me to FTF, but second aint bad. Was a very quick find. Not sure if the difficulty should be as high as a 4. The cache was really nicely done. It's obvious that you have done your homework on this one. Thanks for the hide. TNLNSL

 

This was from your #2 finder. I see you have changed the diff. Maybe the locals saw the 4 rating for diff and decided to hold off for awhile' Plus like someone else remarked the gas prices may have something to do with it.

I know with prices at$3.39 for reg. it sure has cut down on my caching

Welcome to the insanity

[vtmtnman]

Many of mine in the back country only get found about 3 to 4 times a year. I've been thinking of putting a lamp post with a skirt on it in the hills about 5 miles in just to entice them into looking for them.

 

That's IT!!This is the second time today I've read this.I've found my new cache idea when I get home.I'm soooo freakin' doing this.

 

Already got the oxy/acyetlene rig.Only problem is Price Chopper is open 24 hours...hmmmmm.........

[+palmetto]

It's more about the driving distance than the hiking distance. I have a 12 mile multi cache near an urban area with 3x more finds than a 3 mile roundtrip traditional. The traditional is far from where anyone lives. So nobody gets it. And it's all by itself. Coming up on one year since the last find.

I own some boat accessible hides as well. They don't get found very often, especially the one where the nearest ramp is way the heck out of the way. It got 2 finds its first year and 2 in the second. I expect that dizzying pace will continue.

[+genegene]

Yes VAGABOND I changed the difficulty rating becouse i thought a spoiler was something to throw you off the cache, then realized it was a hint, DE DE DE... The hint originaly said (it is not in the log) when it realy is. not that hard to find anyways. Thinking of doing what ROCKIN RODDY sugests by placeing more caches in the area just to get more people into the area.

[+smithdk]

I've hidden 2 caches last June that have only been found 3 times so far. The area is a little remote but I know the main reason they are not being found is there are very few cachers in the area.

[+oldsoldier]

Me, I prefer the hikes to the drive by's. Granted, I'll occasionally hit some either on the way out, or way back, from a cache area, but, generally, I prefer spending the day outside, hitting the trails and grabbing caches.

genegene, where IS Washington, MA? I know where Pittsfield is...never heard of washington before though.

[+geomann1]

Me, I prefer the hikes to the drive by's. Granted, I'll occasionally hit some either on the way out, or way back, from a cache area, but, generally, I prefer spending the day outside, hitting the trails and grabbing caches.

genegene, where IS Washington, MA? I know where Pittsfield is...never heard of washington before though.

 

I prefer hikes, but I would tend not to drive a longer than normal distance for a single cache. I agree with some earlier posters that the thing to do to attract more cachers is to place more caches. Instead of one cache at the end of a 3 mile hike, how about a total of 5 placed along the trail?

 

I would personally rather see 5 separate caches than a multi, which I intend to pass on.

[+genegene]

OLDSOLDIER, it is about 2 mi. south of pittsfield if you are takeing the back way over washington mt. rd next to burgners farm market. If you get of the pike in lee, ( exit 2, LEE Mass. ) and then take Rt. 20 east, into becket and then north on rt. 8. That will run you into Washington Mass. The Zip code is 01223, Becket and Washington share the same zip code

[+Jhwk]

3 of my 4 (yes, I only have 4, and 2 of them were adopted!) have a small hike, or a offset involved. Very easy, but they only get hit about once every few months. Of course my last is a micro at a rest stop for the weary traveller. It gets hit constantly.

 

geocache dead zone = my little neck of the woods.

[+Exocet]

In the four years GC56CD was active ...it had exactly one visit. It wasn't in a really remote place, but it wasn't that easy to get to it either.

 

I've done other geocaches that get just just a visit or two per year (GC48B is a good one).

 

I think the rule of thumb is that if it's out of the city and requires some effort, it probably won't get found a lot. Those are the best caches, though - the ones that take some effort and create a lot of good memories.

[vtmtnman]

I think my cache is experiencing a dead zone.Just about all of the local finders have 'conquered' it ...but now it just waits in it's slate house for some cacher to pass through for a nice quick park and grab.I was glad the man who inspired the name found it.I don't care if anyone else finds it now...

[+brodiebunch]

We have one (out of 14) geocaches in Seattle that has not been found in two months. It has had a TB in it too for that long and Seattle is literally ground zero in the geocaching realm.

 

GCHJXY or Tool-All-Tw is its name. Waiting to be found. Waiting.....................

[+geomann1]

I think my cache is experiencing a dead zone.Just about all of the local finders have 'conquered' it ...but now it just waits in it's slate house for some cacher to pass through for a nice quick park and grab.I was glad the man who inspired the name found it.I don't care if anyone else finds it now...

 

This raises a good point, should caches be recycled periodically. Once all the locals found a cache and activity drops off, would it not be a good idea to archive it and place it somewhere else so the locals could look for it again? Cachers pass by would still have the opportunity to find it, but now at a new location.

[+chuckwagon101]

Stuffum fulluhh McToys!!

 

Works every time!

[+genegene]

I Think Im going to place more caches in the area just to get more people to get into Oct. Mt. state forest. Not just park and hide but ones that require them to enjoy the walk. There are many places that I found that would be nice places to hide one.

[vtmtnman]

I think my cache is experiencing a dead zone.Just about all of the local finders have 'conquered' it ...but now it just waits in it's slate house for some cacher to pass through for a nice quick park and grab.I was glad the man who inspired the name found it.I don't care if anyone else finds it now...

 

This raises a good point, should caches be recycled periodically. Once all the locals found a cache and activity drops off, would it not be a good idea to archive it and place it somewhere else so the locals could look for it again? Cachers pass by would still have the opportunity to find it, but now at a new location.

I brought that up in some other thread and everyone said that was a bad idea.I can't remember what the reasoning was,but I agreed.Better to just leave it be for out o' towners or newbies.

[+Sommers]

Genegene...I like your caches i used to live in Washington myself...I don't think you can compare the 2 locations...as much as i like Oct. Mtn. I can't get up there often...Pittsfield I can stop and grab on my way to work or the store or as one guy i know says "while i'm at work" Once summer gets into full swing you will see a pick up in the # of hits in the remote areas as people make a day of it...Plus it's often the case that the # of hits drops after the local cachers have all made their visits.

Also I was wondering if you had any information about the forest and if you knew about A: the mansion foundation that is somewhere on the property B: if you knew what Sec. of the Navy owned it all. C: have you seen the cemetary on the beginning of the trail.

[+simplyred]

I've added more caches to the area to help bring people to some of my caches. The area is beautiful and has loads of beautiful places for more caches.

Whatever you do, don't archive them, those are the ones, cachers (like me) truly enjoy.

We travelled 200kms for a cache this past weekend, and a 200kms quad ride to a cache the previous weekend.

These out of the way, not often found, caches are usually the best ones.

People tend to do easy close ones, but eventually they'll move on to longer/farther ones. And once they see the gratification of a well deserved cache, they'll be searching them out.

I love being at spots where I'm one of the few who stood there and see what there is too see. Especially out of the 6 billion plus people in the world.

Edited May 15, 2007 by simplyred

[+jackrock]

Why fix it? I've placed caches on a hiking trail. They are at various points, none too far from parking but they do require a hike. I knew they would not get lots of hits. If this was popular here, there would have already been caches in these areas. One of them hasn't been found yet and I placed it over two months ago; a few others are waiting for finders and I put them out last week. I'm not worried, they're there for those that like to hike and they'll wait for the next hikers to come along. Heading into the hot season may slow things down even more. A few require a day use fee to get close to but it's only $3 and I placed multiple caches to make it more worthwhile. It's a great place to camp with nice trails. I placed them in places I like to go.

 

Just my two cents. If I decide I want lots of hits, I'll place some caches in town. I actually do have a couple of ideas for in town ones that I'd like to do for fun, I just haven't gotten the materials I'll need or scoped out those perfect spots.

[crtrue]

Sometimes the "dead zone" problem is more about region. Here along the coast of South Carolina, we have an active caching community along the Grand Strand in the north and an active caching community in the Charleston area to the south. There is an hour drive between the two, yet I don't see too many Charleston cachers come up here and vice-versa. I'm not sure why, either.

 

Either way, as a result, Georgetown, about half-way between Myrtle Beach and Charleston, is a fat dead zone. It's been addressed at meetings and I've pledged to go, but being on the northern end of the Strand, it's about an hour's drive for me -- certainly not something I can just drop and do.

 

Here's an idea:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...amp;x=0&y=0

 

The first reference to Pawley is Pawley's Island, so within the general Georgetown area, there are about four caches. It's not like Georgetown is a small place, either -- it just seems to be both a placement and hiding dead zone.

 

Of course, someone had to be original and place an off-short, tip o' the island cache. (GC71EC)

 

It was placing in 2002, found in 2003, found in 2004, and now I'm just trying to find a way to get down there and hop a boat. It's hard for us broke cachers

[crtrue]

Sometimes the "dead zone" problem is more about region. Here along the coast of South Carolina, we have an active caching community along the Grand Strand in the north and an active caching community in the Charleston area to the south. There is an hour drive between the two, yet I don't see too many Charleston cachers come up here and vice-versa. I'm not sure why, either.

 

Either way, as a result, Georgetown, about half-way between Myrtle Beach and Charleston, is a fat dead zone. It's been addressed at meetings and I've pledged to go, but being on the northern end of the Strand, it's about an hour's drive for me -- certainly not something I can just drop and do.

 

Here's an idea:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...amp;x=0&y=0

 

The first reference to Pawley is Pawley's Island, so within the general Georgetown area, there are about four caches. It's not like Georgetown is a small place, either -- it just seems to be both a placement and hiding dead zone.

 

Of course, someone had to be original and place an off-short, tip o' the island cache. (GC71EC)

 

It was placing in 2002, found in 2003, found in 2004, and now I'm just trying to find a way to get down there and hop a boat. It's hard for us broke cachers

 

Wowza, and I just realized the 2003 find was actually a note about visiting in 2004...so only one hit, about three years ago (hit in May).

 

Anyone have a boat living along the Grand Strand area / want to make a road trip?

[crtrue]

Oh, I get to demonstrate the dead zone and try a feature:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gmnearest.a...mp;lon=-79.2701

[+genegene]

I don't mean that I am going to dump caches out of my car but place odd ball caches in the area. It seams to me that it will by like a playground for me to try new and diffrent things for the local cachers. GC12P9H is a big hit so far, and I have one that will proabaly get me shot by them, becouse of the difficulty rating. It will be easy to get to, just not find.

[GPS-Hermit]

I placed a cache that is perfect for mountain biking folks to increase their novice skills and because some folks think there are too many easy caches. So I put one out 3.3 miles from the car. Not many hits but the ones that go have great praise, even the ones that do the whole 6.6 mile walk. It is a wild life Management area and only gets about 4 hits a year. Some by groups. I like knowing the trekers are challenged and enjoy it. It has been done in about 3 hours several times by trekers.

[+9Key]

My caches on another site seem to be in a dead zone. Its certainly more fun as a hider to get the "Found it!" emails than to place something that no one ever visits.

[+NyRosie & Racepics]

Hello, we found that Travel Bug Hotels really work and they really stay busy. Give this some thought

[+genegene]

sounds like a good idea

[+Rockin Roddy]

ohhhh...whole new can of worms.