Time commitment per hide?

[+BlessedBees]

Just wondering how much time is spent maintaining caches once they are placed... Is there a ball park figure per cache per year in order to keep it in good shape? Do micros take more/less time than ammo boxes etc?

 

My general assumption is very little per cache since some are able to handle 90+ caches. This is going to depend greatly on the quality/difficulty of the cache, but please give it your best shot.

[+brodiebunch]

We have thirteen caches and we do maintainance maybe twice or three times a year. Sometimes I will check up on them more often if there are several DNF's posted for them. Even then if it the DNF is a reasonably new geocacher, I will usually ignore those, assuming beginners luck (or lack thereof) But someone with several hundred finds under their belt will usually get me to a cache fairly quickly.

 

If you dont think you can give your caches the proper stewardship, hide fewer caches. Quality trumps quantity every time.

[+Snoogans]

I tryyy to get to all of my most often found caches at least once a year whether I need to or not. I have a few that could probably go a decade before they would really need maintenance because of their remote location.

 

When an issue is posted on one of my caches, I try to get there A.S.A.P.

[+PeterNoG]

My general assumption is very little per cache since some are able to handle 90+ caches. This is going to depend greatly on the quality/difficulty of the cache, but please give it your best shot.

Just because someone owns 90+ (or even just 10 ) caches doesn't mean they do a good job. Many do, but some don't.

 

We try to do "routine maintenance" visit all our caches (currently 14 active) twice a year which takes a week or two. But the most important part of cache ownership is responding to reported problems in a timely fashion. Too many can't or don't.

[+Kiwi Nomad]

I only have one and it doesn't take any time as we walk past it to get to the library. It's a letterbox hybrid and people are encouraged to leave a drawing if they don't have a stamp, so I like to see what is there.

Also sometimes when I walk past I just check that it can't be seen by muggles.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

We own about 30 active caches, and we spend very little time on maintenance. Averaged over all our caches, some of which have not required a maintenance visit in years and others (waterside locations subject to nasty floods) of which end up with wet logbooks several times per year), we probably spent 1.5 hours per cache per year on maintenance, including driving/hiking time. Of course, our caches are relatively low-maintenance caches, as they are all either puzzle caches or in the wilderness where hiking is required or extreme caches which are rated 4/4 or above, and thus they suffer relatively little damage at the hands of cachers and muggles.

 

And, a quick P.S.: Another reason why our caches require little maintenance is that almost all of them are Premium Member only caches, and thus the listing page info cannot even be seen by casual visitors to the GC website who are not premium members.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Vinny & Sue Team

[+The Leprechauns]

Maintenance needs vary so widely from cache to cache that it's hard to estimate an average.

 

I have 27 active caches and two which are temporarily disabled (one because of a controlled archery hunt and the other because a family of newbies didn't replace the cache properly and it's now wet).

 

I've had two caches disappear this year and one get totally plundered. Two were ammo boxes and only one was a micro. I've visited five caches this year to rehide, repair or re-camo them. I've revisited one to adjust for bad coords. And, I've revisited four of my caches "just because" -- finding everything normal. I hide caches in places I like to go back to for repeat visits.

 

Seventeen of my caches, I haven't visited this year. Six of them are due or overdue for a maintenance trip: two wet containers, two reports that the container was moved from its intended hiding place, one full log sheet, and one re-hide in a new spot. Typically when I do cache maintenance, I make it a full day activity, taking care of all the caches at once and perhaps finding any which others have hidden nearby one of mine. Looks like it's time to schedule my fall maintenance and hiding trip. I have about three "maintenance days" per year like that.

[+nekom]

The beauty of cache maintainence is that finders will generally tell you if there is a problem with the cache. Since all of mine are in areas I would deem very unlikely to be muggled, I really don't swing by to check up on them routinely, though I have a few times. Thankfully all of mine have been trouble free, except for one which I had to archive due to active logging in the area (no, not logging of the cache, the other kind). Now if anyone reported a problem with one of my caches, I'd do my best to get there within a couple of days to fix or archive it. The one I archived, somebody had found it but reported that there was logging in the area, I disabled it immediately and got down there the next day, saw that there was logging equiptment now parked on top of where the cache was, and archived it that day. As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough.

[Luckless]

Lessons I have learned.

I have several caches.

One was muggled. It was one I adopted because I loved the location of the hide, but the area was very high traffic. It is hidden a little better now, but still in a park with a lot of activity and needs checking every so often when I'm in the area because someone could stumble upon it. It amazes me the places people will poke around in.

Two of my caches are in a tourist town. They get a lot of vacationing cachers. Both are micros. I turned one into a small cache container and was thrilled to see people leaving geocoins in the cache, but when the coins disappeared I decided to go back to a micro container- sign the log only. I check these about once a month during tourist season- the logs fill right up. If someone mentions a problem within a day or two I'll hop on the bus to take care of it. I think one of the micros gets taken regularly by some the the park maintenance crew and tossed away when they are picking up litter- I've got to see about talking to them. This cache needs regular replacing.

I have a five stage multi which I have learned I need to watch closely. If one of the stages gets muggled it ruins the whole experience. I try to check on it about every two months when I'm passing through the area.

I don't have too many long hike caches (more like local parks) so I can check my caches every month or two when I pass through the area. I have had to remove some things that weren't too child friendly- knives, tools. I try to keep things in my caches for kids to find.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Luckless

[+StarBrand]

Thats a really tough question. I have about 112 active hides.

 

I have some caches that I have literally not visited for up to 3 years. A handful that require 2 or 3 visits a year. Most of the others, I try to get to at least once per year and that mostly involves just opening it. Cleaning it out a bit, maybe replacing the logbook, restock and rehide. Just a few minutes. The walks with my family don't count as that is very precious time.

[+Night Stalker]

It depends a great deal on the cache. Some of my caches are in really remote areas and don't need frequent maintenance. One is so remote that it only gets visited maybe twice a year. Some of my other caches are in more heavily traveled areas and like some women are really high maintenance. I have 3 caches that I will need to visit this coming weekend when I get back home to see if they are still there. One because of a brush fire and the other two because I have had more than 1 DNF on it lately.

[+Miragee]

I have hidden many caches, but most of them do not get visited and are unlikely to need maintenance. If someone reports a problem with one of my caches, I try to take care of the problem within a few days, if possible. I have two caches that are temporarily-disabled now, both because the trails to them are closed, one for canyon restoration, the other because of fire danger. Cache maintenance is primarily related to the cache's location and the number of visits the cache gets. If you use a good container, and put the cache in a somewhat-remote location, it shouldn't need "scheduled" maintenance.

[+TrailGators]

It depends a great deal on the cache. Some of my caches are in really remote areas and don't need frequent maintenance. One is so remote that it only gets visited maybe twice a year. Some of my other caches are in more heavily traveled areas and like some women are really high maintenance. I have 3 caches that I will need to visit this coming weekend when I get back home to see if they are still there. One because of a brush fire and the other two because I have had more than 1 DNF on it lately.

This is exactly right. Most of mine need very little maintenance because they are in remote places. When they do need maintenance, I immediately disable them so people don't get them in their PQs and waste their time looking for them.

[+Team FIREBOY]

Hmmm, must be doing this maintenance thing wrong. We visit our caches every other weekend to do maintenance. Ours are in a city though. We just placed some in the mountains and anticipate maintaining them once a month when there is no snow on the ground. We do watch logs though and will immediately go and fix any caches that finders log "needs maintenance". If we can't get to it immediately because of work then we temp. archive it, but not for longer than 30 days.

[+BlessedBees]

Thanks for all the responses. It gives a better perspective on what owning a cache involves.

[+Isonzo Karst]

I hide caches in places I like to go back to for repeat visits.

 

BINGO!

 

I have roughly 100 active hides. Lately I've been restraining myself from more, because I find myself with maintenance tasks mounting. I ached to hide on today, was even carrying - but it's still in the kayak. I don't really need to own another 'yak cache that gets 1 or 2 visits a year.

 

I have a couple of multi caches, one especially long (12+miles 8 stages). Those need a note from the owner in the fall (winter is hiking season here) that they've been checked, so cachers will tackle them. The instant the weather breaks I'll hit them both. I have 2 traditionals along the way of the 12 mile cache. Likely I won't even look at those. They're ammo cans in the woods. No problems, no reason to even swing by.

 

Micro caches need new logs, and are more likely to have water problems. Urban caches are more likely to just disappear.

 

I spend several hours each year on permit renewals.

[+firstbass]

Let me ask a related poll question (and I apologize in advance for a possible thread hijack; I'd rather do that than start a new thread, and in any case it speaks to the question of frequency of maintenance.):

 

What is the greatest distance between your home coords and one of your active caches?

 

I am asking because I would like to hide a cache in my parents' town (my own family and I visit 4-6 times per year), which is a pretty cache-free area, in another state. Is this a no-no?

[+Isonzo Karst]

That's not a poll question. That's a conversation between you and the cache reviewer. Either hide the cache and in the reviewer note explain the distance from your home coords, the frequency of your visits and how this is going to work as a maintenance plan, or email the reviewer first. You could also solicit a local maintainer, or maybe (?) get your folks to be local maintainer.

[Luckless]

I spend several hours each year on permit renewals.

 

Ah, permit renewals. I've got a cache in a state park. The permit for the cache says they have to be moved every two years. I'll have to move mine next spring. They say you don't have to move it very far- a few feet would be fine- but you have to move it and I think get a new permit. I suspect that is to be sure the owner hasn't abandoned them?

[+wavector]

Owner Maintenance is the very best thing a geocacher can do.

 

It serves a twofold purpose, it keeps the cache in good shape and signals to other cachers that you do care about the caches you hide.

 

There are a lot of cachers today who really don't care about the caches they hide once they are hidden. There are also people who cannot and will not do maintenance on the one or two hides that they have made.

I hide all my caches in areas that I enjoy. After the initial thrill of discovering geocaching has worn off and you have found every cache within a reasonable distance the only thing left will be cache maintenance and talking to/connecting with other cachers!

I visit all my caches on a regular basis and the more remote caches get fewer visits because I go walking near home more often than I go walking out in the hills.

My dog knows where everyone of my caches is located and she often rushes off down the correct path as soon as I open the truck door, she likes cache maintenance even more than I do! Including the walking, I devote, on average, two or three hours every couple of weeks to cache maintenance. In the summer it can increase to maybe four hours a week quite easily.

 

In fact, cache maintenance is most of my geocaching today, it is the main way I get to enjoy the activity. If, like me, you don't live in a cache dense area then maintenance, Event caches and interacting with other geocachers is the day to day way to enjoy geocaching.

[+briansnat]

I have over 200 hides with about 170 of them currently active, so It would be hard to come up with a number because some of my caches require very little maintenance (ammo boxes with infrequent finds) while some require fairly regular visits.

 

I also try to place many of my caches in areas that I frequent for one reason or another, so if I happen to pass by the cache I will check on it.

 

Yesterday I spent about 3 hours (including driving and hiking) replacing 2 caches (1 missing and one damaged). Today I spent 45 minutes replacing another cache. I have no more outstanding maintenance issues right now that I'm aware of, so I may not need to make a visit for a month or two. During that time however if I happen to pass near a cache of mine I will stop and check it. I don't know if I would even count that toward maintenance time because I was already in the area.

[+Thrak]

Sometimes you don't know the cache has an issue. I recently went to a neighboring town to do a bit of caching and, on the way, I passed several of my own caches. I stopped at each of them to check how they were doing. Two were fine but one needed some help. It's a magnetic cache held in place with a hard drive magnet. The magnet is coming loose. I didn't have materials with me to repair it properly so I enclosed the entire cache in a ziplock bag which will, temporarily, ensure that even if the magnet comes loose from the cache, the whole thing won't vanish into a deep and dark hole. I have repair material for this issue in my truck now and will keep it there from now on. I'll be back out to the cache after work tomorrow to take care of the issue.

 

Some caches almost never need maintenance. Some need it far more often than you might expect. Oddly enough, it's not really always possible to determine in advance which caches will need maintenance often and which ones won't. Over the course of my caching career I've added various items to my "truck stash" for cache repair. I've repaired caches belonging to other folks as well. It doesn't hurt to be a good caching neighbor. Heck, just the other day I replaced a muggled ammo can for a local cacher who is temporarily incapacitated. I put out a new ammo box with a new log and some swag for her. She never thought this particular cache would be muggled but it was. You just never know.

[+SGT red jeep]

Currently with 19 hides, two official adoptions, and two unofficial adoptions I try to hit all the caches at least once during the summer, just to check out the log books and make sure everything is alright with the cache. I don't normally make a special trip to a cache just for maintenance but wait until I have other business along the same route.

If I get a notification of a problem with a cache I will temporarily archive it until I get a chance to check it out. I've replaced 3 caches this year and 1 stage of a multi but had to replace logbooks and fix other issues with the caches too. If you are looking for an actual time/cache/year I would estimate approximately 1-2 hours averaged per cache. Not necessarily because they needed it but also to check on and replenish contents and to clean out garbage.

I don't think of this as a chore but as an adventure. Reading the log books and checking out the new contents is as exciting as finding a new cache. Sometimes even replacing a cache can be a rewarding challenge to find a way to make it 'muggle proof'.

[+Mr. 0]

I think that it does depend on the cache, and cacher. For me personally the few micros that I own or have owned in the past require the most maintainence. Logs fill up more quickly, they get wet, or ganked.

 

One example is a multi I had adoped that used 3 micros leading to a final. Including drive time to/from the cache, the walk in, and everything, I spent probably 4-5 hours maintaining it, before I finally gave it up. The micros kept getting wet, I could never get decent coords no matter when I went out there, each of the micros came up missing at one time or another, and the final came up missing once. The cache was originally placed right along a little hiking trail in a local state park. I'm not all that sure why I adopted it in the first place....

 

On the other hand, a few weeks ago I just checked on, for the first time, a regular cache that I placed about 2 years ago. It doesn't get visited often, but when it does there was never any indication of a problem with it, so I never checked. I decided to go out there just to be sure everything was fine. I have a few other regular caches that I check on once in a while, but again, have never had trouble with....I was just checking to check.

 

Over all, I hid my first cache on 9/22/02, and have owned 21 caches (not including events), some are still active, some have been archived. During those 5 years I would guess I've spent 25-30 hours maintaining caches. This again is including drive time and such. Most of that time was just checking to check, which I do for pretty much all of my caches in the fall, to make sure it's ready for winter, and again in the spring to make sure that it survived the winter ok, and that it's ready for the summer caching season.

[+Kit Fox]

I have 90 active hides and m secret to cache longevity are:

1. Not hiding caches in "muggle rich" areas.
   
2. Using Sturdy containers.
   
3. Reading every log posted on my caches.
   
4. I also keep an eye on my caches that might need extra maintenance.
   

Edited September 24, 2007 by Kit Fox

[+9Key]

I generally spend at least one afternoon a month, sometimes more, doing maintenance on caches that have reported issues and / or just checking up on problem caches.

KitFox has some great points >>

[*]Using Sturdy containers.

[*]Reading every log posted on my caches.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Hmm... I've only hidden 21 caches. They range in a 35 mile semicircle west, north and east. (Okay. One is awaiting review. It's been 24 hours! What's taking so long. Oops. Wrong thread. ) They can take a few hours to get to. One's been replaced twice. (Think I've finally found a good location for it!) One was dropped off the end, and replaced. (Oh, well.) One was too obvious, and replaced. That one has take a few visits to get right. One had four DNFs. That took two hours to determine that it was right where I hid it! Five I haven't had to revisit since I hid them. One got muggled three times, and he park is closed for renovations (for over a year now!), so I archived it. Some are easy to get to, so I visit them every so often. Most of them are pretty well hidden, and do not get a lot of traffic. So, I guess I've spent 20 hours of maintenance in the last three years.

[+wesleykey]

Just wondering how much time is spent maintaining caches once they are placed...

.

 

32 minutes 8 seconds

[+Zop]

I think this really depends on several factors;

 

Style of hide

Location of hide

Design of container

Attitude of the local cachers

And the local environment for just a few.

 

Please note that I've been caching for less than a year and I have only 20 caches that I maintain so I'm far from being an expert - but I have had to spend very little time on maintenance.

 

Mostly because I'm not using fragile or temporary devices though. Every once in a while I'll go for a walk and take a look at a cache that has had a few DNF's but the time ratio is very minimal.

 

If you are the type to just grab a pinecone or a stick, drill a hole into it and fill the hole with paper with no weather proofing, you'll be spending a LOT more time maintaining the cache.

 

Plan the cache well and take measures to protect it from the elements and you may not have to visit again until it's time for a new log.

 

We will probably all have to face the fact that not all cachers are alike though. Some just have no concept of stealth or are in too much of a hurry to move on that they may neglect to return the cache to its proper place.

 

J..

[+Renegade Knight]

Local caches take more work than remote caches. There is no figure I keep in mind, but the more work a cache is the less likely I am to keep it around for a long time.

[+CharlesIsland]

Just wondering how much time is spent maintaining caches once they are placed... Is there a ball park figure per cache per year in order to keep it in good shape? Do micros take more/less time than ammo boxes etc?

 

My general assumption is very little per cache since some are able to handle 90+ caches. This is going to depend greatly on the quality/difficulty of the cache, but please give it your best shot.

 

With almost 100 caches I have 5 that are currently disabled and 6 that are archived. I just started in April of this year only time will really tell just how much maintenance will be involved. I will say this, I have learned how to hide things a little better. At first I think I had a pretty good grasp on keeping things hidden from Human muggles, but I didn't have a clue just how much trouble the wildlife muggles would be. When something gets muggled whether by human or animal I always seem to make the new hide a little more difficult and change the difficulty page a little bit. I use a 3 strikes rule before archiving except in one case where I was kinda muscled to archive a cache by a few disgruntled cachers. Happy Hiding!!