How many is enough?

[+Okiebryan]

I have completely saturated the area where I live. I try really hard to make all of my hides something special and unique, because I LOVE it when people come to my area and have a spend a whole day finding my caches, and then leave good logs of their experience. Problem is, I might get one or two cachers a month who even come here, since I'm 90 minutes from the city.

 

I have found that I actually enjoy hiding caches more than finding them. I'm really the only active cacher in town, so I have to go 25-30 miles to get a new cache. I'm a little depressed that I have pretty much done all the hiding that this area will support. Heck, I have 6 caches right now that have not been found yet!

 

I have maybe 4 or 5 more ideas that are in the works, but after that, I'm kinda stuck. I wish there were more geocachers near where I live.

 

Really just venting. Besides the weather sucks this weekend. Cold rain that won't let up. GRRRR....

[+Miragee]

I know the feeling . . . I love hiding caches. I don't get any DNFs when I'm doing that . . .

[+corpsman223]

Sorry to hear that. We are fortunate to live in an area that seems to have a good group of folks that are into the hobby. I guess the only thing you can do is help spread the word by getting friends and faimly involved. Take people caching and get them hooked.

[+StarBrand]

I can sympathize with you. After a huge flurry of new caches in the summer and fall of '06 around here - we seem to only get a new one about once a month within 50 miles of my home. Makes it hard to accumlate very many finds this time of the year. I have over 110 active hides and a few good ideas. That is what keeps me going - planning new ones and waiting for a few newcomers to pop up and get active again.

[+mommio]

I love hiding caches! Have over 200 hidden. There aren't a lot of active cachers in the area currently. My caching buddy and I are teaching a class of teachers about geocaching this week and they in turn are starting a geocaching class at their school which hopefully will spread to other schools. I just wish the local cachers would hide more so I would have some to find. They sit poised at their computers waiting for the next one I put out so they can rush to FTF it. But they don't hide any and I promise myself I won't hide any more until they do but then that perfect spot catches my eye and......

[+gvsu4msu]

I am up to 27 hides now (26 active) and one more coming soon. I have been in this since Aug of 2007. I also enjoy reading the logs that people leave. You really learn about people through the computer to say the least.

 

Fortunately there is plenty of space in our area that other cachers (and there a lot of them) to place caches.

 

one big player archived almost all of his caches about three months ago so that freed up a bunch of space.

 

If I wanted to litter the palce with LPC it owudl not be hard, but I like each cache to be memorable - either because of theme, cache type, or cache container. i have a pretty good mix of traditionals (6) Multis 6 going on 7) and mystery/puzzle caches (15). Each is quite interesting and unique. Feel free to peak. Feel free to cache them if you're ever in the area.

 

best way to get other people to place caches in your area - archive those caches that have long xince served their role - unless there is something really cool about it.

[+nekom]

There's no such thing as too many caches, unless some of them are just lame. I think most would agree that as long as you can still hide quality caches, there aren't too many.

[+blb9556]

I know a user who has 175 including about 10 inactive.

[+OzGuff]

King Boreas is the current "leader" in terms of caches placed. His count stands at 1606. (I did a quick scan of the 81 pages of cache listings and counted 829 archived, leaving him with 777 active.)

 

Number Two -- and some folks would consider this ranking most appropriate -- is some guy named OzGuff who has placed 1045 caches. (The same quick scan shows 252 archived, leaving him with 793 active.)

 

Number Three is ADØOR with 788 placed (681 active and 107 archived.)

 

There are currently a few more than 100 cachers with 200+ hides, and a little more than 400 with over 100 hides.

 

Obviously, some of my cache hides are better than others. And I think that they are reasonably well maintained. (But you would have to ask area cachers to get an objective answer.)

 

I will keep on hiding them until I no longer enjoy hiding them!

[+Langly]

Okiebryan from what I understand talking with other cachers you are pretty darn good at hiding caches. So what is the problem? I guess you will have to travel and find some more neat places for hides. I'll try to help you out with those unfound caches. I've been wanting to make a trip up to your area for some time. If it makes you happy keep hiding them!

[+TrailGators]

There's no such thing as too many caches, unless some of them are just lame. I think most would agree that as long as you can still hide quality caches, there aren't too many.

I agree with this. I also think that some people hide so many that when their caches need maintenance they are often slow about maintaining them because it can become a full-time job. As long as people disable them, then this isn't as big a problem.

[+tokencollector]

There's no such thing as too many caches, unless some of them are just lame. I think most would agree that as long as you can still hide quality caches, there aren't too many.

 

I would modify this a bit to say "If you can still hide and maintain quality hides, there aren't too many"

[+infiniteMPG]

I currently have 236 hides with 218 active and have to agree that often I enjoy hiding more then finding as I am a sneaky, tricky, SOB and people either love my caches or hate them, I'm fine either way. I try to make each one a unique experience and maintain them all, after all, you need to keep up with the responsibilities of cache ownership and not let the caching public down by not maintaining what you hide. I am just about at my saturation point so anything I hide now has to be a really special spot, technique or camo. Worked on my last hide over a week before hiding it and think it was totally worth it. I don't care for cookie cutter caches with little thought or imagination to them.

 

Feel it's important to present a good product to the marketplace. Quality hide, well maintained, with imagination applied as needed. A professional cache listing with clear concise information, background images, links, information and history about a spot if possible, and good grammar and spelling

 

I guess a good owner creed is don't hide more then you can regularly maintain, and hide what you'd like to find. Sometimes I'm glad I don't have to seek my own hides....

Edited February 18, 2008 by infiniteMPG

[+imfishinohio]

I try really hard to make all of my hides something special and unique, because I LOVE it when people come to my area and have a spend a whole day finding my caches, and then leave good logs of their experience.

That is the important thing. Some people seem to care more about the numbers of their hides rather than the quality. There's nothing better than to have a person with high numbers write a 2 paragragh log on how good or different your cache is. That happened to me last week and although not many paople have found the cache it made it worth the time setting it up.

[+paleolith]

There's no such thing as too many caches, unless some of them are just lame. I think most would agree that as long as you can still hide quality caches, there aren't too many.

I actually disagree. As long as plenty of people are finding them, maybe ...

 

But I've also heard comments of dissatisfaction because not enough people are finding caches. Not just in this thread.

 

The global ratio of finds to hides is the same whether you are looking at it from the hider's POV or the finder's POV. Now of course that's only global: you may be in an area with a higher or lower find/hide ratio than the global ratio.

 

But if like the OP you are a bit out in the boonies and someone in OK City is hiding hundreds, then it becomes less likely that the OK City finders will trek out to Ada or Ardmore or Ponca City.

 

If you claim to be doing your civic duty by hiding a cache for every ten that you find, then don't complain when the average number of finds on all your caches is only ten. It's the Law of Conservation of Finds. TANSTAAFL.

 

If (if) every great hide is only getting two finds/year, then there are too many caches. And if there are too many caches, then somebody is hiding too many. It may be hard to lay the blame on any individual -- and I have no intention of trying -- but collectively somebody is hiding too many.

 

Edward

[+briansnat]

I'm glad I don't have to seek my own hides.... ph34r.gif

 

Heheheh, I know the feeling. I have a few that I dread the idea of doing maintenance on.

 

I'm really the only active cacher in town, so I have to go 25-30 miles to get a new cache. I'm a little depressed that I have pretty much done all the hiding that this area will support. Heck, I have 6 caches right now that have not been found yet!

 

Maybe it's time to jumpstart the sport in your area. Get in touch with a local newspaper or TV station and try to interest them in doing a story on geocaching.

[+Team Cotati]

There's no such thing as too many caches, unless some of them are just lame. I think most would agree that as long as you can still hide quality caches, there aren't too many.

 

Following that logic, there are too many, waaaayyyyyyyy too many.

[+JacobBarlow]

King Boreas is the current "leader" in terms of caches placed. His count stands at 1606. (I did a quick scan of the 81 pages of cache listings and counted 829 archived, leaving him with 777 active.)

 

Number Two -- and some folks would consider this ranking most appropriate -- is some guy named OzGuff who has placed 1045 caches. (The same quick scan shows 252 archived, leaving him with 793 active.)

 

Number Three is ADØOR with 788 placed (681 active and 107 archived.)

 

There are currently a few more than 100 cachers with 200+ hides, and a little more than 400 with over 100 hides.

 

Obviously, some of my cache hides are better than others. And I think that they are reasonably well maintained. (But you would have to ask area cachers to get an objective answer.)

 

I will keep on hiding them until I no longer enjoy hiding them!

 

That's cool to see, I've always wondered how many caches are archived among the big time placers... so looks like the active percentages of the three mentioned are 42% 75% and 86%....

[+eagletrek]

I have completely saturated the area where I live. I try really hard to make all of my hides something special and unique, because I LOVE it when people come to my area and have a spend a whole day finding my caches, and then leave good logs of their experience. Problem is, I might get one or two cachers a month who even come here, since I'm 90 minutes from the city.

 

I have found that I actually enjoy hiding caches more than finding them. I'm really the only active cacher in town, so I have to go 25-30 miles to get a new cache. I'm a little depressed that I have pretty much done all the hiding that this area will support. Heck, I have 6 caches right now that have not been found yet!

 

I have maybe 4 or 5 more ideas that are in the works, but after that, I'm kinda stuck. I wish there were more geocachers near where I live.

 

Really just venting. Besides the weather sucks this weekend. Cold rain that won't let up. GRRRR....

 

Try moving from Ada!!!!

[+WeeWillie]

I was TDY @ Ft Hood a couple of years ago. Caching helped with the boredom.

 

Try Sierra Vista / Ft Huachuca AZ. We have about 75 within 10 miles and we aren't saturated yet.

[+linuxxpert]

I have actually put finding caches on hold a bit to start hiding caches.... Some of them take weeks to prepare and cost a few hundred dollars but its so much fun.... Working on my 10th and 11th now... one of them is very creative... just waiting on some parts I ordered to go hide it. I dont think I will ever reach a hundred.. there is just not enough time and money for the kind of caches I try to put out there.

[+Zolgar]

"enough" Is how many you can comfortably maintain.

"too many" is anything above that number.

 

If you're retired or just wealthy, and have the time to devote to nothing but caching,.. You could hide a thousand.. But. Good luck doing that without turning your area in to a lamp post micro farm