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i feel like such a noob


apetro

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My husband and I went to McCormicks Creek State Park for the night for a little r&r on Friday.

Before leaving I put Spencer's zip code in the hide and seek feature on geocaching.com, and seen there were several caches in the park.

 

I did a pocket query for 500 traditonal, small, regular, and large sized, with d/t at 2.5 and under, within a 100 miles.

I was very happy with this since I figured I could do this without printing any cache pages and my pda is broke.

 

So we get there and I fire up my GPS there are no caches! ugg! I soon realize that there must be 500 caches closer to my home coords then I thought.

I got home today and went to the last page of my pocket query and the farthest cache was 28 miles away, the park was 56 miles away.

 

I have certainly learned something from this and was hoping someone else might as well.

 

Have you done something that others might learn from? share :huh:

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I learned many caches ago to center the search on my anticipated location. I also take no trip longer than about an hour from home without my laptop.

 

We are still debating getting a wireless card through our cell provider to use our laptop when out.

 

I can't count the amount of times we have said "wish we could review it again on the computer!"

 

Oh well, move on and be happy I guess.

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I've done the same sort of thing you described.

I've loaded my California geocaches, and headed out for a 4 day trip thru Arizona :ph34r:

 

Yesterday, after 14000+ finds and 7 years of caching, I pulled a Newbie trick.

 

I drove my jeep right to zero on the gps.

It was a red zone, but there wasn't any traffic on this tiny paved street, and no one was around.

...so I parked in the red zone, jumped out of the jeep, and started searching.

After almost 2 minutes of searching without success, I walked out 50 feet or so, and walked back to zero....which ended up being just about where my jeep was.

After doing this twice more, and almost running out of my 7 minute time limit (after all, I invented the rule), I gave up and jumped into the jeep to leave.

Just as I was driving away, I decided to check the empty street where the jeep was just parked....YEP, the cache was right there on the manhole cover. DUH :unsure:

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YEP, the cache was right there on the manhole cover. DUH :unsure:

Several times I have gotten to GZ, set down my backpack, and started doing expanding circles outward. Then, when I didn't find anything, I would return to my backpack, pick it up, and find the cache underneath it!

I have also hit the "goto" too quickly on a long multi, not realizing it was set for "nearest" waypoint which happened to be... a previous stage! Then, because I was approaching from a different direction, I didn't recognize it and hunted around til I found it again!

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I've done the same sort of thing you described.

I've loaded my California geocaches, and headed out for a 4 day trip thru Arizona :unsure:

 

Yesterday, after 14000+ finds and 7 years of caching, I pulled a Newbie trick.

 

I drove my jeep right to zero on the gps.

It was a red zone, but there wasn't any traffic on this tiny paved street, and no one was around.

...so I parked in the red zone, jumped out of the jeep, and started searching.

After almost 2 minutes of searching without success, I walked out 50 feet or so, and walked back to zero....which ended up being just about where my jeep was.

After doing this twice more, and almost running out of my 7 minute time limit (after all, I invented the rule), I gave up and jumped into the jeep to leave.

Just as I was driving away, I decided to check the empty street where the jeep was just parked....YEP, the cache was right there on the manhole cover. DUH :ph34r:

I am always happy to read one of your posts so I can keep up with approximately how many finds you have. :ph34r: Two minutes of searching must have seemed like an eternity! I wish I could bring myself to follow your 7 minute rule but I am weak and willing to admit it. Glad you were able to find the cache.

 

OT, I always check my GPS and my PDA after I "think" I have uploaded cache info. It is a real bummer to turn on the electronics and find out the info isn't there. Sometimes I get to upload the info a second time, but I always get to know I have the intended info before I head out for the hunt.

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Then, because I was approaching from a different direction, I didn't recognize it and hunted around til I found it again!

That would be really funny if you then input those coords into your GPS and gone after the NEXT stage again.

 

No, I've never done that. Not me. Uh uh. :unsure:

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I suppose this is the best place to post this one. Besides, when it's happening it is trouble, but a few weeks later it is now an adventure albeit a painful one. I've been playing in the woods for 46 years, and caching for almost 6 with plenty of finds. But three weeks ago I got careless and reached up under a log before looking or poking in there with a stick. Instead I put my hand right in the face of a two foot long copperhead snake. :unsure:

 

Pics for the curious are available here. You might want to put the sandwich down first though. :ph34r:

 

I was very lucky that it wasn't worse, and am mostly healed up already. There still a small dimple, about the size of those on golf balls at the site of the penetrating fang mark, and some deep tissue bruising at the site of the one that never punctured nor drew blood. I spent 8 hours in the ER that afternoon/evening and since my vital signs remained pretty stable, and the swelling never progressed beyond the finger, I didn't have to get an shot of anti-venom. The only issue was pain management and controlling the swelling, and dealing with the discomfort at work. I was only able to take 1.5 days off since I had a major gig that Wednesday evening. :ph34r:

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Where to start? How about -

 

- Bushwhacking 500 feet just to pop-out on a trail (the same trail I was just on, just didn't give it a chance to loop around) that passes within 15 feet of the cache?

 

- Sitting in the woods, after a 5 mile hike, stymied by the hint "pmuts"? What the $%^& is a "pmuts"? Kicked myself when it hit me a few days later (I did find the cache, thankfully - and I was able to laugh when I saw a log from another cacher - hunting for another cache by the same hider - mystified by the hint "liardraug"! He complained he had looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find anything . . )

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Here is a recent Duh moment. We were looking for a place we could hike and bag a cache or two along the way. I have caches set up on my GPS so just by looking at the waypoint name I can tell the type and size of the cache.

 

So we selected a 6 mile hike along a reservoir and my map showed a cache at about the midpoint of the hike. Hit go to and watched the distance count down. After a a few miles of hiking we were at ground zero. We searched for about 20 minutes, then I looked at my GPS again and realized it was a puzzle cache. Duh, no cache there. Didn't have the page along either. :unsure:

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How long do you have to be caching to not be a noob?

 

I started caching four months ago and spent the first week running pocket queries to get all the caches in the state. I then created two more pocket queries that run weekly. The first one gives me all the new caches withing 300 miles. The second gives me the closest 500 caches that have been updated in the passed 7 days. I also has the "is active" check box checked. After that first week I dumped into the GPS all caches within 25 miles of home, within 25 miles of work, and within 25 miles of my mom's house (about 200 miles away). Each week, I run the Last 7 PQ and dump the results into the GPS, then delete all "Geocache Found" icons.

 

So the last time we were visiting Mom, we took her and my stepfather out caching. We spent close to 45 minutes hunting a cache and came up empty. After I got home and went to log the DNF, I saw that the cache had been disabled a month prior. I hadn't ever thought that using the "is active" option would keep me from finding out when something was disabled. We actually ended up hunting for 2 different disabled caches that weekend.

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I have been caching since January. A few times early on I would use the nearest waypoint and go to option for parks that had several caches in them. I would search and search ground zero and come up with nothing. When I would go to log the DNFs I discovered that the coords I was searching were starting points and parking cords. Doh! :huh: I never thought to check the coords since I was familar with the trails and parking areas.

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I decided to check the empty street where the jeep was just parked....YEP, the cache was right there on the manhole cover. DUH :huh:

 

ON the manhole cover?!? They hide caches ON manhole covers there? That's one that I've never run into yet. How do they keep them from getting squashed, or from getting brushed up by the street sweepers? Guess you don't have snowplows there. :)

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We searched for about 20 minutes, then I looked at my GPS again and realized it was a puzzle cache. Duh, no cache there. Didn't have the page along either. :huh:

 

Yup. Did the same thing on a suburban cache. Kept thinking the coords were putting me on the opposite corner of an intersection. I'd wait for the light to change, walk to the other side, and dang!! no... its now THAT corner. Eventually I realized that GZ was right in the center of the intersection, and that's when the light went on. Sure glad no fellow cachers drove by while I was out there.

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How long do you have to be caching to not be a noob?

 

I started caching four months ago and spent the first week running pocket queries to get all the caches in the state. I then created two more pocket queries that run weekly. The first one gives me all the new caches withing 300 miles. The second gives me the closest 500 caches that have been updated in the passed 7 days. I also has the "is active" check box checked. After that first week I dumped into the GPS all caches within 25 miles of home, within 25 miles of work, and within 25 miles of my mom's house (about 200 miles away). Each week, I run the Last 7 PQ and dump the results into the GPS, then delete all "Geocache Found" icons.

 

So the last time we were visiting Mom, we took her and my stepfather out caching. We spent close to 45 minutes hunting a cache and came up empty. After I got home and went to log the DNF, I saw that the cache had been disabled a month prior. I hadn't ever thought that using the "is active" option would keep me from finding out when something was disabled. We actually ended up hunting for 2 different disabled caches that weekend.

 

I've been caching since end of 2007 and I'm still a n00b. And I'll always will be.

 

Went to cache that seemed to be out in a the middle of a field. There was about a foot of snow on the ground, I followed the GPS to GZ and declared 'I should be standing on it'.

 

Looked around, couldn't see any good hiding spot so I stuck my hiking stick into the ground to drop some equipment to be able to conduct a proper.

 

'Clonk'

 

I was standing on it...

Edited by lrosell
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On Memorial Day this year, our family went for a 3-mile hike littered with caches. As we stood at the trailhead, I decided to clear the tracks and routes on my new eTrex Vista HCx. Yup, I cleared EVERYTHING, including the waypoints! Luckily, I had my PDA with me and I was able to identify the first cache, manually enter the waypoint and make my way around the loop, manually entering all of the points.

 

My family wasn't very happy and my wife had to keep the kids away from dad while he tried to fix his stupidity!

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Much to the chagrin of those I'm caching with, I often get mixed up on what cache we're at and like to read off the wrong description. They've learned not to trust me that much, especially when we're standing at a lamp post and I'm saying it's a large, hidden under the fallen tree.

 

Now that's just perfect! :D

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Much to the chagrin of those I'm caching with, I often get mixed up on what cache we're at and like to read off the wrong description. They've learned not to trust me that much, especially when we're standing at a lamp post and I'm saying it's a large, hidden under the fallen tree.

 

Now that's just perfect! :D

Don't laugh. Sandy does the same thing from time to time. :D

 

I just like to continually argue that your route sucks. :D

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Outside of getting to ground zero, looking all over then deciding it's time to use the hint only to realize the cache page printout with the hint is back in the car, two miles away or else failing to have a pen when I find I need one to sign the log,

I once traveled fifteen miles to another city to cache. Got there and realized I didn't have my GPS. Did a lot of head banging. You can't do that with the price of gas what it is. I left my GPS sitting by the chair at home where I had been punching in coordinates. I learned that day that it is possible to find caches with only cache printout pages.

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Went to cache that seemed to be out in a the middle of a field. There was about a foot of snow on the ground, I followed the GPS to GZ and declared 'I should be standing on it'.

 

Looked around, couldn't see any good hiding spot so I stuck my hiking stick into the ground to drop some equipment to be able to conduct a proper.

 

'Clonk'

 

I was standing on it...

 

I did something similar. I was looking for a cache on a large rock outcrop. When I arrived at ground zero I took my pack off and leaned it against a ledge. After a half hour of searching, I gave up. I grabbed my pack to put it on and there was the cache hidden behind my pack.

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I placed my first cache last night. I kept forgetting to grab something at home, so had to keep going back to get it. Then I'd forget to grab something from my storage unit (plastic sticky bag for paper on outside of container). I must have gone to and from the cache site at least half a dozen times before I was finally happy that everything was where and how it should be for me to come home and submit it. lol

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Where to start? How about -

 

- Bushwhacking 500 feet just to pop-out on a trail (the same trail I was just on, just didn't give it a chance to loop around) that passes within 15 feet of the cache?

 

- Sitting in the woods, after a 5 mile hike, stymied by the hint "pmuts"? What the $%^& is a "pmuts"? Kicked myself when it hit me a few days later (I did find the cache, thankfully - and I was able to laugh when I saw a log from another cacher - hunting for another cache by the same hider - mystified by the hint "liardraug"! He complained he had looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find anything . . )

 

- what IS a 'pMUTs'????? i need to know to find a cache here in maine. thanks.

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Where to start? How about -

 

- Bushwhacking 500 feet just to pop-out on a trail (the same trail I was just on, just didn't give it a chance to loop around) that passes within 15 feet of the cache?

 

- Sitting in the woods, after a 5 mile hike, stymied by the hint "pmuts"? What the $%^& is a "pmuts"? Kicked myself when it hit me a few days later (I did find the cache, thankfully - and I was able to laugh when I saw a log from another cacher - hunting for another cache by the same hider - mystified by the hint "liardraug"! He complained he had looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find anything . . )

 

- what IS a 'pMUTs'????? i need to know to find a cache here in maine. thanks.

 

Read it BACKWARDS...DUH!

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Where to start? How about -

 

- Bushwhacking 500 feet just to pop-out on a trail (the same trail I was just on, just didn't give it a chance to loop around) that passes within 15 feet of the cache?

 

- Sitting in the woods, after a 5 mile hike, stymied by the hint "pmuts"? What the $%^& is a "pmuts"? Kicked myself when it hit me a few days later (I did find the cache, thankfully - and I was able to laugh when I saw a log from another cacher - hunting for another cache by the same hider - mystified by the hint "liardraug"! He complained he had looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find anything . . )

 

- what IS a 'pMUTs'????? i need to know to find a cache here in maine. thanks.

 

 

Read it BACKWARDS...DUH!

What the heck is a HUD??? You stumped me with that one.

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Where to start? How about -

 

- Bushwhacking 500 feet just to pop-out on a trail (the same trail I was just on, just didn't give it a chance to loop around) that passes within 15 feet of the cache?

 

- Sitting in the woods, after a 5 mile hike, stymied by the hint "pmuts"? What the $%^& is a "pmuts"? Kicked myself when it hit me a few days later (I did find the cache, thankfully - and I was able to laugh when I saw a log from another cacher - hunting for another cache by the same hider - mystified by the hint "liardraug"! He complained he had looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find anything . . )

 

- what IS a 'pMUTs'????? i need to know to find a cache here in maine. thanks.

 

 

Read it BACKWARDS...DUH!

What the heck is a HUD??? You stumped me with that one.

 

Housing and Urban Development. B)

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Where to start? How about -

 

- Bushwhacking 500 feet just to pop-out on a trail (the same trail I was just on, just didn't give it a chance to loop around) that passes within 15 feet of the cache?

 

- Sitting in the woods, after a 5 mile hike, stymied by the hint "pmuts"? What the $%^& is a "pmuts"? Kicked myself when it hit me a few days later (I did find the cache, thankfully - and I was able to laugh when I saw a log from another cacher - hunting for another cache by the same hider - mystified by the hint "liardraug"! He complained he had looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find anything . . )

 

- what IS a 'pMUTs'????? i need to know to find a cache here in maine. thanks.

 

Noitseuq taht ksa ot tsuj dlo sraey eerht revo saw taht daerht a depmub uoy?

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My iPhone battery died while bushwhacking in a rural area, that I wasn't overly familiar with. And dusk was quickly falling. I knew we had 1/2 hour light but an hour walk out. Dangerous and I didn't have a flashlight. Two little kids, me, and no one knew where we were. I could follow the glimmer of the lake through the trees and knew if it was always on right I'd get to shore and be able to follow it to vehicle. If there had been no moon on water we would have been dead ducks. I kept my calm, let the kids think it was an adventure, and got us out with only one fall in a creek (me) and some rose prickles. After getting home, showering everyone, putting them to bed, I had my meltdown in the shower. Stupid stupid and dangerous.

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Always read the logs when going to anything with a rating above a 4.

4 terrain, or 4 difficulty, but certainly when it's up there for both.

 

I was loading caches onto a friends "new" used GPS. We were having all sorts of problems. I finally got them loaded, and went back to read the logs on the two tough caches we were going to, and the website went down. Big surprise. Guess it wasn't my friend's GPS.

 

We went anyway. One heck of a "hike/ climb" for not finding it.

We did the terrain but didn't find the cache.

Disappointing.

Then I got home and the website was up. I looked at the logs. Yup. Just where I thought it would be but didn't go look there.

Now I get to go back. The trick will be finding someone to go with me again, because it's not safe alone. Not sure if my friend is willing to do it twice!!

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Forgot to mark a waypoint when I got out of my vehicle. Took a wrong turn on a trail system on the way back from finding 3 caches in the woods. When I came back out onto the seasonal road it didn't look very familiar. Fortunately, I could tell where I needed to go from my position relative to the first cache I found.

 

Done that a few times!

'You marked a waypoint for the truck, right?'

'Uh, I thought YOU would.'

 

One of the tings I like about my old Meridian is that you CAN'T turn off backtrack! :)

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