changes over a couple years

[+NYPaddleCacher]

 

Now that there are 500 caches within every ten mile search it’s just not the same anymore.

 

That's not even close to true where I live. There are 175 caches within 10 miles of my home zipcode. I have on several occasions found every cache within 10 miles and even had found everyone within 15 miles for a short period before a few new ones were placed. However, new caches in my are placed much less frequently than I can find them so I have an ever growing radius that I need to cover to search for caches. I don't ignore micro caches simply because the available amount of time I have to go caching is limited as I have to travel further and further away (which cuts significantly in the amount of time for caching I get) I will get to the point when the amount of travel time to get to "quality" caches will exceed the amount of time I have available.

[+Tequila]

Now that there are 500 caches within every ten mile search it’s just not the same anymore. But the paradox is that it IS still the same. There are still a dozen caches within every 100 mile search. It’s just that nowadays that dozen is mixed in with lots and lots of other dozens and dozens and dozens.

That's the secret to enjoying caching. When I first started, I was all anxious to get every cache within 20 miles of my house. I would wait eagerly for new ones to be published, and everybody in the area knew all the caches by name.

 

Not so any more. Now there are far more caches within 20 miles of me than I will probably ever do. The supply of caches has, for me, become effectively infinite!

 

As a result, my methodology for caching has changed completely. No longer do I keep a database of all nearby caches in case I get the urge to go out caching. Instead, I keep bookmark lists of caches I think I might want to do someday. I generally don't even look at caches that have difficulty and terrain ratings of 2 or under. Why? Not because I am a "difficulty snob" (or at least I hope not). But because experience has taught me that higher-rated caches are much more likely to have been placed by somebody who cared about what they were doing, and as a result are more likely to be fun. So what if I miss a few good low-rated caches? If any is really special, I will hear about it through the grapevine and do it. In any case, there are enough good caches to keep me occupied for a long, long time.

 

I do kind of wish that the geocaching.com site had kept up with my changing methodology; in particular, bookmark lists are apparently not a high priority and pocket queries won't let me do a logical OR operation. But I can pretty easily come up with workarounds for most of those problems, so I am quite content.

 

I think a lot of angst comes to people who feel compelled to find every cache in every place they visit. I was on a multi-day backpack in the back country this weekend, for example. Found some truly great caches. DNFed another I wish was still there, but loved the spot. Walked right past several more that just didn't appeal to me. (At least two of those were micros -- and mind you, this area is normally more than 10 miles from the nearest trailhead!). The caches that we were most interested in finding were the oldest ones that were put out as serious challenges back when caching was more about being outdoors. The "power trail" litter caches don't particularly bother me, but I am not going to make any particular effort to find them, and I am not about to feel angst about not having "cleared the park."

 

I am not claiming my way is the best way to cache; at the same time, I am not claiming that all caches are created equal. But getting all twisted up over lame caches is not going to do any good, so the best way to deal with it is to learn how to happily ignore them.

 

Well said.

 

When I started, in 2001, there were less than 30 caches in all of Ontario and I had to drive 80 km to the closest. Now I have 200 within 10 km. While some are good caches, many are very lame.

 

A new multi published last week has 4 stages. I found Stage 1, amongst garbage at a mail box. It contained the coordinates for Stage 1 instead of Stage 2. The owner emailed me the coordinates for Stage 2. It contains the coordinates for Stage 2 instead of Stage 3. And the owner is "too busy" to get out and fix it.

 

I have since decided to adopt a philosophy similar to Fizzy, although I "Ignore Listing" for lame caches as opposed to bookmarking caches I want to do. And I have quit logging finds. I post a note on memorable caches I find.

 

It has changed. Fortunately, between PQ's and GSAK, most cachers can create their own experience.

[RedShoesGirl]

...snipped ...

 

I am not claiming my way is the best way to cache; at the same time, I am not claiming that all caches are created equal. But getting all twisted up over lame caches is not going to do any good, so the best way to deal with it is to learn how to happily ignore them.

 

and that is the key. so far i am not learning that lesson very well. i keep tilting at windmills, figuring if i write enough "lame cache" notes and email, folks will quit placing those.

 

hmmmm, that does not seem to be working. they are gaining on me!

 

your way is the better way i think. another hard lesson to try to learn. or just quit caching if things bother me so much.

 

rsg

[+KBI]

Now that there are 500 caches within every ten mile search it’s just not the same anymore. But the paradox is that it IS still the same. There are still a dozen caches within every 100 mile search. It’s just that nowadays that dozen is mixed in with lots and lots of other dozens and dozens and dozens.

That's the secret to enjoying caching. When I first started, I was all anxious to get every cache within 20 miles of my house. I would wait eagerly for new ones to be published, and everybody in the area knew all the caches by name.

 

Not so any more. Now there are far more caches within 20 miles of me than I will probably ever do. The supply of caches has, for me, become effectively infinite!

 

As a result, my methodology for caching has changed completely. No longer do I keep a database of all nearby caches in case I get the urge to go out caching. Instead, I keep bookmark lists of caches I think I might want to do someday. I generally don't even look at caches that have difficulty and terrain ratings of 2 or under. Why? Not because I am a "difficulty snob" (or at least I hope not). But because experience has taught me that higher-rated caches are much more likely to have been placed by somebody who cared about what they were doing, and as a result are more likely to be fun. So what if I miss a few good low-rated caches? If any is really special, I will hear about it through the grapevine and do it. In any case, there are enough good caches to keep me occupied for a long, long time.

 

I do kind of wish that the geocaching.com site had kept up with my changing methodology; in particular, bookmark lists are apparently not a high priority and pocket queries won't let me do a logical OR operation. But I can pretty easily come up with workarounds for most of those problems, so I am quite content.

 

I think a lot of angst comes to people who feel compelled to find every cache in every place they visit. I was on a multi-day backpack in the back country this weekend, for example. Found some truly great caches. DNFed another I wish was still there, but loved the spot. Walked right past several more that just didn't appeal to me. (At least two of those were micros -- and mind you, this area is normally more than 10 miles from the nearest trailhead!). The caches that we were most interested in finding were the oldest ones that were put out as serious challenges back when caching was more about being outdoors. The "power trail" litter caches don't particularly bother me, but I am not going to make any particular effort to find them, and I am not about to feel angst about not having "cleared the park."

 

I am not claiming my way is the best way to cache; at the same time, I am not claiming that all caches are created equal. But getting all twisted up over lame caches is not going to do any good, so the best way to deal with it is to learn how to happily ignore them.

Well said.

Yes. Extremely well said. Good work, Fizzy!

[+tozainamboku]

Back in the good old days, when a typical search for caches turned up fewer than a dozen hides within 100 miles, every cache was undeniably special. Each one had an audible mystique and spoke directly to one’s sense of adventure, demanding to be found.

Not quite true. Back in the day you'd be quite happy to find 6 bad caches in order to find 4 outstanding ones, because you'd have found all ten caches in a area and would know you didn't miss any gems. Now if there are 100 caches in the area you need to find 60 bad caches to find 40 good ones. At the end of a day when you've found ten caches you know you found 6 bad caches but there are 36 good caches you missed. If you're like fizzymagic in his post, there are now more caches then you probably will ever do. You want to find ways to find caches you would like and avoid the ones you don't like. Ideally you'd like to find all the good caches and none of the bad ones, but this goal may not be achievable. Still people are looking for ways to increase the ratio of good to bad caches that they hunt.

 

I will add that many people feel the ratio of good to bad caches has changed over time. I suppose that depending on what kind of caches you personally like this may be true. The early adopters of geocaching tended to be people who already had a GPSr for hiking, hunting, mountain biking, or other outdoor activity that took you "off the beaten path" As such a higher percentage of caches were off the beaten path. Nowadays anyone with a GPS equipped cellphone can geocache. This tends to include a group of people who prefer urban hides and possibly even who find nothing wrong with hiding a cache behind the strip mall by the dumpster.

[+gof1]

I just can't wrap my brain around the part about the dumpster. What are the positive aspects of such a cache and how can they possibly outweigh the negatives?

 

Sorry, I know that this isn't actually the topic but I just don't get it.

[+Cache O'Plenty]

I can only think of a few positives for a dumpster cache:

 

1. It's easier to get to than most trails

2. It lets you practice avoiding Security

3. It's a smilie.

4. You might find a container that can be recycled into a good cache in a good area!!

 

Negatives:

Too many to list.

[+Markwell]

As a result, my methodology for caching has changed completely...so the best way to deal with it is to learn how to happily ignore them.

Nicely said. And of course, it mirrors (much more eloquently) my take on the subject.

Pocket queries can help if you're selective in what you're looking for. Search for the particular type of cache container you'd like and cache type (multi, puzzle, traditional). Search for terrain greater than 1.0 or even higher than 1.5. Search for difficulty higher than 1.0. Search for caches with attributes of "Not Less Than 1 Hour."

 

While the list of caches is much shorter, and you may indeed miss some stellar caches by eliminating certain criteria, most likely you won't be as disappointed in the caches you do go out to find.

I will state that I load "ready-to-go-caches-that-I-pretty-much-would-like" based on a standard filter in GSAK. Sure - I load a boatload of local caches into the database itself. Pretty much on a weekly basis I update all of the caches in the GONIL area. Then I apply a filter with the following criteria:

• Not Found (and exclude my placements)
  
• Difficulty less than 4.0
  
• Terrain between 1.5 and 3.5
  
• Not disabled
  
• Type: Traditional
  
• Container: Regular and Large
  

That gets the list down to roughly about 19% of the total for the area. I then apply a polygon for the areas in which I'm likely to be for any length of time, which further reduces it an additional 45%.

 

That still leaves me with more caches that I have found in the past eight years - which is not as many as I'd like to find. But I know that at any given time I have loaded into my GPS caches that are the type I like and can find on the spur of the moment just by following coordinates.

[+wimseyguy]

If, then, you cache in urban 35210 the majority will be micros, if you cache in rural 35570 they will be the minority. Having cached in areas rural and urban in 28 states for some years now I would speculate that those ratios would be about the same nationwide.

 

You can't get much more urban than northern New Jersey and the last time I ran a PQ from my zipcode (07405) it was about 14 percent micros. It might be a bit higher now, but I don't think by much.

 

I'm going to disagree with this generalization as well. I don't have hard stats to back this up, but do have a few years and finds to make this observation. Central NC with the Triad and Triangle areas are the closest we have to an urban center in this state, while the areas east of here along and beyond I-95 tend to be much more small town and rural. Yet the proportion of micros to larger containers out there is far greater than what we have around here. I think it comes down to regional preferences, and newer hiders mimicking the hides that they have found. Granted, right in city centers you will find more micros, but once you get into the burbs, which is really what exists in Northern NJ and central NC there are plenty of parks and greenways to support larger containers. There is a lack of public space in Eastern NC with the exception of some State Gamelands. Most smaller towns or rural counties simply don't have large parks to hide caches in.

[+L0ne.R]

The "if you don't like it, don't hunt it" defense if pretty thin. There's no easy way to filter them out.

 

Very much agree with this statement.

[+L0ne.R]

Back in the day you'd be quite happy to find 6 bad caches in order to find 4 outstanding ones, because you'd have found all ten caches in a area and would know you didn't miss any gems. Now if there are 100 caches in the area you need to find 60 bad caches to find 40 good ones. At the end of a day when you've found ten caches you know you found 6 bad caches but there are 36 good caches you missed. If you're like fizzymagic in his post, there are now more caches then you probably will ever do. You want to find ways to find caches you would like and avoid the ones you don't like. Ideally you'd like to find all the good caches and none of the bad ones, but this goal may not be achievable. Still people are looking for ways to increase the ratio of good to bad caches that they hunt.

 

Yes, I agree. You've hit the nail on the head. The 60/40 ratio was do-able back when you only had 10 to find to get 4 good ones.

[+L0ne.R]

 

I post a note on memorable caches I find.

 

 

Wouldn't it be great if there was a specific "memorable cache note" option? Then it would be nice to filter out by number of "memorable cache" notes posted on a cache page.

[+sbell111]

Now that there are 500 caches within every ten mile search it’s just not the same anymore.

That's not even close to true where I live. There are 175 caches within 10 miles of my home zipcode. I have on several occasions found every cache within 10 miles and even had found everyone within 15 miles for a short period before a few new ones were placed. However, new caches in my are placed much less frequently than I can find them so I have an ever growing radius that I need to cover to search for caches. I don't ignore micro caches simply because the available amount of time I have to go caching is limited as I have to travel further and further away (which cuts significantly in the amount of time for caching I get) I will get to the point when the amount of travel time to get to "quality" caches will exceed the amount of time I have available.

However, if you weed out even a few of the obvious stinkers, you don't have to waste your time finding them. Once you identify those ones, they don't have to exist for you. At that point, your issue becomes "why aren't people hiding caches" not "why are there so many stinkers". You basically are in the same place that many of us were in years ago.

I just can't wrap my brain around the part about the dumpster. What are the positive aspects of such a cache and how can they possibly outweigh the negatives?

 

Sorry, I know that this isn't actually the topic but I just don't get it.

I found a western NY dumpster cache years ago. It was at an interesting location in an interesting little town. Sure, the cache itself was at the dumpster, but the surrounding area was worth a visit.

 

Conversely, I've found many caches at locations that were mundane. I still had fun finding these because they allowed me to work finding a cache into my day.

Edited April 28, 2009 by sbell111

[+KBI]

What anyone could possibly see as virtuous about a cache that takes them to a dumpster is beyond me. I once followed the GPS to a quaint little plaza of boutique type shops that had some nice artwork on an island in the parking lot. Would have been a great spot for a lamp post cache. The type of place that those who defend LPCs could hold up as the reason they are so great. But no, the cache was out back five feet from the big steel box and its odiferous contents. Did I get to see the art because of the cache? Yes. Was the cache a lame piece o' crap? Yes. On a scale of 1 to 10 the cache was a 1.5 only beating the dumpster caches with no interesting, near by feature. With just slightly more care in the placement it could have been 7. Toss in a bit of imagination and it could have been a home run 9.9.

I just can't wrap my brain around the part about the dumpster. What are the positive aspects of such a cache and how can they possibly outweigh the negatives?

 

Sorry, I know that this isn't actually the topic but I just don't get it.

I may be able to answer that one.

 

It’s simple, really. If a cacher wants to hide a cache at a retail-type location, he generally has to choose between two areas: out in front where lots of customers will see what’s going on, or around back where seekers of the cache will be more out of view. Many cache seekers complain about high muggle traffic at cache sites; accordingly, helpful cache hiders will sometimes try to accommodate. Retail businesses also like to keep their Dumpsters out of view – hence the frequent, and coincidental, co-location.

 

Not all caching is tourguide-based, and I seriously doubt any of those cache owners are trying to "take you to see a Dumpster." Rather, I think they are merely trying to prevent those bored diners who are gazing out the front window of the Denny’s from watching you as you reveal the cache to them.

 

So to answer your questions:

 

What are the positive aspects of such a cache? They are designed to better keep you (and their cache) out of sight of curious or nervous muggles.

 

How can they possibly outweigh the negatives? That’s strictly a matter of personal preference. Prefer not to be watched by unseen muggles? Then thank the cache hider for his thoughtful placement. Don’t like to be around Dumpsters, period? Then don’t follow your GPS when it points behind a store. (Sounds like you already figured out that last part.)

[RedShoesGirl]

...

 

It’s simple, really. If a cacher wants to hide a cache at a retail-type location...

 

this is where i have a problem, why on earth would you want to place a cache at a retail-type location? what is the point?

 

rsg

[+Tequila]

...

 

It’s simple, really. If a cacher wants to hide a cache at a retail-type location...

 

this is where i have a problem, why on earth would you want to place a cache at a retail-type location? what is the point?

 

rsg

 

Sadly, the answer is,,, "because you can"

[CoyoteRed]

...why on earth would you want to place a cache at a retail-type location? what is the point?

Very few retail locations have been that entertaining to me. One stands out though. It's on the retaining wall at the back of a Target. There is the usual trash, but there is also a retaining pond in which lives a 6' alligator.

 

Kind of like Keystone's galley of nice views from LPCs.

 

99% of these caches don't turn me on, though.

[+Sol seaker]

Although I haven't been caching for long, the other half of this team has been at it for 8 years. that team member says that in the past you could actually find them all. They were meant to be found. We've got so many around here that are not meant to be found, with no clues. The worst are in areas where there are senstive plants.

 

Micros in wooded areas. Micros disguised as something else. Some are fun, like one, under a rock in a huge jumble pile of over a thousand rocks, not fun.

 

Being new I still like one's I can find. Even my partner doesn't like ones that are incredibly "evil". He said there didn't used to be so many evil ones in the past. One's you can spend hours at and not find. And he's really good at this too!!

 

He keeps saying, why hide something if you don't want it to be found? I guess some like those caches, but a whole city full of them?????

[+Sol seaker]

Although I haven't been caching for long, the other half of this team has been at it for 8 years. that team member says that in the past you could actually find them all. They were meant to be found. We've got so many around here that are not meant to be found, with no clues. The worst are in areas where there are senstive plants.

 

Micros in wooded areas. Micros disguised as something else. Some are fun, like one, under a rock in a huge jumble pile of over a thousand rocks, not fun.

 

Being new I still like one's I can find. Even my partner doesn't like ones that are incredibly "evil". He said there didn't used to be so many evil ones in the past. One's you can spend hours at and not find. And he's really good at this too!!

 

He keeps saying, why hide something if you don't want it to be found? I guess some like those caches, but a whole city full of them?????

[Mr.Yuck]

Although I haven't been caching for long, the other half of this team has been at it for 8 years. that team member says that in the past you could actually find them all. They were meant to be found. We've got so many around here that are not meant to be found, with no clues. The worst are in areas where there are senstive plants.

 

Micros in wooded areas. Micros disguised as something else. Some are fun, like one, under a rock in a huge jumble pile of over a thousand rocks, not fun.

 

Being new I still like one's I can find. Even my partner doesn't like ones that are incredibly "evil". He said there didn't used to be so many evil ones in the past. One's you can spend hours at and not find. And he's really good at this too!!

 

He keeps saying, why hide something if you don't want it to be found? I guess some like those caches, but a whole city full of them?????

 

Interesting post. So good, you posted it twice, eh? I agree, there are many more "evil" hides than there used to be. In my opinion (and my opinion only) the purest form of old-school caching is a hike to a single stand alone ammo box along a great trail in a great area, that you're probably going to find when you get there. Some of my old school pals are quite surprised when they find out I'm really not the least bit impressed by a 5 leg multi in the woods that has 4 "evil micro in the woods" legs leading to an ammo box, or involves climbing 50 feet up a tree for said ammo box.

[+Save The Murlocs]

We just enjoy the adventure, wherever it may take us. We don't have an actual GPS right now, we only use our phone and therefore we have to do urban ones at this time. And we have found a lot that we LOVED. Very few of our finds have we hated and considered lame. We look for good in all of them. We very often find it. And many lead us to so many new places- we love finding parks and buildings and historical places that we never even knew existed, right in our own town.

 

And wherever caching takes us that day, we just go with the flow and enjoy the sights and enjoy our togetherness. If a cache ends up being at a dumpster? Oh well. We did it together, and it was kinda funny in the end. Even if the LOCATION isn't good, the ADVENTURE almost always is.

[+sbell111]

... It’s simple, really. If a cacher wants to hide a cache at a retail-type location...

this is where i have a problem, why on earth would you want to place a cache at a retail-type location? what is the point?

I assume that the point for the cache hider is to allow people that enjoy those types of caches to find one more of them. The point of them for me as a finder is that they allowme to be able to quickly find a cache during the course of my already busy life. They work very well in fulfilling this purpose, so I enjoy them very much. Edited April 30, 2009 by sbell111