Well Hidden Caches

[rat31465]

I am a FNG and want to first intoduce myself.

I am a 44 year old College Sophmore seeking a degree in Environmental Science from Drury University here in Springfield Missouri. I have many hobbies with Geocaching being my newest.

 

Part of the appeal of this new past time stems from my growing up in a large family. If I bought candy, or toys then it was imperative to squirrel them away so that other siblings wouldn't find them without permission.

I became very creative in how to hide things from my Brothers and Sisters.

My question is just how creative is being to creative?

My thoughts are that for my first hide I plan on making it very easy so that anyone wishing to make a find can do so with relative ease. For my second I have a very devious container already built which will be hidden in plain open sight and I am hoping will give even the most veteran cacher a run for his money. Then from that point on just keeping them somewhere in between. All the while staying within the guidelines of course.

 

I look forward to chatting with many of you on the forum in the near future.

Edited August 5, 2009 by rat31465

[aniyn]

My question is just how creative is being to creative?

 

No such thing. Bring it on!

[+AstroDav]

Be as creative as you want to be. We like that. You can only find just so many skirt-lifters in the Tram-Law (Wal-Mart) parking lot, or 35mm film cases at the bas of sign-posts, until you are in danger of saying, "This sucks!!"

 

Just be sure to use the 2 difficulty settings appropriately (1-5 for both difficulty in solving/finding & terrain). An example of both ends of the spectrum would be:

 

1. If you rated a 5/5 & then the finder found out it was hanging from a stop-sign, on a perfect county road, only 100 feet off the highway, with no lurkers ever around, & you can even grab it through an open window....you'll most likely get some bad reviews on that. Some people WANT extremely difficut ones & rely on the owner to let them know when they are that way.

 

2. If you rated a 1/1 & then the finder has to drive down a pigtrail, stop his vehicle 13 miles away, hike straight up the tallest mountain in the state carrying caving gear, and proceed 1/2 mile through an uncharted underground, after rapelling down a 300 foot sinkhole....you'll surely hear back from several who didn't appreciate that either.

 

Most typical caches go in the range of 2.0 - 2.5. So you can adjust up or down from there, depending upon how difficult it is to get to the spot & how hard the cache is to find/solve. Remember too, they are TWO different ratings. It's entirely possible to have a 1/5 or a 5/1. If you can drive right up to the cache on a paved road and it's painted glow-orange for everyone to see.....but it consists of 100 puzzles you have to solve to get to the log....then you obviously have a situation like that.

 

Don't make them TOO easy. Non-geo'ers will show their appreciation by taking it from your possession & dumping it in the nearest creek. And go as hard as you want. There's ALWAYS people who go wild trying to get those really difficult ones. Just remember, YOU have to maintain it. So make sure that YOU can get to it when you need to also.

 

Personally, although difficult caches are fine, I don't typically think knowingly putting a fellow cacher in danger is necessary for our sport. Like stuffing a cache way up under an overhanging rock, around a bend that a flashlight won't light up, forcing the finder to reach blind up in there.....right where the rattlesnake likes to live. That's just irresponsible to me. If I REALLY wanted to put a cache in there, I'd just make the location itself difficult to find, but then have a string tied to the cache or something that the finder could use to pull it out. But I know that some will disagree with me on that.

 

I also don't go for the "You need to find 100 before you hide 1" game. If everyone practiced that, there would be LOTS less caches for us to find. I've found well over 50 so far & haven't gotten a single First-To-Find....because few people set them in my area. But that said, it IS a good idea to at least find a few before hiding one. You'll quickly see how it's done, which will make your own much higher quality....which is good.

 

Have fun.

[aniyn]

^Well said.

Try not to confuse "difficult" with "evil" though. IE a hollow rock in the middle of a large rock garden, or a pine cone nano in an area littered with other identical pine cones don't tend to be appreciated as "clever" like some people think when they place them

Also, avoid lamp posts. Like the plague.

 

Happy caching!

[+swizzle]

What's an FNG an F'n Geocacher? Swizzle

[+Chi-Town Cacher]

Well the previous repliers have answered your question very nicely so I won't waste time repeating what they said. I'll mainly take this opportunity to say welcome to the game and congrats on your first cache hide that I see has been published and found.

 

Also, I wanted to thank you for being considerate in the way in which you used the hint on your cache. At least around my area it seems to be real popular to waste peoples time by including a hint that is totally useless. All that does is makes so people waste their time decrypting it only to find a useless message such as, "What you don't think I'd really post a hint on an easy cache as this." So thank you for being considerate and not wasting peoples time on useless hints. I guess people must think it's funny to do that, but I just consider it as being extremely rude and showing others that you could care less about whether their valuable time was wasted. Again, thanks for not being like others and posting useless hints!

 

 

Edit to fix a couple typos.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Michigan Cacheman

[+swizzle]

One of my favorite hints to use is: Mag Net Tick. Some people just have to say it out loud before they get it and it does help to pin point a cache down. Silly but that's me. Swizzle

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

The tougher the better.

 

You hidem we findum.

 

I got some real hard ones for sure.

[+niraD]

For my second I have a very devious container already built which will be hidden in plain open sight

Sounds like fun!

 

One word of caution about caches with high difficulty: make sure the location can withstand repeated intense searching, including some searching by inconsiderate "scorched earth" cachers. If finding a cache is going to take many people "a good portion of an afternoon" (3 stars) or "multiple days / trips" (4 stars), then there is going to be some wear and tear.

[+cwelt]

What's an FNG an F'n Geocacher? Swizzle

 

FNG is typically meaning a F^%*ing New Guy

[+kunarion]

My question is just how creative is being to creative?

 

I agree that you should be as creative as you wish. It's great to find something new and unexpected.

 

I haven’t placed any cache yet, and already ruled out some that are too creative. Like an object that most people avoid, or a thing that people have common phobias about. But that’s a restriction I placed on myself.

 

There are many caches around here that are easily found by anybody passing by. Mine would definitely have at least some kind of camo, unless it’s in a remote area. As mentioned, even the most devious hide could be compromised by a lot of visitors.

 

A couple of my caches could be rather huge -- and tough to find. Or at least, not as subject to muggling. I’ve even been eyeing a spot (in a wooded area) that could have electrical power. With motors and electronic controls… that gives me an idea…

Edited August 6, 2009 by kunarion

[+swizzle]

FNG

Finding New Geocaches

Flat Nano Grumpies

Fur No Good

Further North? Great!!

Found 'Nother Geocachr

Finally Now GO

or the latest new muggle terminology. "Oh Great another FNG"

Got any better ones or maybe the real meaning? Swizzle

[PastorJon]

"Fairly New Geocacher"?

[+HMcF]

No such thing as too creative. Personally I love the creative ones. I have a friend with a box he made that is difficult to figure out how to get into to sign the log. Easy to find, difficult to sign. I tend to place them with false leads. For example one that is inside a PVC tube with a false bottom and a nut attached to the false bottom and an eye screw attached to the tube. People spend some time trying to screw the bolt to the nut up inside the tube when it has nothing to do with actually getting the log out.

 

There are a lot of creative hides out there as well as hints that might throw you off the track while being technically correct. I have a magnetic hide that I say is magnetic but it is not on metal.... it just happens to be magnetic and since it is hidden next to a guardrail it gets a lot of DNFs as they search in vain on the guardrail. Creativity comes in a lot of forms from the cache itself to the clues and narrative to how to get to the cache. Even found a four foot travel bug someone had hid and a cache that was three feet by two feet by six inches in the city that fits in so well that noone notices it.

 

The only thing I would say is to indicate in the narrative that it might take a while to do. When someone is passing through and looking for a few quick ones on their travels they don't like arriving at one that will take all day. I have one that is devious enough that it has only been solved once without my assistance and with my assistance (additional clues) only three times eventhough it has been out a year. But I warn the people up front that it is unlikely to be completed and is very difficult and involves good logic and math skills. I've had no complaints but those who have completed it have had several comments about how tricky it is.

 

I have to second the earlier comment about common sense. I don't like ones placed in dangerous places - down animal holes, under falling rock areas, etc. You can make then fun and challenging without making them dangerous.

 

If it is tricky there will be those who seek it out just for that fact alone. Have fun and bring on the challenges.

[+swizzle]

I had a micro that was magnetic and it was attached to the back of a tree using a thumbtack. The tree was close to a park bench and 30 feet or more from a bird house. One day 4 people looked for it and couldn't find it. All I got was a bunch of angry cachers emailing me. My coords were within 10 feet everytime I went there but I guess they weren't close enough. They searched the bench and the birdhouse repeatedly. Within a month there was a geotrail right to the birdhouse. I ended up changing the hint and adding spoiler pics. You just can't please them all. Swizzle

[+coman123]

The old hidden in plain site cache eh!

 

If your interested, read the log entries on my JENNY GC1P712

 

If you want to know what is so hard about this e-mail me, as you are far away I will tell you

[+MI_CO]

I just hid my first caches, did a series of 7 (I have a new found appreciation for the time investment it takes to hide a cache). They were published at night and I waited with anticipation for them to be found. We have some serious FTF folks around here and I knew it wouldn't take long. Logs were soon posted. A group consisting of 6 cachers all logged DNF's on two of them (and we are talking about people with between 500 and 3000 finds). What? These were not hard caches!!! I went out in the morning to make sure all was well and the coords were correct. As I approached the first site, I ran into one of the hunters from the previous night looking at the ground zero again. He found one of them in the daylight and when I gently guided him to the second, he just couldn't believe they didn't find them the previous night.

 

So the moral of my story, sometimes hiding a simple cache in plain slight can really throw off the mega-cachers who may make it too hard! The bad part -- some of the cachers in the area saw the mega-cacher's DNFs and thought that I was new at this and my coords were bad so they aren't attempting the others in my series. Oh well, someone will find them! And I really, really, really appreciate the experienced cacher I ran in to. It was great to bounce around ideas and discuss my hides and ratings!

[+BigHef32]

From my experience in SpMO, the FTF racers are VERY, VERY good at what they do. I've arrived at caches in 20 minutes to find myself 3rd in line.

 

As for creativity, I may be a little biased, but based on my limited caching experience, I've seen some pretty creative hides in the area.

 

Hide away, even if we don't find it right off, we always enjoy an opportunity for a FTF party in a parking lot or field somewhere.

[+swizzle]

 

 

 

Here's 2 of mine. Never did anything with the pencil though. Swizzle

[+BOA3532]

 

 

 

Here's 2 of mine. Never did anything with the pencil though. Swizzle

 

Dang those are evil swizzle! Can you guess that I am new to this too?