Finding unpublished caches

September 24, 2009

Has anyone here ever found an unpublished cache while doing a hide. I'm sure it happens. Hasn't to me yet but you could go to do a hide and maybe stumble across somebody's second stage or mystery cache or one they had just placed. I did meet up with an archived cache during an event. Funny thing was the same user that hid the archived one hid the new one and never came to remove the old one. Sad.

3.2k · September 24, 2009

Has anyone here ever found an unpublished cache while doing a hide. I'm sure it happens. Hasn't to me yet but you could go to do a hide and maybe stumble across somebody's second stage or mystery cache or one they had just placed. I did meet up with an archived cache during an event. Funny thing was the same user that hid the archived one hid the new one and never came to remove the old one. Sad.

Yes several... Since I am out there without a GPS, sometimes I need to cover a larger than optimum area so I tend to find stuff others have missed. Archived caches (several, one a couple days ago), Letterboxes (6+), stages of multis (2 or 3), listed on another site (1 that I remember). Sometimes it seems like all the mystery caches I find are by accident. :shocked:

1.5k · September 24, 2009

Yup. Edited September 24, 2009 by Ladybug Kids

September 24, 2009

Has anyone here ever found an unpublished cache while doing a hide.

A couple of years ago, I was feeling around under a walking path bridge when I found a magnetic container with a new log sheet.

The info on the log was not consistent with what I was looking for, so we knew we had not found what we were looking for. We found the container we were seeking about 20' away.

I later contacted the fellow who owned the first container we had found (his contact in was on the log sheet), and he said he had placed it while planning a multi-stage cache, and he never got the hide published. The container had been forgotten. He went back and picked it up.

1.7k · September 24, 2009

A couple of years ago, I was feeling around under a walking path bridge when I found a magnetic container with a new log sheet.

The info on the log was not consistent with what I was looking for, so we knew we had not found what we were looking for. We found the container we were seeking about 20' away.

I later contacted the fellow who owned the first container we had found (his contact in was on the log sheet), and he said he had placed it while planning a multi-stage cache, and he never got the hide published. The container had been forgotten. He went back and picked it up.

We had a similar situation this past summer. Cache had $1 in it for FTF. We kept watch for it to be published, but knew it probably wouldn't be as it was too close to two other caches. I don't know if the owner came and got it or not.

3.6k · September 30, 2009

What about the events they hide caches (not official caches), find them and then log the event the number of caches they located?

Two other cachers and I went for a hike to be FTF on some caches in the hills. Of course we had to leave some. To make it a challenge and fair, we each submitted ours on different days so others would have a chance at FTF. While a cacher was hunting one down they found a spot to place a cache of their own and found mine that yet to be published. I allowed him to be only FTF before publishing and someone else to be FTF on finding it after.

September 30, 2009

I was about to hide a cache in a new modern"art" installation on the side of a roundabout on a main road. Went to place the cache and found someone had already placed a brand new unpublished cache in the exact same place as I was about to use. IsItArt Has not seen much action unfortunately as its quite a prominent monstrosity, parking is about 300ft away so all those who C&D's cant be bothered.

Here's the question I was posing at the time disabled upon publication

October 1, 2009

Happened to me quite recently...

In our province in South Africa all Cachers were challenged to hide 5 new caches to be published on the same date.

While hiding a cache of my own, I stumbled upon someone elses. Naturally, I thought it rather amusing and logged it. I found the owner who also laughed... A FTF two weeks before publication.

P.S. On the day it WAS published I accompanied another cacher on the hunt and made it a legal FTF!!!

6.7k · October 1, 2009

Happened to me quite recently...

In our province in South Africa all Cachers were challenged to hide 5 new caches to be published on the same date.

While hiding a cache of my own, I stumbled upon someone elses. Naturally, I thought it rather amusing and logged it. I found the owner who also laughed... A FTF two weeks before publication.

P.S. On the day it WAS published I accompanied another cacher on the hunt and made it a legal FTF!!!

How was it not a legal FTF to begin with? First of all there are no guidelines detailing the hows and what fors of FTF hunting. Second, you found the cache. Even those who claim prior knowledge of a cache negates an FTF can't argue that you had an unfair advantage.

October 1, 2009

I placed a cache and the reviewer said I was about 30 ft from another cache. I went back and looked, and found the solution to a puzzle.

October 1, 2009

We found one that had not only not been posted, it hadn't even been placed. . .

What actually happened was that a local cacher had taken several of his caches down a trail for placement (not a power trail as they are all puzzle caches), but to make it easier to carry he placed one of the smaller (regular size) caches inside another larger cache. By the days end, he realized the cache was missing, but wasn't sure where it actually was (but while we supposed that this was the situation, we didn't confirm all this until later). When we found the published cache (FTF) we also discovered the other cache inside. Knowing that the cache owner resided much closer to us than either of us to the cache and not knowing just how another cacher would react to finding it, we retrived the cache and delivered it back to the cache owner, much to his appreciation. We did enter an "honorary" first to find on the cache log (but not the log page yet, as the cache had not been published).

October 15, 2009

Found a ltter box cache the other day. I was a little confused. It belonged to another site, but it was almost directly adjacent to the cache I was looking for. We're talking less than two feet. Weird...

6k · October 16, 2009

I did a reasonably complicated hide that required you to find three travel bugs to get the final coordinates. I went out the day before it was published and dispursed the bugs at least 15 miles apart. This FTF log was added as soon as it was published.

February 23, 2005 by Jeo (4560 found)

Jeo was here

Mc5 and I were feeling like a hike so we decided to go on a Rad Trip and do some cache maintenence on "Red White and Blue" and "Road Trip". While there we stumbled across the first of the three bugs. I didn't recognize it or the cache it was refering to but wrote down the numbers anyway "Just in case". Then headed up the hill for a new cache "Gold Bug". Hey What's this a second mysterious TB??? The plot thickens, am I that far out of the loop or am I just getting lucky? Made a quick phone call to find out where the third TB was. Found out it was down in my area but also found out that there wasn't a cache yet hhmmm The gravy thickens Made a quick trip to get the rest of the info and hopefully find the mysterious cache. On approach to the final location I made a guess from about 100 feet away and I was right Mc5 hates it when I do that. Cool there's still an RC car and we were WooHoo FTF! Took the car and dropped off a 915LM garage door open/close indicator light (I'm glad I brought the work truck). Then when we got home still couldn't find the cache online and found out that it hadn't been approved yet. Cool found a cache before approval, reminds me of the good ol days when we could lurk around the not approved caches. Sometimes it pays to be lucky.

Thanks for a great and well setup cache.

October 16, 2009

This is actually more common that you might think. A good hiding place will also look like a good hiding place to another cacher, or to a letterboxer. It's happened to me more than once.

7.9k · October 17, 2009

Not while hiding, but I did find an unpublished (or more properly, un-submitted) cache when attempting an FTF once.

Messed me up, too! Since I thought I had it in the bag, I signed the log and took off. Only later did the realization that the container didn't match what the owner of the published cache hid sink in.

7.5k · October 17, 2009

Not while hiding, but I did find an unpublished (or more properly, un-submitted) cache when attempting an FTF once.

Messed me up, too! Since I thought I had it in the bag, I signed the log and took off. Only later did the realization that the container didn't match what the owner of the published cache hid sink in.

What bothers me about the unpublished caches I've found - 3 so far, is that none of them were removed by the COs. All were too close to another published cache. And no, they were not terracaches.

Edited October 17, 2009 by Lone R

October 17, 2009

Yup, I've found a few un-published Geocache's, Letterboxes, and a Terracache. I've also found some that the cache was archived a year earlier that the owner never check on it and just up and archived it.

October 17, 2009

About a year ago I found a full size cache buried under a pile of pine needles where I was searching for a micro. I emailed the owner of the micro that was currently published and hidden on the site about it and they didn't know anything about it. Evidently I wasn't the first one to come across it because there were signatures in the log book from a couple days prior to that. It was called "The Sweet Shop" and was hidden under a pine tree at Wolfgang Candies in York, PA. If anyone knows anything about it, please feel free to let me know. It has GC numbers on it so evidentlly it was published at one point in time. Just when you think this hobby can't get any stranger.......

Mark

4.8k · October 17, 2009

About a year ago I found a full size cache buried under a pile of pine needles where I was searching for a micro. I emailed the owner of the micro that was currently published and hidden on the site about it and they didn't know anything about it. Evidently I wasn't the first one to come across it because there were signatures in the log book from a couple days prior to that. It was called "The Sweet Shop" and was hidden under a pine tree at Wolfgang Candies in York, PA. If anyone knows anything about it, please feel free to let me know. It has GC numbers on it so evidentlly it was published at one point in time. Just when you think this hobby can't get any stranger.......

Mark

GC numbers give you the cache information. Even for archived caches.

6.7k · October 17, 2009

About a year ago I found a full size cache buried under a pile of pine needles where I was searching for a micro. I emailed the owner of the micro that was currently published and hidden on the site about it and they didn't know anything about it. Evidently I wasn't the first one to come across it because there were signatures in the log book from a couple days prior to that. It was called "The Sweet Shop" and was hidden under a pine tree at Wolfgang Candies in York, PA. If anyone knows anything about it, please feel free to let me know. It has GC numbers on it so evidentlly it was published at one point in time. Just when you think this hobby can't get any stranger.......

Mark

GC numbers give you the cache information. Even for archived caches.

Not necessarily. The cache could have been submitted and not approved or approved and then retracted.

1.9k · October 17, 2009

Scoped out a perfect tucked away spot to hide a regular so i go home to put a cache together, get back out there, move a rock and low and behold a altoids with a blank logsheet.

October 18, 2009

Was out blackberry picking a couple of months ago and noticed something funny in a guardrail hole. Went and grabbed a small container with a log and some swag. Thought it was pretty crazy but also knew it was within 100 feet or so of a geocache, albeit a disabled for some time one. At first thought it was the disabled one so decided to sign it but CO said it wasnt. Dont know what happened to it, might still be there for all I know.

October 19, 2009

Utah state parks did 50 geocaches for their 50th anniversary, I found one of these before it was published. If only We had known there was a rare geocoin in the bottom we would've dug deeper through the box of goodies.

1.7k · October 19, 2009

About a year ago I found a full size cache buried under a pile of pine needles where I was searching for a micro. I emailed the owner of the micro that was currently published and hidden on the site about it and they didn't know anything about it. Evidently I wasn't the first one to come across it because there were signatures in the log book from a couple days prior to that. It was called "The Sweet Shop" and was hidden under a pine tree at Wolfgang Candies in York, PA. If anyone knows anything about it, please feel free to let me know. It has GC numbers on it so evidentlly it was published at one point in time. Just when you think this hobby can't get any stranger.......

Mark

GC numbers give you the cache information. Even for archived caches.

Not necessarily. The cache could have been submitted and not approved or approved and then retracted.

Your ever-so helpful reviewers will be able to tell you all about it

Mark

October 19, 2009

Yesterday we were caching a local park with lots of tree cover and bounce. Came across a tree laying across the trail and sitting on top of it in clear view was a cache. Then the "waypoint passed" and "arrival" alarms went off on my GPS. Turned out to be a Girl Scout event letterbox cache. We signed the log and went on to find the cache we were after. Strange about the alarms, we had signal issues the whole time we were in there but no other alarms. Fun day.

October 19, 2009

I should have saw it, but I missed it at first. My log.

October 19, 2009

I went out hiking with a friend a couple years ago to a trail that I knew had a cache on it. I had problems finding the cache because I couldn't get a good coordinate lock. So we stopped at a rock to take a break and I happened across the cache. Since we hadn't planned on caching, I didn't take a pen. I got home and e-mailed the owner to see if I could log the find (after giving him detailed information about cache location and description)--he e-mailed me back and said that I had NOT found his cache, but I could go ahead and log it anyways. The cache I found was about 200 ft. off from the posted coordinates (I checked it when I got home). My guess was that someone from out of town had hidden a cache, then submitted it but got denied because it was too close to the existing cache and they never went back to get it.

By the way, I never logged it as a find.

October 19, 2009

I found something several weeks ago. It could have been a letterbox, or a an unpublished geocache, or something else. I use my iPhone as my GPSr, so you know I have issues with the blue dot keeping up with me. When I got somewhere that I thought it could be, I found a new container just sitting out in the open (in the woods). It had a fresh log and a little wooden thing, which I believe may have been a home-made stamp. When I looked down at my phone to see if I was close, I had gone to far, so I looked up the GC# to see if it matched the one on this new container. It wasn't it. From there I did two things I later regretted. I didn't write down the number or name of the container, to find it online later, and I didn't sign the log to get a FTF on a cache/letterbox that I wasn't looking for. I kind of hid it better than I found it, and went on to find the intended cache about 30-50 feet away. My guess was it was either a letterbox or denied cache due to the proximity or the other.

1.7k · October 19, 2009

Found a ltter box cache the other day. I was a little confused. It belonged to another site, but it was almost directly adjacent to the cache I was looking for. We're talking less than two feet. Weird...

you will find that happens, some times unintentionally some times...

Well, some on another unnamed site, people actually encourage hiding close enough to a GC listing to reduce the chance GC listing will be found.

You may happen on on a true letter box.

There are also old waystashes can be found with a GPSr but are set up for a map and compass.

Good luck finding listings, all my old sources say things like "Why bother? Geocachers hide more than enough to keep use going."

I'll bet a lot have even ended up listed between the different sites.

Then there is a version that can be considered the inverse of the letterbox hybrid, you find it like a true letter box but it is stocked like a geocache without a stamp.

Hunters caches.

Illegal caches.

Lots of purposely hidden stuff out there that will never be listed anyplace.

November 10, 2009

I went to place a new cache at at site I've had my eye on for months. I finally decided to place the cache yesterday during lunch. I set the GPSr down doing it's averaging and started to prepare the container. When I reached into the hiding spot to place it, I discovered another container! Whoops! I opened it but there was nothing inside but a fresh log with no GC code or name on it. Laughing, I signed the log but didn't date it. I'm waiting for the publish announcement anytime now.

Dan

November 10, 2009

I found one last week. Blank logbook and FTF badge in it. I signed the logbook but it hasn't been published yet.

Finding unpublished caches

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