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Where Have All the Cachers Gone?


Mr Smeee

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Since around June/July of this year, it appears that a lot of Geocaching activity has stopped in my little portion of the world. Very few new caches, very few people logging on my caches (have 40+ hidden). At first I thought it was vacations, maybe the weather. But now we’re into deep fall. Not sure if it’s the economy or what, but very quiet here. I’m in zip 91320, which is pretty dense with geocaches, so I’m not sure what it is. Anyone else seeing a decrease in caching?

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Where is my John Wayne

Where is my prairie song

Where is my happy ending

Where have all the cowboys Cachers gone

Anyway, I think that there may be a dorp of in the last month, but not since summer. Around here, summer is the buisyest time.

 

2 weeks ago I noted that there were no 'new' caches within 32km of my house, so I put out a micro that I had been planning. I gave a very good hint on our local forum to see if anyone would get the FTF before publishing, but no takers. In the 2 weeks it has been published, only 3 finds (this is in the city (of 1million people)).

 

I just figured it was due to weather (we have had one of the coldest Octobers on recored), or that everyone hates micros so much they refused to hunt for this one. Could be burnout after our local big caching event. Or maybe it is a global phenomonon as you suggest. Don't know....

Edited by Andronicus
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They all went Waymarking, every one....

 

When will they ever learn?....When will they evvvvver learn?

 

It's autumn. Harder to cache when you have to dig through miles of wet leaves.

 

You are kidding, right? Surely you jest.

 

1) Digging through wet leaves is a comment clearly derived from your vast experience spanning many seasons;

 

2) and... there probably aren't a whole lot of leaves clogging up caching areas in Casa Conejo, CA.

 

:rolleyes:

 

OP - in a dense cache area, once the locals clean up all of the finds, then it is often a while until visitors come by and log or a new cachers come into the activity. I'd wager in Ventura County, with school starting and such, the visitor traffic has dropped a bit. :D

 

In some areas the caches get archived and replaced to allow for "new hunts" and excitement, although often it is the same hide regurgitated, so the true purpose of the recycling may not be so much for a new adventure.... I think it sad to see some of the "originals" or older caches replaced, since it is almost as if some of the "history" is wiped clean.

 

I am not advocating the "replace a cache" activity - just relating some of what I've observed in several distinctly different caching areas; also relating that once a cache has been found by the local geocaching herd, things normally get very quiet.

 

I may plot the activity of one of my older caches still active - probably what will be found in a heavily populated area is activity spikes in the first 6 months, then drops off to a consistent pace. My older caches in out-of-the-way places have been fairly consistent throughout time.

Edited by Jeep_Dog
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Maine is still going strong. We had 98 new caches in October, not including the 60 that were placed for the Maine Geo Rallye III. With the Rallye, 158. So far, October has given us 70 logs on our cache hides. 31 new caches (not including one event) were published in the past 7 days. About half of those are withing our usual caching range.

 

Life is good!

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We always see a drop when school starts up and then another one when hunting season begins. Between that and the recent cold snaps and the fact that the locals have already found most of the caches in the area, we don't expect finds to start going up until after the holidays. When the newbies are trying out their Christmas GPSrs.

 

On the other hand, we've basically slowed down on caching unless we are traveling. Looking forward to driving up to Kalispell, MT Sunday for an event and caching our way there and back!

J

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They all went Waymarking, every one....

 

When will they ever learn?....When will they evvvvver learn?

 

It's autumn. Harder to cache when you have to dig through miles of wet leaves.

 

Crazy talk. The PO/PI is dying off, the snakes are either starting to burrow in or are at least chilling out, the leaves in North Alabama are just about to hit peak colors, and the air smells of the promise of frost, warm fireplaces, and frozen precipitation.

 

I can't think of a better time to go caching. This time of year I come alive.

Edited by Castle Mischief
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Well hasn't stopped me and I live in the same Leaf blown area that Bittsen lives in got 81 last Monday will be going after another sub 100 before the weekend is out. Working at my goal of 200 month. so far......... in October just over 300 Finds.

 

ScubaSonic

Edited by Scubasonic
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Fall is one of the four best seasons to cache around here! No more mosquitos or ticks, cool enough on most days that you don't break a sweat on those long uphill hikes, most years (this one being an exception) its pretty dry... I know a few (would-be) cachers that pretty much only cache in the fall!

 

This is the time of year where King Boreas goes around archiving and replacing many of his hides for the big Halloween bash that he puts on, too.

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Where Have All The Cachers Gone lyrics

 

Oh you get me ready in your '56 Chevy

Why don't we go sit down in the shade?

Take shelter on my front porch, watch

The dandelion sun scorched

Would you like a glass of cold lemonade?

I will do the micros if you solve all the puzzles...

 

CHORUS:

 

Where is my Snoogans?

Where is my KBI?

Where is my happy ending?

Where have all the cachers gone?

 

Why don't you stay the evening,

Kick back and watch the TV?

And I'll fix us a little something to eat.

Oh I know your back hurts from that last 10 mile hike, how d'you take your coffee my sweet?

 

I will raise the children if you sign my name on the log

 

CHORUS

 

Where is my Snoogans?

Where is my KBI?

Where is my happy ending?

Where have all the cachers gone?

 

I am wearing my new camo dress tonight

But you don't even want to cache,

But you don't even notice me saying goodbye

 

We finally sold the Chevy

When we had another baby

And you took the job in Tennessee

You met friends at the farm and

You joined them at the hunt

Almost every single day of the week

 

CHORUS

Where is my Snoogans?

Where is my KBI?

Where is my happy ending?

Where have all the cachers gone?

 

I will solve this puzzle while you go have a beer...

Where is my Clan Riffster?

Where is his GPS?

Where is my Mushtang?

Where have all the cachers gone?

 

Yippee yaw, yippee yeah

Yippee yaw, yippee yeah,

Yippee yaw, yippee yeah,

oh yippee yeah!

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Yup, fall is pretty popular in these parts too. Skeeters and noseeums are gone (mostly). Snakes are slowing down. The kudzu and PI hasn't died back yet, but it's starting to.

Yes, some cachers get caught up in their kid's active schedules, a few are out hunting. But we had over 200 attend the NCGO Fall Fling event last weekend, and lots of cachers who didn't make the trip were active back home.

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I was just thinking the same and actually posted a note saying I was discouraged because I'm finding it hard to find people to cache with. I don't like going alone, but all my friends are busy.

 

School things with kids, hunting, house work before winter, stuff like that keeps people busy.

 

To me, this is the best time to cache. The leaves are beautiful as they're falling off the trees. There are no bugs, the PI is dying back, and it's easier to bushwhack directly to a cache. I love caching in autumn.

 

So, if anyone needs a partner, look me up. I've got 7 days of vacation I need to use before the end of the year. :rolleyes:

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Dude, I am in your area, in fact I recognized your username. I know of 3 new caches that you have not found. I know because I put them out in the last moth or so. We started in July and have found 66. But as we look around for areas for new caches it seems like the are is pretty saturated. Well not saturated per se, but it is pretty well covered. We do not normally do the urban caches, but we just did this weekend and enjoyed it so we might do some more.

 

This hobby does seem like it is based on new people joining in. Once people have found all the caches in one area there is not a real incentive to go back to an area just for one cache. You know most of the good spots are taken and you have to find an out of the way place to put a cache.

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They all went Waymarking, every one....

 

When will they ever learn?....When will they evvvvver learn?

 

It's autumn. Harder to cache when you have to dig through miles of wet leaves.

 

You are kidding, right? Surely you jest.

 

1) Digging through wet leaves is a comment clearly derived from your vast experience spanning many seasons;

 

 

Whoa! That was a zinger. :) Speaking as someone who has now gone through 7 season changes as a Geocacher here in Upstate NY and Southern Ontario, I can say fallen leaves are definitely a problem. I can think of several fallen leaves related DNF's on my part. But this is the greatest time to cache, as others have said. No Ticks, No Mosquitos, and no leaf cover (which my ancient Garmin doesn't like). I've never heard of anyone who didn't go out caching because of this. And even if they did, they (not me, of course), could just hit the local parking lot circuit. :)

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"Where have all the cachers gone?" Wasn't that written in the 60s by Pete Seeger?

No, it's a common misconception. Since the GPS wasn't in place in the 60s, what he wrote was actually "Where have all the letterboxers gone?".

 

I thought of doing a spoof of Where have all the cowboys gone but, unlike Snoogans, I couldn't work up the enthusiasm and creativity :)

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Yes – Pete Seeger is the answer, not PP and M.

My question was not a complaint, but rather an observation. It’s still very quiet here, but some of the points expressed in the thread may explain – high density of caches = not much opportunity to place new ones, many local cachers have found most of the caches in a given area , and are not likely to return for one or two.

I’m training a slew of Cubs Scouts and their parents next week on geocaching, so I may generate some new local cachers then.

Anyway, I'll keep placing them, someone will be FTF.

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I wondered why there is a drop in our area too. Some of the die hard cachers have discovered the games on Facebook and are addicted to them. I asked one of them why they are not caching and he said it was because of all the hassle. Some are going to TerraCaching. Some are being stopped by farmers who say they own the land to the middle of the road. There goes the side of road caches and there are millions of them in our area. Someone sent me a creepy anonymous email berating me for putting a cache in my yard. I recently found out she is a P.I. from up north and has been responsible for several people archiving their home caches. Wonder if she's packing heat while creeping around at night laughing about sneaking up on night cachers? Don't they call that stalking? She also bragged about caching after imbibing "Halloween Spirits." Don't they call that DUI? Sure gives a new meaning to "Protect and Serve." After reading all that I'm definitely not night caching! It's a gorgeous day here and I would be caching except I got broadsided by H1N1

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ive noticed it go quiet on some of my older caches, but when i put out my recent new series it brought back some cachers and new cachers who have seen that their is 60+ in my town and once the do the new series move on to the old ones. Guess some people dont want to put out caches if others are already doing it and guessing that once they have done an area that their isnt really any need to keep coming back till a few new ones are there.

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Just take a look at Groundspeak's home page every day and you see the answer to this question.

 

There are 85,984 geocachers that have logged in over the last week as of today.

During the summer this number went over 100,000. Since the end of August it has been steadily dropping.

 

I suppose there will be a number that it will settle on that will represent the die-hard year round cachers, but I would imagine that the low point will be in January sometime, although I could be wrong.

 

Then things will pick up again. Not to worry. New Survivor shows or not.

 

Another thing that is refecting this activity is the number of new caches out.

 

I'm signed up for them to be sent to my phone. During the summer I used to get between one and four caches texted to me a day. Now I go days without any.

 

More people get out in the summer, just a fact of life.

 

There are fair weather cachers just as fair weather hikers.

 

They'll be back.

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While I see most caching runs in streaks, the placing of new caches has slowed up here, too. It's been a pretty busy year and now is the time for people to go out and find those new caches, but I think many cachers have kids in school and other things to tie up their time. Probably be a spike during Thanksgiving, as people travel and visit and get dragged out/drag their relatives out - running for caches.

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I think that everyone has different reasons why Fall might be a good caching time.

 

I personally like the fact that PO and PI now are deviously positioned so you don’t know when you are touching it. That clearly adds an aura of danger and excitement to the sport.

I also appreciate the extra challenge of Copperheads and Diamondbacks cuddling up behind the tupperware.

Star thistle is so much more fun when the spines are hard and dried out.

 

But rain, that’s where I draw my line. I just don’t like caching in the rain.

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