A word in favor of power trails

[+Juan Durrer]

I am amazed - again and again - about people complaining about various cache types, combos or themes.

 

Isn't it a bit rude to complain about a hide or series of hides (if listed accurately?) Isn't each hide a gift to be joyously accepted and appreciated, or at least politely accepted and hidden in the closet?

 

I know I'd be upset if I were expecting an ammo box and found a nano. Of course I'd be just as PO'd if it said "Terrain 1, Winter Friendly" and I found I had to rappel down a remote cliff and use an ice axe to get it. What's wrong with a film can under a light post in a shopping mall parking lot if the listing says "film can" and the coordinates put it smack dab in the middle of a Wal-Mart lot?

 

Please don't tell me it's because you don't read the listings and you just grab coordinates and you go after all caches. Seriously, are you telling me that it is every CO's obligation to hide a cache that meets your personal minimum standards? If all you do is download waypoints you get what you get <period>

 

And, with that said, I come to the topic of power trails... and I say "Why not?"

 

Doesn't anyone else get "cache fever?"

 

As a New England SCUBA diver I've had my excellent days of cruising canyons looking at anemones, drifting the bottom looking for nudibranchs, sneaking up on wolffish or monkfish, quietly watching squids at night... but I've also gone lobster hunting and scallop gathering. Q: What does a new england diver want immediately after he catches a lobster? A: Another lobster! We call it Lobster Lust. When I've gone scalloping, the bivalve fever has hit me so hard I've come up with a bag so full it wouldn't close, with more scallops stuffed in my BC pockets and a few more in my hands...

 

And so it is for me with caching. Some days it's a really nice walk in the woods with my girlfriend. One find for the day. Sometimes it's me alone, climbing some rocks or bushwhacking bogs, maybe a couple finds, a bloody leg, a wet foot and a DNF.

 

On one Saturday afternoon in San Diego, it was me and a rented bike and a straight flat stretch of road alongside a waterway, and about 27 finds about .1 miles apart. The only part of the day that wasn't 100% fantastic was when my iPhone battery finally gave out and the sun had not yet set and there were still dozens of caches yet unfound!

 

I wouldn't want it that way every day, but thanks to the GC database, I have my choice, every day.

 

So what up with the whining?

[+deranja]

 

I wouldn't want it that way every day, but thanks to the GC database, I have my choice, every day.

 

So what up with the whining?

 

I could not have said it better! thats whats great about geocaching, its your game to play how you want. there is no right or wrong way to play.

[jholly]

So what up with the whining?

 

Some folks really don't take their meds on the schedule the doctor ordered.

[+JoGPS]

Juan_Durrer, could not agree more with you

[+Castle Mischief]

Oh, okay. Embrace the change or be labeled a whiner that needs a prescription to function.

 

Awesome.

[+larsslc]

Power trails are a way to have a day of fun caching and concentrated finding. Most that I have done could be completed in a few hours or at most a day. Now comes along the mega power trail. There is a new one in the California desert that has almost 600 caches in it and would take a week of caching to complete. That many caches which are likely the same might become boring. Just my opinion.

[+thedeadpirate]

I have no issue with power trails per se.

 

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

 

There are days I filter out micros, days I filter out anything above 2 difficulty or terrain.

 

There are days when I want to work out a puzzle and others when I don't.

 

It's not that I am against power trails. I realize there are some who love the idea.

 

I just want to be able to filter them out of my PQ if I don't feel like hunting them.

[+thedeadpirate]

Power trails are a way to have a day of fun caching and concentrated finding. Most that I have done could be completed in a few hours or at most a day. Now comes along the mega power trail. There is a new one in the California desert that has almost 600 caches in it and would take a week of caching to complete. That many caches which are likely the same might become boring. Just my opinion.

 

And here's the thing. I may actually want to get together and spend a day out with my buddies clearing a power trail. I can actually imagine that happening. It sounds like fun given a particular mood.

 

But the other 95% of the time I'm not in the mood to clear one of these trails, it should not take up my entire PQ limit. There should be a way to hide/unhide them from my PQ.

[4wheelin_fool]

I am amazed - again and again - about people complaining about various cache types, combos or themes.

 

Isn't it a bit rude to complain about a hide or series of hides (if listed accurately?) Isn't each hide a gift to be joyously accepted and appreciated, or at least politely accepted and hidden in the closet?

 

I know I'd be upset if I were expecting an ammo box and found a nano. Of course I'd be just as PO'd if it said "Terrain 1, Winter Friendly" and I found I had to rappel down a remote cliff and use an ice axe to get it. What's wrong with a film can under a light post in a shopping mall parking lot if the listing says "film can" and the coordinates put it smack dab in the middle of a Wal-Mart lot?

 

Please don't tell me it's because you don't read the listings and you just grab coordinates and you go after all caches. Seriously, are you telling me that it is every CO's obligation to hide a cache that meets your personal minimum standards? If all you do is download waypoints you get what you get <period>

 

And, with that said, I come to the topic of power trails... and I say "Why not?"

 

Doesn't anyone else get "cache fever?"

 

As a New England SCUBA diver I've had my excellent days of cruising canyons looking at anemones, drifting the bottom looking for nudibranchs, sneaking up on wolffish or monkfish, quietly watching squids at night... but I've also gone lobster hunting and scallop gathering. Q: What does a new england diver want immediately after he catches a lobster? A: Another lobster! We call it Lobster Lust. When I've gone scalloping, the bivalve fever has hit me so hard I've come up with a bag so full it wouldn't close, with more scallops stuffed in my BC pockets and a few more in my hands...

 

And so it is for me with caching. Some days it's a really nice walk in the woods with my girlfriend. One find for the day. Sometimes it's me alone, climbing some rocks or bushwhacking bogs, maybe a couple finds, a bloody leg, a wet foot and a DNF.

 

On one Saturday afternoon in San Diego, it was me and a rented bike and a straight flat stretch of road alongside a waterway, and about 27 finds about .1 miles apart. The only part of the day that wasn't 100% fantastic was when my iPhone battery finally gave out and the sun had not yet set and there were still dozens of caches yet unfound!

 

I wouldn't want it that way every day, but thanks to the GC database, I have my choice, every day.

 

So what up with the whining?

 

Some people just don't like spam. You want them to be silent about it?

 

 

You can embrace the spam, go right ahead.

 

 

MMMM.

[+Castle Mischief]

Mmmmmm... meat and meat by-products. Just like Mom used to make.

[4wheelin_fool]

[jholly]

<snip>

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

<snip>

 

And how would you do that?

 

Have a Weapon of Mass Deletion by owner? - got the power trail, but also the 100 or so non-power trail caches by the same owner you would have done.

 

How about the "power trails" that have built up over time along some trail and have caches hidden by a dozen or more owners? Well your WMD would probably create massive collateral damage.

 

Seems to me the best way to get those pesky power trails off your PQ's is to simply stop whining and go out and log them.

 

But the real kicker for me is that most folks that have their undies in a bunch over the power trails don't live any where near the trail and would never have the trail show up in their PQ's. Not one of the power trails that have been talked about in the forums have in any way impacted my caching. Well, except that I wished I lived closer to some of them. I'm waiting for Bittsen to do a power trail down in Portland, well, as long as it is not a 10 mile bushwhack. You listening Bittsen?

Edited March 12, 2010 by jholly

[+sbell111]

-never mind. Discussing the same thing in half a dozen threads is the very definition of pointless.

Edited March 12, 2010 by sbell111

[+gatoller]

When I looked at it, I thought - "man, imagine if they'd made all those stages of a multi.

[4wheelin_fool]

-never mind. Discussing the same thing in half a dozen threads is the very definition of pointless.

 

It's actually a powertrail of forum threads...

[+Taoiseach]

 

And, with that said, I come to the topic of power trails... and I say "Why not?"

 

So what up with the whining?

 

In the High Desert, this doesn't really matter, however one big problem I have with power trails is the enormous proximity circle that results.

 

I know that I wouldn't be too pleased if somebody monopolised such a large area in my region, especially if they're just placing cookie cutter traditionals.

 

I'll ask again - Is there a reason that there can't be any diversity within the series? A couple of on-site puzzles, maybe a few multis... I for one wouldn't waste my time finding 600 almost* identical caches.

 

Much like the monkeys up here, which are 1/1 micro LPC traditionals, I find that lack of diversity and monopolisation of areas annoying. For the record, I don't even necessarily have a problem with LPCs, there's just far too many of them and they aren't very interesting.

 

* Yes, I do realise that there's a score of larger caches in there too.

[+dfx]

how about creating a new attribute icon for caches being part of a power trail, and making that attribute mandatory for those caches? that way people could ignore them from in their PQs, or alternatively run PQs consisting only of power trails.

[+thedeadpirate]

<snip>

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

<snip>

 

And how would you do that?

 

Have a Weapon of Mass Deletion by owner? - got the power trail, but also the 100 or so non-power trail caches by the same owner you would have done.

 

If there were not some issues with power trails, then why has Groundspeak previously had a long standing policy against them? Keep in mind that allowing them is a rather recent development.

 

Do not size filters also work as WMD's? Doesn't filtering out micros mean that you will filter out some really outstanding caches?

 

Doesn't filtering out anything above 2 terrain mean you are going to filter a ton of really excellent caches?

 

Yet, we currently have these as options.

 

There is also a checkbox when building a PQ for caches that "Are not on my ignore list". It's there for a reason. Because sometimes you may actually want to include those caches and sometimes you don't.

 

Again, 25 or 30 may not be that big an issue. But 100, 200, or even 500 is.

 

On a side note, I would hate to be a reviewer and see 500 caches submitted at once for approval.

[+thedeadpirate]

how about creating a new attribute icon for caches being part of a power trail, and making that attribute mandatory for those caches? that way people could ignore them from in their PQs, or alternatively run PQs consisting only of power trails.

 

Not a bad solution either. It's probably much more viable than the "ignore hider" option.

[+sbell111]

how about creating a new attribute icon for caches being part of a power trail, and making that attribute mandatory for those caches? that way people could ignore them from in their PQs, or alternatively run PQs consisting only of power trails.

This wouldn't work for two reasons:

 

Whether a bunch of caches is a 'power trail' is in the eye of the beer holder.

 

What about power trails that spring up over time? Would you archive those caches that were along the trail prior to the new ones being placed simply because they didn't choose to to add the attribute simply because someone else hid a bunch of caches nearby?

Edited March 12, 2010 by sbell111

[+dfx]

This wouldn't work for two reasons:

 

Whether a bunch of caches is a 'power trail' is in the eye of the beer holder.

 

What about power trails that spring up over time? Would you archive those caches that were along the trail prior to the new ones being placed simply because they didn't choose to to add the attribute simply because someone else hid a bunch of caches nearby?

i'm not suggesting archiving caches when they don't have the attribute set, i'm suggesting that someone who places a power trail (deliberately) is required to set the attribute in order to get it published, OR have the reviewer activate the icon when publishing them, with the attribute being sticky/non-removable.

 

i don't consider a trail with a lot of caches placed by different people over a stretch of time to be a power trail. i'm sure Groundspeak could come up with a definition of what a power trail is for such an attribute if they wanted to.

Edited March 12, 2010 by dfx

[+thedeadpirate]

how about creating a new attribute icon for caches being part of a power trail, and making that attribute mandatory for those caches? that way people could ignore them from in their PQs, or alternatively run PQs consisting only of power trails.

This wouldn't work for two reasons:

 

Whether a bunch of caches is a 'power trail' is in the eye of the beer holder.

 

What about power trails that spring up over time? Would you archive those caches that were along the trail prior to the new ones being placed simply because they didn't choose to to add the attribute simply because someone else hid a bunch of caches nearby?

 

I'm pretty sure when a reviewer looks in his queue and sees 100 caches waiting for approval and they're all 528" apart straight down a trail that they s/he is able to figure out it is a power trail.

 

Naturally occurring power trails building up over time by different owners are likely to have at least a bit of diversity.

 

Again, if there were not legitimate reasons for being able to filter caches, then why do TPTB give us so many options when building PQ's?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

how about creating a new attribute icon for caches being part of a power trail, and making that attribute mandatory for those caches? that way people could ignore them from in their PQs, or alternatively run PQs consisting only of power trails.

This wouldn't work for two reasons:

 

Whether a bunch of caches is a 'power trail' is in the eye of the beer holder.

 

What about power trails that spring up over time? Would you archive those caches that were along the trail prior to the new ones being placed simply because they didn't choose to to add the attribute simply because someone else hid a bunch of caches nearby?

 

I'm pretty sure when a reviewer looks in his queue and sees 100 caches waiting for approval and they're all 528" apart straight down a trail that they s/he is able to figure out it is a power trail.

 

Naturally occurring power trails building up over time by different owners are likely to have at least a bit of diversity.

 

Again, if there were not legitimate reasons for being able to filter caches, then why do TPTB give us so many options when building PQ's?

 

I like the idea of a power trail attribute as well. In the case where one cache owner submits 100, or even half that, all in a straight line it's pretty obvious that it's a "power trail". Yes, I realize that "power trail" is no longer in the lexicon of the Groundspeak site. Whatever you want to call it, I would think that most reviewer would recognize it for what it is and would ask that the power trail attribute be set.

 

That allows those interested in power trail to easily discover them and those that are not interested the ability to easily filter them out. I'd take it a step further though. I'd add a filter by attributes feature to the "Setup Notification" form. That way, if someone creates a powertrail of 200 caches in my area, I don't get 200 email message if I am filtering out powertrail caches.

 

In the case where a power trail builds up over time, you don't have the issue of a massive amount of email notifications, and trails that are built up over time are also found over time. A pocket query that simply filters out finds would look like any other PQ results if one has found caches in a power trail over time.

[+sbell111]

I'm in favor of caches being reviewed and listed on their own merits, not based on whether other caches are also submitted. Further, I am not in favor of teh reviewers being forced to make judgement calls.

[+bittsen]

I have no issue with power trails per se.

 

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

 

 

A 500 cache power trail would have to be at least 50 miles long.

I don't know about your area but I fill a 500 cache PQ with a 7.5 mile radius.

That would only include 75 (at most) caches of the PT if my radius was at one end of the trail.

 

Doesn't seem like an issue to me.

[Mr.Yuck]

Oh, okay. Embrace the change or be labeled a whiner that needs a prescription to function.

 

Awesome.

 

Exactly. Who's whining, just discussing a huge change in these here parts. Power trails such as the like we're seeing in the past 6 months, have basically been taboo since, well, forever. And of course there's the whole thing about the guidelines still say "please don't hide a cache every 600 feet just because you can".

 

Spam® is made of mostly ham and pork shoulder. What if they all of a sudden changed the pork shoulder content to 95%, while still saying Spam® is made of mostly ham and pork shoulder. Heck no, I won't go. Give me my Spam® back.

[+L0ne.R]

Seems to me the best way to get those pesky power trails off your PQ's is to simply stop whining and go out and log them.

 

What?! And encourage more of these hides. Not a good idea. I think that's part of the reason there are so many micros, people assume that finders love them (ask sbell), but probably most people are just finding them to get them off their list.

[+Castle Mischief]

Seems to me the best way to get those pesky power trails off your PQ's is to simply stop whining and go out and log them.

 

What?! And encourage more of these hides. Not a good idea. I think that's part of the reason there are so many micros, people assume that finders love them (ask sbell), but probably most people are just finding them to get them off their list.

 

I don't like tomatoes in my hamburger. Clearly the best solution is to eat the tomatoes and then I won't have any on my burger.

 

Right.

[+L0ne.R]

This wouldn't work for two reasons:

 

Whether a bunch of caches is a 'power trail' is in the eye of the beer holder.

 

What about power trails that spring up over time? Would you archive those caches that were along the trail prior to the new ones being placed simply because they didn't choose to to add the attribute simply because someone else hid a bunch of caches nearby?

i'm not suggesting archiving caches when they don't have the attribute set, i'm suggesting that someone who places a power trail (deliberately) is required to set the attribute in order to get it published, OR have the reviewer activate the icon when publishing them, with the attribute being sticky/non-removable.

 

i don't consider a trail with a lot of caches placed by different people over a stretch of time to be a power trail. i'm sure Groundspeak could come up with a definition of what a power trail is for such an attribute if they wanted to.

 

I'm with dfx. I don't consider a trail with a lot of caches placed by different people over a stretch of time to be a power trail.

 

Put me down as one who thinks a mandatory attribute is a decent solution. It's filterable. Still would like to ignore the CO too, that way the power trail doesn't show up on the map when I click "Map It".

[+Q10]

how about creating a new attribute icon for caches being part of a power trail, and making that attribute mandatory for those caches? that way people could ignore them from in their PQs, or alternatively run PQs consisting only of power trails.

 

Support - support. This will solve the problem with Powertrails and PQ's.

[+L0ne.R]

That allows those interested in power trail to easily discover them and those that are not interested the ability to easily filter them out. I'd take it a step further though. I'd add a filter by attributes feature to the "Setup Notification" form. That way, if someone creates a powertrail of 200 caches in my area, I don't get 200 email message if I am filtering out powertrail caches.

 

Really really good idea. Oh how I would like to be able to create a "setup notificaton" so I don't see micro cache announcements or power trail cache announcements in my email. It's irritating to get a new local cache announcement, have to log on to geocaching.com, only to find it's a micro. What a disappointment and an irritation.

[+sbell111]

I have no issue with power trails per se.

 

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

A 500 cache power trail would have to be at least 50 miles long.

I don't know about your area but I fill a 500 cache PQ with a 7.5 mile radius.

That would only include 75 (at most) caches of the PT if my radius was at one end of the trail.

 

Doesn't seem like an issue to me.

I hate it when Bittsen gets all logical and reasonable.

... Power trails such as the like we're seeing in the past 6 months, have basically been taboo since, well, forever.

Until the guidelines were revised to no longer make them verboten.

 

Things change. Stuff that used to be allowed are now forbidden. Things that used to be diallowed are now allowed.

And of course there's the whole thing about the guidelines still say "please don't hide a cache every 600 feet just because you can".

As you'll note from the word 'please', that bit of verbiage doesn't forbid anything.

[+sbell111]

Seems to me the best way to get those pesky power trails off your PQ's is to simply stop whining and go out and log them.

What?! And encourage more of these hides. Not a good idea. I think that's part of the reason there are so many micros, people assume that finders love them (ask sbell), but probably most people are just finding them to get them off their list.

Sbell fully supports your right to ignore caches that you don't wish to find.

[+Castle Mischief]

As you'll note from the word 'please', that bit of verbiage doesn't forbid anything.

 

So that's the standard? And do any guidelines that omit the magic "please"... do they then forbid things?

[+sbell111]

As you'll note from the word 'please', that bit of verbiage doesn't forbid anything.

So that's the standard? And do any guidelines that omit the magic "please"... do they then forbid things?

That is a very basic standard. It is the very difference between telling someone not to do something and asking them not to do something. The first creates a requirement, the second a request.

[+dfx]

As you'll note from the word 'please', that bit of verbiage doesn't forbid anything.

on the other hand, it shows that the authors obviously don't want power trails around, at least that's the only reason i can think of why they would put that statement in. which makes me wonder, why change them from disallowed to allowed then?

[+tozainamboku]

i'm not suggesting archiving caches when they don't have the attribute set, i'm suggesting that someone who places a power trail (deliberately) is required to set the attribute in order to get it published, OR have the reviewer activate the icon when publishing them, with the attribute being sticky/non-removable.

 

i don't consider a trail with a lot of caches placed by different people over a stretch of time to be a power trail. i'm sure Groundspeak could come up with a definition of what a power trail is for such an attribute if they wanted to.

I could see a voluntary Power trail attribute. I believe that most of these trails the owners would set the attribute. After all they hide power trails because they enjoy finding them and probably figure as many people would use the attribute to look for power trails as would use the attribute to ignore them.

 

If a trail builds up over time with caches placed by different people some caches may have the attribute and others won't. So if you filter one way or the other on these you may miss some caches you want to include or not.

 

Another point to make is that most of these trails (wheter put out at once or developed overtime) will be on some public bookmark list. Giving people the option to ignore caches on a particular bookmark list (or adding the cache from a list to their ignore list) might be something some people would find useful.

 

The real point is that while the power trail may push some caches off your pocket query or not let you zoom out as far on a map as you would like, they have little effect on someone who doesn't want to find these caches. Let's say your interested in a challenging cache that requires 4 wheel drive to a remote location in the Mojave desert, like this one. So what has changed. Well now when you drive out there you have to go by about 60 caches that weren't there before. I would say it would be pretty simple just to drive past all those cache and find the one you wanted to find. People seem to act as if the appearance of these caches means you now have to stop and find them all. That sounds pretty silly. I once complained that a favorite hike up a mountain to a lonely old cache was ruined because, over time, people had put caches every .1 mile along the trail. Someone then told me, that I didn't have to stop and find those if I didn't want to.

[+tozainamboku]

As you'll note from the word 'please', that bit of verbiage doesn't forbid anything.

on the other hand, it shows that the authors obviously don't want power trails around, at least that's the only reason i can think of why they would put that statement in. which makes me wonder, why change them from disallowed to allowed then?

I don't think you can say it means the authors of the guidelines don't want power trails. I don't even believe that when they mentioned power trails before that that was the intent. The saturation guildeline is one of the few guidelines that explicitly state the intent:

The ultimate goals of the saturation guideline are to encourage you to seek out new places to hide caches rather than putting them in areas where caches already exist and to limit the number of caches hidden in a particular area, especially by the same hider. Groundspeak may further restrict cache listings in areas where cache saturation becomes a concern.

A cacher (or better a group of cachers) who want to put a large number of caches out in a new area to attract others to place are, if anything, acting within the intent of the guidelines. If they were to place a power trail in a area that already had many caches, I suspect the reviewer may suggest fewer caches as this would not encourage an new area and may not leaving any room for others to hide caches. My impression was that when power trails were mentioned, the reviewers could not agree on what a power trail was. So a trail of 25 or 30 caches may get approved in one area and then turned down by a different reviewer in another area. Instead of trying to define a power trail, the reviewers have been told to look at the intent of the guidelines and to approve caches that meet the guidelines. Trying to interpret the guidelines based on what they used to say or based on how some reviewers used to apply them is pointless.

First and foremost please be advised there is no precedent for placing caches.

This quoted most often when a cache is turned down. But it applies as well to a cache that might have been turned down in the past but is now allowed.

[+joranda]

I myself find the ones that @#%&$ about it are not much in the way of caching anyways. They would rather complain about it than go out and find caches anyways. Now can I set the hook?

[+thedeadpirate]

Seems to me the best way to get those pesky power trails off your PQ's is to simply stop whining and go out and log them.

What?! And encourage more of these hides. Not a good idea. I think that's part of the reason there are so many micros, people assume that finders love them (ask sbell), but probably most people are just finding them to get them off their list.

Sbell fully supports your right to ignore caches that you don't wish to find.

 

Apparently not. That's all I've been asking for and you've been arguing against it at every turn.

 

I have not said do away with any types of caches. I have just advocated giving us some way to filter them out if we want.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I have no issue with power trails per se.

 

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

 

 

A 500 cache power trail would have to be at least 50 miles long.

I don't know about your area but I fill a 500 cache PQ with a 7.5 mile radius.

That would only include 75 (at most) caches of the PT if my radius was at one end of the trail.

 

Doesn't seem like an issue to me.

 

For me, a 7.5 radius search of caches I have not found would produce a total of 2 caches and one of them is an event coming up in May, The other was published two days ago. If I double the radius that still only shows 7 caches that I haven't found.

[+thedeadpirate]

I could see a voluntary Power trail attribute. I believe that most of these trails the owners would set the attribute. After all they hide power trails because they enjoy finding them and probably figure as many people would use the attribute to look for power trails as would use the attribute to ignore them.

 

If I set out a power trail I would use the attribute. I would figure it would be an easier way to advertise my PT. I don't really see the down side to a voluntary attribute.

[+bittsen]

I have no issue with power trails per se.

 

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

 

 

A 500 cache power trail would have to be at least 50 miles long.

I don't know about your area but I fill a 500 cache PQ with a 7.5 mile radius.

That would only include 75 (at most) caches of the PT if my radius was at one end of the trail.

 

Doesn't seem like an issue to me.

 

For me, a 7.5 radius search of caches I have not found would produce a total of 2 caches and one of them is an event coming up in May, The other was published two days ago. If I double the radius that still only shows 7 caches that I haven't found.

 

So you could be one of the few people who would have a valid reason to complain about a power trail in your area, unless you wanted a bunch of caches within a 15 mile radius to find. Either way, WIN!

[+thedeadpirate]

I have no issue with power trails per se.

 

I just want a way to weed them out if I don't want my 500 limit PQ filled up with a single power trail.

 

 

A 500 cache power trail would have to be at least 50 miles long.

I don't know about your area but I fill a 500 cache PQ with a 7.5 mile radius.

That would only include 75 (at most) caches of the PT if my radius was at one end of the trail.

 

Doesn't seem like an issue to me.

 

For me, a 7.5 radius search of caches I have not found would produce a total of 2 caches and one of them is an event coming up in May, The other was published two days ago. If I double the radius that still only shows 7 caches that I haven't found.

 

So you could be one of the few people who would have a valid reason to complain about a power trail in your area, unless you wanted a bunch of caches within a 15 mile radius to find. Either way, WIN!

 

It's 40 miles to the nearest cache rich area for me. I can run a single PQ for each of the surrounding cities.

 

If someone added a power trail with 100 or 200 caches each, it would be a bit difficult to get a PQ with all the caches.

 

I would imagine that people living in such cache rich areas as you would also wish to have some way of filtering caches they were interested in finding. I believe you mentioned that you mentioned that you filter out puzzles.

 

I'm sure you could live with no filtering, but isn't life much better when you can refine your searches?

[+bittsen]

It's 40 miles to the nearest cache rich area for me. I can run a single PQ for each of the surrounding cities.

 

If someone added a power trail with 100 or 200 caches each, it would be a bit difficult to get a PQ with all the caches.

 

I would imagine that people living in such cache rich areas as you would also wish to have some way of filtering caches they were interested in finding. I believe you mentioned that you mentioned that you filter out puzzles.

 

I'm sure you could live with no filtering, but isn't life much better when you can refine your searches?

 

If the power trail is traditional caches, why would I bother to filter them out? Now if they were puzzles or multis... POOF!

 

I also use GSAK so it wouldn't be hard to ignore them all if I wanted to.

[CoyoteRed]

Hmmm... I think most folks are missing something here. Land owner perception.

 

Personally, I don't really care if there's a power trail in a city. Really, who cares. A "power trail" really needs to be on a trail. That's means in a park or rural setting. If you're in front of a land owner and trying to educate them on geocaching and they see nearby areas with large numbers of caches, what are they going to think? Has permission notions changed in the past couple of years? Reviewers don't ask owners to make series into multis for this very reason?

 

Also, why a power trail in the first place? If each spot is worthy of a cache then it can be a stage in a multi. Can't it?

 

Oh, right. It's not the spot. It's not the hunt. It's the smilie. I gotcha.

 

Also, very few people can put out large numbers of caches in a short amount of time and make them decent caches. Any less-than-well-though-out cache blocks the next person from putting out a better one nearby. Don't even say ask the owner to archive his so you can put one out, just ask the question here and you'll plenty of responses that are pretty much one-fingered salutes.

 

The problem with allowing everything and forcing folks who don't like trache to ignore them is when they go to place their own cache and don't realize the trache they ignored is there blocking them.

 

So, why not a power trail? Nothing if you bow down to The Almighty Smilie. "All Hail!"

 

Otherwise, power trails and other unwarranted saturation (not proximity which is a different issue) is seen as not healthy to the hobby. Funny that I didn't see the first mention of land owner perception.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I asked this in another of the power trail threads and did not get an answer...

 

Those of you who want a power trail attribute, please define power trail.

[vagabond]

 

So what up with the whining?

 

Because they can or they don't have anything better to do

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I asked this in another of the power trail threads and did not get an answer...

 

Those of you who want a power trail attribute, please define power trail.

 

As I eluded to in another thread, once you come up with a definition, you're just going to get submissions which circumvent the definition. If for example, it was defined as 25 or more caches in a line .2 of a mile or less apart,, someone is going to submit 24 caches, on a curve, then skip .3 of a mile, then submit 24 more. It's almost as if its a game to see how close one can approach a guideline without going over. As someone else suggested, sometimes cache placements can fall within the guidelines but still be detrimental to the game.

[knowschad]

-never mind. Discussing the same thing in half a dozen threads is the very definition of pointless.

How 'bout just posting a funny picture once in a while, huh?