is there a way to filter caches for park and grabs

[+transamforever]

here is the situation... my wife is 7 months pregnant. the dr has taken her off work because as a waitress she is walking too much and causing complications... i and my family are new to the sport and i would like to continue to take them out with me... i was thinking that if i could search ahead of time to be sure that the cache is a park and grab then my wife would be able to go with us. this way there would be less walking but still enjoy the hunt. is there a way to do this?

 

ps i have still not gotten the hang of pq's. just cant figure it out ... any other ways?

[+t4e]

its hard to differentiate by that criteria

 

only way is to plan ahead and read the description and build a PQ for low difficulty/terrain...that would be your best chance to find the "grab and go" type caches

[+FancoverFive]

There's no specific way to search for park-and-grabs, I don't think. Your best bet would be to use the map view and look at the cache pages for those close to roads. It may be obvious from the description or the logs if its quickly accessible. Look at the terrain - if it's 2 or more, it's unlikely to be a quick grab.

[+briansnat]

Though it's not foolproof any cache with a difficulty and terrain of 1.5 is likely to be a park n grab.

Edited April 4, 2010 by briansnat

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Use the Google Maps or GoogleEarth to help look at areas that you may cache in. Then, you're going to have to read cache pages to find out, sorry. It can be tedious but you'll not only find what you're looking for but maybe some caches that you'll want to go back for yourself later.

 

Congrats!

[+Mom-n-Andy]

Another option would be to try some puzzle/mystery caches for a while. I have a couple of dozen that I've solved over the winter and am slowly working my way through the actual finds. You can often find puzzles of varying difficulty with easy terrain - those are my favorites.

[+apyro]

My husband and I are avid hikers but as busy as we are sometimes we go for park and grabs. We recently ran a PQ for 1.5/1.5 caches and had great luck using that to get some fast grabs. I would say run a similar PQ and then just preview it on google maps, that way you don't have to look at each cache individually but will get an idea of any caches that won't work!

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

here is the situation... my wife is 7 months pregnant. the dr has taken her off work because as a waitress she is walking too much and causing complications... i and my family are new to the sport and i would like to continue to take them out with me... i was thinking that if i could search ahead of time to be sure that the cache is a park and grab then my wife would be able to go with us. this way there would be less walking but still enjoy the hunt. is there a way to do this?

 

ps i have still not gotten the hang of pq's. just cant figure it out ... any other ways?

Filtering using PQs is the best way.

 

If PQs confuse you let me offer a simple tutorial that might help. If you follow these instructions word for word you won't need to understand what else might be going on or all of the confusing options, it will just work, and that's all you need for now!

 

Go to http://gsak.net/cgi-bin/count/download.pl?file=GSAK770h and download GSAK, a program used to manipulate PQs.

 

Install the GSAK program... just click on the setup file that you just downloaded and accept all of the defaults.

 

Once GSAK is installed go to geocaching.com and select the 'Your Profile' link on the left.

 

In the Profile screen at the right under 'Premium Features' select 'Build Pocket Queries'.

 

In the Your Pocket Queries screen select 'Create A New Query'.

 

In the New Pocket Query screen enter your zip code into the 'Query Name' field.

 

Click on whatever day of the week is that you are doing this... if it is Sunday click to put a checkmark on Sunday.

 

Scroll down the screen to the section marked 'From Origin'.

 

Click on the round button beside 'Postal Code' and enter your zip code in that field.

 

Scroll down and click on the 'Submit Information' button.

 

After you submit the query you will see the New Pocket Query screen again but now the sentence

"Thanks! Your pocket query has been saved and currently results in 500 caches. You can preview the search on the nearest cache page." appears at the top of the page. The words "preview the search" are underlined, indicating that they are a hyperlink... click on "preview the search" and the Running Pocket Query screen will appear.

 

What you are looking at is the list of the 500 caches centered on your zip code WITHOUT any sort of filtering. You see everything out there. That's cool, you will do the filtering in GSAK.

 

Close geocaching.com and look on your desktop. If you installed GSAK using all of the defaults without changes then there will be a GSAK icon on your desktop.

 

Check your email (the email account you used when you created your geocaching.com account).

 

There should be an email from geocaching.com entitled "[GEO] Pocket Query: New Query" where "New Query" is your zip code.

 

PQ emails generally get to me within five minutes of the time I generate them, some may take longer, but if you don't have the email in an hour check to see if your spam or email junk filter blocked it. It will be coming from the address "noreply@geocaching.com".

 

When you get the email open it and you will see that it has a file attached. The file name will make no sense, as it is just a string of numbers. The PQ I created to write this tutorial is already in my email and the attached file is named "4390504.zip".

 

In the email right-click on the attached file name and choose "Save As".

 

A Windows "Save Attachment As" screen will open. Select your desktop as the destination and name the file "yourzipcode.zip" without the quotes and where yourzipcode is your actual zip code, not the word yourzipode.

 

Now you should see a file on your desktop labeled "yourzipcode.zip".

 

Cool... you have created a PQ, had it emailed to you and saved it to your desktop.

 

But... it contains ALL of the 500 caches nearest you, which is not what you are after! You just wanted to see the easy ones.

 

Enter GSAK, the cacher's best friend.

 

Open GSAK by clicking on the desktop icon.

 

At the top left corner of GSAK click on the File command then on "Load GPX/LOC/ZIP" in the drop-down menu.

 

A screen entitled Load GPX/LOC/ZIP File appears.

 

The very first line has a Browse icon at the right - click on it, select desktop, select the yourzipcode.zip file that you created earlier.

 

Ignore all of the other options and click the OK button at the bottom of the screen.

 

The selected Pocket Query will populate the GSAK database and you will see all 500 caches listed.

 

Since this is your first use (or even if it's not) of GSAK you need to set your home coordinates for sorting purposes.

 

In GSAK go to the Tools command at the top and select Options from the drop-down menu.

 

An Options screen opens. Click on the Locations tab.

 

Enter your home location coordinates as below:

 

Home, N33° 32.013 W086° 42.625

(replace the coordinates with those of your home. Type the degree symbol by holding down the Alt key and typing 0176).

 

Click on the OK button at the bottom.

 

At the top of the GSAK screen select Centre Point and then select Home from the drop-down menu.

 

Now you have the full cache listing (with maps!) for the 500 caches nearest you. Notice that as you hover or click on each listing the details are shown at the bottom of the screen. Sweet!

 

You could go through this list selecting caches of interest, but wait, there's more!

 

You asked for drive-ups or easy caches that your wife could do while hobbled. Let's hide the hikes, then.

 

Go to the Search command at the top of the GSAK screen and select Filter from the drop-down menu.

 

The Filter screen opens... look about half-way down and you will see Terrain. In the drop-down boxes to the right choose "Less than or equal to" and "2.0"

 

At the bottom left of the Filter screen click the Go button.

 

Now in the main screen of GSAK you see a listing of and the details for every cache regardless of size or type that have a terrain rating of 2.0 or less.

 

Remember that difficulty is (supposed to be) a rating of how hard the cache is to find once you are at ground zero, and terrain is a rating of how physically arduous it is to get to ground zero. In this list you may have caches with a high find difficulty rating, but the terrain difficulty will most likely be within your wife's capabilities.

 

Depending on what GPS you have you can print the cache listings that interest you or download (export) them to your GPS, SmartPhone or PDA.

 

Later, as you get comfortable with PQs and GSAK you can do many more neat things, but this process should get you up and running without confusion.

 

Have fun!

 

Edit to add: I wrote that between cooking chores getting ready for Easter dinner, so it's done a sentence or so at a time as I rolled by the computer. If it's confusing or you still have questions feel free to call me between 7 a.m. and midnight CDT at 205-914-6814

Edited April 5, 2010 by TheAlabamaRambler