BENCHMARKING POLL-VOTE NOW

[+TEAM 360]

I have just started Benchmarking, and was wondering:

 

Do you prefer Benchmark finding over traditional cache finding? Please let me know why in a post below...

[+embra]

Although I still do caches, I rarely make speacial trips for them. If I see one close to the benchmarks I'm hunting I may take a look, or I might go out for a new one close to home.

 

It came as a surprise to me how much I've enjoyed benchmarking...I recall that there used to be a lot of posts in this forum from cachers asking for explanations of what the point was. I've found that I prefer looking for markers of significance to containers of trinkets. The difference to me is that with benchmarks, we are not only searching through 3-dimensional space, but also across the 4th dimension of time.

 

Some benchmarks are easy to find, some are hard, some are impossible. Each of these categories makes me appreciate the other. One exception I make is when I am introducing someone to the notion of having fun with a GPSr...caches are more fun for kids and newbies. Benchmarking, like fine wine, is an acquired taste.

 

Max

Often wrong but seldom in doubt

[+beejay&esskay]

Many more benchmarks around than caches.

 

Now that the snow has melted and it's light when I drive home from work, I can stop and check out benchmarks. Can't do that with caches.

 

But caches remain fun. It's just a different idea...they are hidden, but with exact (we hope) coordinates.

 

Benchmarks are meant to be easy to find (although you never know if they are really there until you find them) from the description, and the coordinates (for old ones) are not very exact.

 

I enjoy both.

[+flask]

there are more benchmarks near here than caches. as time goes on, i'll be finding more BMs. but i like 'em all.

 

it doesn't matter if you get to camp at one or at six. dinner is still at six.

[eahousley]

I tend to prefer benchmarking over caching because it adds a degree of history to the activity. Also I find the people in the benchmarking forum to be more helpful, more educated, and definitely more friendly. Many of the caching threads have really soured me to the sport. I mostly do benchmark hunting alone, but cache hunting is an activity I can share with my wife.

 

-- Its from aliens. I seen um. --

[+rogbarn]

I decided to go with 50/50. I did a lot of benchmarking to start with and it certainly has a great appeal. But caching is also a lot of fun and is more likely to get me out away from the hustle and bustle of suburbia. And, like eahousley, I go cacheing with my wife which is a definite plus. She sees no redeeming value to benchmark hunting, so that's a solo sport for me (except when I can find like minded friends).

[+Kewaneh & Shark]

I'd have to go with 50/50 also. For me, caching is generally a family thing, where benchmarking is more of a solo pursuit. My wife understands why I like benchmarking and puts up with it when I do it. The kids don't care for it because there's nothing fun inside a benchmark like there is inside a cache.

 

Keep on Caching!

- Kewaneh

[+bitbrain]

Benchmarks can be as interesting as caches in many cases, especially when you get out into the rural areas and start looking for a copper nail that was hammered into an oak tree in 1934. Still haven't located that one, but I believe I narrowed it down to eight or ten trees in the vicinity.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

I voted benchmarking all the way. I started out with geocaching, but benchmarking is much more interesting to me.

 

Some benchmarks are easy to find but others are quite a challenge. Sure, some geocaches involve puzzling things out, but that all seems so artificial compared to the real-world changes that gradually hide benchmarks over time. Some of them have location directions that speak of farms, homes, and buildings that have long since fallen victim to passing time, leaving the benchmark still there.

 

Along that same line of thinking, benchmarks are not just things hidden for a game, they are an important part of the infrastructure of our civilization.

[survey tech]

Many thanks to all those who respect and appreciate the importance and historical value of these monuments that represent our surveying heritage.

[+DustyJacket]

I like the history of the Benchmarks, especially those from the early 1900s.

 

With benchmarking, I don't have to sneak around and hide, like I do in caching. If someone asks, I show the data sheet and eplain I am looking for "surveyors benchmarks" (as a generic term).

 

Lately, a lot of caches are right on the fringe of other activities, and not well hidden from public view. Sometimes I get tired of the sneaking, so I go benchmarking.

 

DustyJacket

Not all those that wander are lost. But in my case...

[+TEAM 360]

I am starting to like Benchmarking better than caching, maybe it's because it IS a link to another time. I always wonder what the land must have looked like when the original Benchmark was placed and what that person had to go through to place it, maybe they wondered about someone from the year 2003 finding it...I went after one last night, and followed the coordinates and descriptions to the letter, and apparently the spot is now a parking lot and a nearby road has moved 30 feet to the north since it was placed, which wouldn't surprise me, given the amount of growth here in the Phoenix area over the years. It was discouraging not to find the mark. The plus side is that there is no cache maintenance involved and you don't have to worry about carrying things for trade or putting a banned item in a cache. Less rules are good...

[+Red Barron]

I will do both as to get as much experience as possible in a trip. In my area many of the bench marks are in neat areas. There are getting more caches so there is more to look for. At one time I had hit all the caches in 80 miles.

[+Airnut]

I would say it is 50/50. There are a lot of caches within thirty miles. I do a search for nearby benchmarks when a new cache pops up. Sometimes I will go on Caching trips. Other times I will go on Benchmarking trips. And sometimes I combine the two.

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

When I first there were more benchmarks than caches. I like hunting the historical marks left by the ones before us.Buy the way one day in the future as with the benchmarks lets see how many remain in 10,25,50 years,I have found benchmarks 150 years old..,1 year old is the oldest cache in this area....

 

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS *GEOTRYAGAIN* http://www.msnusers.com/MissouriTrails

[rino120]

I still like caching better even thoguh i cant really get far because i dont get my license for 41 more days im stuck with where my bike takes me which is no problem because i need all the mile i can get training for mtb races. There are ALOT more benchmarks around than caches but i still think caches are more fun being out in the woods looking for some small little box but as long as im outside i don't care what i really am looking for as long as i have a good time

 

www.doinitoutdoors.com

 

everyone dies not everyone really lives

[+Tsegi Mike and Desert Viking]

We like variety to our geocaching experience. Sometimes we cache, sometimes we hunt for benchmarks. Somehow we can't seem to do the two together. The search mindset must be different for benchmarks than it is for caching. The historical aspect of benchmarks intrigues us. Sometimes though, it is frustrating. It seems that only one quarter of the benchmarks we find are listed in the database. For those who like benchmarks, there are some really interesting ones near Casa Grande, Arizona that we found and are trying to find out more information on. About 8 of them are still around and accesible. They are in the center of large concrete crosses put there in the mid 1960's by the army map service. Originally they were painted blue to contrast with the desert. As far as I can tell, for now, they were used by the military to synchronize cameras in U2 planes. Or so the locals say. The area is no longer used by the military and most of the land is now privately owned. Eventually we will post photos, but if you look at the Microsoft Terra Server satellite photos and zoom in, you can actually see them.

The link to one of the benchmarks is http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=CZ2347

 

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes

On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated -- so:

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges --

"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

 

Rudyard Kipling , The Explorer 1898

[+Texas-Jacksons]

1. Traditional Cache

2. Virtual Cache

3. Bench Mark

 

I have found that bench marks aren't always accurate. More times than not, I have found myself hunting by description. Many times they are on private property or unacessible to the public. Then again, this IS N. Texas - pasture or mesquite. There are definitely more BM's than caches.

[the james gang]

50/50

 

I started out searching for caches but a severe ankle injury deverted my attention to benchmarks. Its alot easier to find benchmarks in the city while on crutches than it is to hike through the woods on them.

I've been back on my feet since mid December and have picked up the pace on caches again.

tjg

 

"Either get busy living, or get busy dying"-Tim Robbins, The Shawshank Redemption

[+Web-ling]

I prefer geocaching to benchmarking, but when I start to run out of nearby caches, I start doing more benchmarking. The likelihood of a 'not found' is considerably higher with benchmarks, at least in my area, which gets kinda frustrating, so I tend to do a lot more caching. However, on hot summer Texas days, sometimes I'd rather just stay on or near pavement and my air-conditioned vehicle than to fight the thorns, poison ivy, snakes, and so forth, so I do more benchmarking.

 

[+catcher24]

To this point, I have done ONLY benchmarking, due to weather and (initially) lack of a GPSr. I was able to locate benchmarks using the datasheet descriptions. I found two that I actually sent a recovery report to NGS - and both are now listed on the datasheets! Both were very easy to locate, both in good to excellent condition, yet one had not been reported since 1954, and the other had not been reported as recovered since it's original placement (1933)! I imagine once I do some caching, I will enjoy that too, simply because it's an excuse to get out in the country, but benchmarks have intrugued me since I was much younger. I only wish there was a database of all the USGS benchmarks, like there is for the NGS.

 

Catcher24

"You see, you spend a good deal of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." Jim Bouton

[AC Student]

1 Virtual cache

2 Traditional cache

3 Benchmark

4 Microcache

 

I really enjoy virtual caches that have historical significance. My favorite virtual caches take me somewhere that I didn't know existed and teach me some local history.

[+chaosmanor]

I tend to do more caching then BM hunting, but that's partly because my wife prefers caching, and partly because most fo the BMs around here are either on the coast, and easily picked up in linear "sweeps", or are on mountain tops, and I'll get to them when we take a caching trip that way. The RR BMs are often quite difficult to get to, or are just plain dangerously set, so I tend not to worry about many of those. Still, when we plan a trip, I look for BM info as well as caches. I make a point to pick up at least one or two BMs every trip we take, if there are any around. The two things go well together and I'm thrilled that they added the BMs to the geocaching site

 

So many caches; so few pairs of decent shoes

[Captain Chaoss]

So far I've mostly cached, but recently my wife and I have begun finding benchmarks.

I cant say I really like one more than the other, but I think I do prefer the relative solitude of caching over the public obviousness of benchmarking.

The cool thing about benchmarking is how many of them there are to find, and they are more challenging in most instances.