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Clever cache hiding techniques (NOT containers) ?


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We've all seen the clever cache containers threads, but what I am interested in hearing about are clever cache hiding techniques... or more specifically clever ways of retrieving a cache.

 

For example...

 

A pipe you have to fill with water to float the cache up

A bird nest/pine cone/log/whatever tied up in a tree by rope that you have to locate the end of to let it down

A pipe with a rope at the bottom you have to pull to force the container up

etc

 

I would like some ideas for clever cache placement/retrieval mechanisms, not necessarily a cool container.

 

Thanks!

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A fake birdhouse is pretty played out; a fake birdhouse hanging ten feet above a river, which can only be retrieved by realizing that it's suspended by hundreds of feet of wire running through several pulleys up in the trees to an anchored loop that you use to lower the cache within reach (but still in the middle of a river) -- that's different.

 

I don't know if that counts as a hiding technique exactly. The cache was visible from a long ways off.

 

There's an all-time classic multi out there I'd like to post, but I'll leave the privilege to one of the actual finders. Hint: Goo goo gaa gaa.

Edited by Dinoprophet
  • Funny 1
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I've found a number of caches that were suspended by a line, where I couldn't see the cache until I noticed the line and pulled on it to retrieve the cache. Finding a location where this works is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

I've found "bear bag" caches, where part of the challenge was to figure out where the line was that allowed me to lower the cache.

 

There are various ways to retrieve a cache from a hole. Filling it with water to float the cache is one way. A line with a magnet is another. A line with a hook is another. Pushing from below with some sort of rod/pole is another. For a horizontal hole, you might have to push the cache out from the other end.

 

Elevated caches don't need to be "bear bag" caches, with a line provided to lower them. They can be placed where a tool is needed to retrieve them. The cache owner can provide the tool (hidden somewhere nearby), or can leave acquiring the tool as part of the challenge.

 

There might be some other way to place a cache so that retrieving it requires a tool. Finding a location where this works is also left as an exercise for the reader.

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A pipe you have to fill with water to float the cache up

A bird nest/pine cone/log/whatever tied up in a tree by rope that you have to locate the end of to let it down

A pipe with a rope at the bottom you have to pull to force the container up

etc

 

I would like some ideas for clever cache placement/retrieval mechanisms, not necessarily a cool container.

 

Thanks!

 

I've seen almost all of these. Not the pipe/float/water thing, but I have found a hide where a tube was suspended underneath a bridge into the water by some fishing line... you had to haul it up by the line, once you found it.

 

I've seen a fake birdcage, with a keyhider attached to the bottom, held aloft in the trees by a hidden rope adorned with fake ivy.

 

My current favorite is a bison tube held up in a tree by a large loop of fishing line. You had to lower it to within reach as you would a flag on a flagpole. I intend to copy it one of these days :D.

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Seen most of those and loved them.

 

The pipe with water was fun, and then was replaced by another which took nearly a gallon to fill! There have been several variations here...

 

I had a cache that was a bison tube up a tree on a fishing line loop, but despite using heavy duty line it kept breaking and I had to archive it. Perhaps I'll find another way to do this again.

 

One of my favorites was a model airplane on a loop of line several hundred feet long hidden on a hillside. The coords put you at the bottom and you had to reel the plane down to you (and of course back up after the find)

 

The ammo can 30 feet up into a tree is always good.

Edited by drfred
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I had a cache that was a bison tube up a tree on a fishing line loop, but despite using heavy duty line it kept breaking and I had to archive it. Perhaps I'll find another way to do this again.

 

Yeah. Found and broke one of those. Though it was a thermos hanging in a hemlock tree. Heavy duty fishing line might work.

 

I found one that was an ammo can, attached by rope, floating in a swamp.

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Not super neat but a nice touch I thought. I had a cache placed in a very interesting split boulder but the local teens found it. End of cache. There was a field of small boulders nearby with lots of hiding places. I got a plastic water bottle from a thrift shop, some screw eyes from the hardware store and a old log which I cut a short length from. A screw eye went into the log, a screw bolt into the water container and both were tied together with a piece of cord.

 

Any cacher worth their salt would immediately wonder why a cut log was amongst the boulders and move it. No need to reach into all the crevices with unknown nasties lurking inside. The cache would come out when the log was moved. I got some appreciative emails on that one.

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Thanks for all the replies. We plan to try the pipe/water cache as there are none around here. My husband had the bright idea to drill lots of holes so it would take more than one person to plug the holes while another fills it. It could be taken a step further and use a very long PVC pipe so the filler would have to stand on something in order to reach the top.

 

I thought I once saw a pic posted on here of the technique I mentioned above, where you pull a rope at the bottom of the pipe and it forces the cache out of the top, but I can't find it now. Does anyone know what I'm talking about or have directions for that?

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I have two unusual caches, one is called Didgeridoo (GC23ZVC), and is three pieces of 50mm diameter PVC pipe, put together in a U shape, the cache is a light weight aluminium vitamin container, that is padded to just fit in the bottom of one of the vertical tubes. To get the cache you have to blow hard down one of the tubes to get the cache to 'pop' up, where you can grab it. To stop it jamming in the tube I had to place some insect mesh at the bottom of the tube. If you can't blow it out, the old H2O trick works as well. There are two small holes in the base to let out rainwater, or H2O if you go that path. The whole contraption is about one metre high, and camoed and tied to some dead standing trees.

 

The second one ,Slide (GC1ZC63) is once again a piece of 50mm PVC tube, capped at the base and attached vertically to a small dead tree with zip ties. Inside is an aluminium vitamin tube with three small magnets taped to it. The top is capped with a standard PVC cap, with a large magnet glued inside it. You have to be smart enough to realize that you must use the top cap to to 'slide' the cache container out with the magnet.

 

Russell

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The second one ,Slide (GC1ZC63) is once again a piece of 50mm PVC tube, capped at the base and attached vertically to a small dead tree with zip ties. Inside is an aluminium vitamin tube with three small magnets taped to it. The top is capped with a standard PVC cap, with a large magnet glued inside it. You have to be smart enough to realize that you must use the top cap to to 'slide' the cache container out with the magnet.

theres one like that here but its BYOM[bring your own magnet] :P

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One of our favorite caches that we've found goes like this...

 

It's located in the corner of a hotel property but many cachers end up walking across a field before realizing they could have driven up. Then...

 

Coordinates are accurate and take you to a corner of a metal chain link fence with various trees and shrubbery around. Eventually you figure out to lift the cap on corner post, but...

 

There's nothing in there. When you're putting the cap back on, hopefully you notice a note taped deep inside the cap and it essentially tells you to look up. So, you look up...

 

If you're sharp, you'll eventually notice on a nearby tree that there is a small eyebolt above eye level. Strange. So you look closer...

 

There is a fishing line looped through eyebolt going toward the top of the tree. Your eyes follow the line up and...

 

You see a green match container hanging in the canopy. So you start pulling on the fishing line to bring the container down and when you open it...

 

You find out that here is no log there. Instead you see a note telling you this isn't the cache and there is a spool with some fishing line wrapped around it and a washer on the end of the line. Strange. So, eventually the light bulbs go off in your head and you...

 

Take the cap back off of the corner post. Then you unreel the washer down the post until you feel something attach. So you slowly...

 

Bring up the line, being careful to not break it, and eventually another container shows up. Inside is the log and magnet. So you...

 

Sign the log and put everything back. It was a blast to figure out.

 

The CO took the idea from something he'd seen in Florida and transplanted it here. He has to do semi-regular maintenance on the cache but the comments have been very positive from those who figured it all out.

 

We'll probably borrow some of those features ourselves for a future cache.

Edited by Ecylram
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Bring up the line, being careful to not break it, and eventually another container shows up. Inside is the log and magnet.
Yes. Some of the biggest headscratchers (for me) were containers on some kind of line. Even rather large cointainers dangling from branches, some are just plain tough to spot.

 

But a cleverer hiding technique is "misdirection". It's where the cache description can be interpreted more than one way, and when I misinterpret. Sometimes the cache owner thought it was clear -- they didn't intend it to be tricky, but it is.

 

I worked for weeks on a puzzle cache, where the cache description had only a few lines of text, baffled by how they could hide coordinates in that. And it wasn't rated very difficult. Where's the code? The text is so ordinary, I'm obviously in a mind game with the master. Yet nobody mentioned in their Found Log having any trouble solving the code. It was a deep mystery. Then one day I revisited the page and clicked the photo gallery. One of the pictures is a bunch of symbols, a simple substitution cypher.

Edited by kunarion
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I have a cache where one stage is a piece of fish line tied to the bottom of a tree and laying in the grass. On the fish line are a series of sinkers grouped such that counting each of the groups gives you the next set of coordinates.

 

I have also used a duck decoy floating in the middle of a pond.

 

And a rubber snake curled up inside a stump.

Edited by Tequila
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One of our favorite caches that we've found goes like this...

 

Thanks for sharing, I really like this one!

 

We have found several of the "hanging" caches where you have to find the rope to let it down, but one of my favorites was a puzzle that you had to solve to unlock a box that held the end of the rope, the other end was an ammo can up in the tree.

 

Another one of the best I've seen was a hollowed limb up in the tree, you could not tell it was a cache, it just looked like part of the tree. You had to find the other end of the rope by chance (I think it was about 50ft away) and lower the limb which contained the cache.

 

And yet another favorite was a large bird's nest in a tree that held a lock & lock. The line was hidden on the backside of the tree so that you could not see it as you approached but once you spotted it, you could lower the nest.

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I have found a few that used lines in trees...one in the same woods I deer hunt in, and still took me three trips and a PAF to find. Another looked like a squirrel sitting on a branch - took forever to locate the 550 cord to lower the cache, but was very cool.

 

The best was a two litre bottle sewn into a stuffed animal (skunk). Have scars from running from the cache in fear of getting sprayed.

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There is a great series here in Seattle called the Tubular series.

 

The first one is where you pour the water in and the cache floats up.

 

The second one you have to use a spring device on the bottom of the tube to fling the cache out the top.

The hint on that one is "think pin-ball"

 

The third you have to put the batteries out of your GPS across two bolts sticking out of the top. Then you hear a little motor whirl and the cache is lowered out of the bottom of the tube.

 

I wish I could have known what the last in the series was. It must have been good though. The bomb squad blew it up.

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Just remembered another...

 

someone put scent that you use for training dogs to hunt at the cache. It's labeled for dogs to find, although the coords are listed for those without dogs. It's filled with really awesome dog stuff.

 

Oh, and another...

 

Another is one where you take your TV remote with you. You have to find this one at night.

You go to the coords and click your remote. It blinks back at you.

It's called, Beam me up Scottie

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I've found a number of caches that were suspended by a line, where I couldn't see the cache until I noticed the line and pulled on it to retrieve the cache. Finding a location where this works is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

I've found "bear bag" caches, where part of the challenge was to figure out where the line was that allowed me to lower the cache.

 

There are various ways to retrieve a cache from a hole. Filling it with water to float the cache is one way. A line with a magnet is another. A line with a hook is another. Pushing from below with some sort of rod/pole is another. For a horizontal hole, you might have to push the cache out from the other end.

 

Elevated caches don't need to be "bear bag" caches, with a line provided to lower them. They can be placed where a tool is needed to retrieve them. The cache owner can provide the tool (hidden somewhere nearby), or can leave acquiring the tool as part of the challenge.

 

There might be some other way to place a cache so that retrieving it requires a tool. Finding a location where this works is also left as an exercise for the reader.

 

How do you hang the cach by a line without the line wearing down and breaking.

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A pipe you have to fill with water to float the cache up

I have one of those. originally designed as a zipit to retrieve but most just float it with water.

 

How do you make one of those?

 

Take a PVC pipe.

Drill a couple holes in it.

Stick the floatable container in the pipe.

Adjust the number of holes so the thing is catchable before the water drains.

 

I've seen two of these, one in Seattle, one near the Hood River Bridge across Puget Sound.

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What is the most clever hide you've seen? (not containers) Also please say how it works and how to make it.

 

I'm guessing that you haven't yet discovered the Cool Cache Containers thread (fondly known as the CCC thread). Besides, the way that you have phrased this thread, you would be asking finders to post spoilers about other people's hides, which would not be right.

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A pipe you have to fill with water to float the cache up

I have one of those. originally designed as a zipit to retrieve but most just float it with water.

 

How do you make one of those?

 

Take a PVC pipe.

Drill a couple holes in it.

Stick the floatable container in the pipe.

Adjust the number of holes so the thing is catchable before the water drains.

 

I've seen two of these, one in Seattle, one near the Hood River Bridge across Puget Sound.

 

Thanks. I will make one.

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A pipe you have to fill with water to float the cache up

I have one of those. originally designed as a zipit to retrieve but most just float it with water.

 

How do you make one of those?

 

Take a PVC pipe.

Drill a couple holes in it.

Stick the floatable container in the pipe.

Adjust the number of holes so the thing is catchable before the water drains.

 

I've seen two of these, one in Seattle, one near the Hood River Bridge across Puget Sound.

 

Thanks. I will make one.

 

Can you give me the GC code of a cach like this?

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A pipe you have to fill with water to float the cache up

I have one of those. originally designed as a zipit to retrieve but most just float it with water.

 

How do you make one of those?

 

Take a PVC pipe.

Drill a couple holes in it.

Stick the floatable container in the pipe.

Adjust the number of holes so the thing is catchable before the water drains.

 

I've seen two of these, one in Seattle, one near the Hood River Bridge across Puget Sound.

 

Thanks. I will make one.

 

Can you give me the GC code of a cach like this?

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What is the most clever hide you've seen? (not containers) Also please say how it works and how to make it.

 

I'm guessing that you haven't yet discovered the Cool Cache Containers thread (fondly known as the CCC thread). Besides, the way that you have phrased this thread, you would be asking finders to post spoilers about other people's hides, which would not be right.

 

Not containers. Contraptions for hiding things.

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One of our favorite caches that we've found goes like this...

 

It's located in the corner of a hotel property but many cachers end up walking across a field before realizing they could have driven up. Then...

 

Coordinates are accurate and take you to a corner of a metal chain link fence with various trees and shrubbery around. Eventually you figure out to lift the cap on corner post, but...

 

There's nothing in there. When you're putting the cap back on, hopefully you notice a note taped deep inside the cap and it essentially tells you to look up. So, you look up...

 

If you're sharp, you'll eventually notice on a nearby tree that there is a small eyebolt above eye level. Strange. So you look closer...

 

There is a fishing line looped through eyebolt going toward the top of the tree. Your eyes follow the line up and...

 

You see a green match container hanging in the canopy. So you start pulling on the fishing line to bring the container down and when you open it...

 

You find out that here is no log there. Instead you see a note telling you this isn't the cache and there is a spool with some fishing line wrapped around it and a washer on the end of the line. Strange. So, eventually the light bulbs go off in your head and you...

 

Take the cap back off of the corner post. Then you unreel the washer down the post until you feel something attach. So you slowly...

 

Bring up the line, being careful to not break it, and eventually another container shows up. Inside is the log and magnet. So you...

 

Sign the log and put everything back. It was a blast to figure out.

 

The CO took the idea from something he'd seen in Florida and transplanted it here. He has to do semi-regular maintenance on the cache but the comments have been very positive from those who figured it all out.

 

We'll probably borrow some of those features ourselves for a future cache.

Isn't there a thread about how it is not cool to mark up a tree with a screw?

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Thanks for all the replies. We plan to try the pipe/water cache as there are none around here. My husband had the bright idea to drill lots of holes so it would take more than one person to plug the holes while another fills it. It could be taken a step further and use a very long PVC pipe so the filler would have to stand on something in order to reach the top.

 

I thought I once saw a pic posted on here of the technique I mentioned above, where you pull a rope at the bottom of the pipe and it forces the cache out of the top, but I can't find it now. Does anyone know what I'm talking about or have directions for that?

 

Saw this on YouTube. I think I searched for: creative geocaches

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A few days ago I was geocaching in Germany, and I found a birdhouse that was hidden in the middle of a blackberry bramble. After finding it, you had to get close to use the two bolts that were hanging on the birdhouse. Underneath the birdhouse was a pvc pipe with a few dozen holes drilled into it. you had to stick the bolts in the holes to work the container up the tube using the holes to retrieve the logbook. 

Also, just put a cache out in my town in Germany using the water/ PVC pipe technique.

 

Thank you for all of the cache ideas!

Edited by CaleoDoggler
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I recently found a cache which appeared to be a film canister taped to a tree branch some 6 feet above my head.  I don't climb trees & anyway it did not appear to be easily reachable if I did.  Hmm?  Circled below it like a prowling lion waiting for a monkey to fall out of the tree.  Then I spotted a 2cm diameter rusty looking metal ring seemingly attached to the cache.  Found a fallen branch with a side twig, reached to hook into the ring & pulled gently, but wondering how, if I pulled the cache down, I would get it back up.  Could be embarrassing?  Then it suddenly "gave" & the cache descended attached to a metal tape measure from which the metal ring had been hung.  LOL!!  I almost fell over with surprise.  My favourite find to date.  Thankfully the tape did retract again quite easily once I had signed the log.  Clever but so simple!

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4 hours ago, grimpil said:

I recently found a cache which appeared to be a film canister taped to a tree branch some 6 feet above my head.  I don't climb trees & anyway it did not appear to be easily reachable if I did.  Hmm?  Circled below it like a prowling lion waiting for a monkey to fall out of the tree.  Then I spotted a 2cm diameter rusty looking metal ring seemingly attached to the cache.  Found a fallen branch with a side twig, reached to hook into the ring & pulled gently, but wondering how, if I pulled the cache down, I would get it back up.  Could be embarrassing?  Then it suddenly "gave" & the cache descended attached to a metal tape measure from which the metal ring had been hung.  LOL!!  I almost fell over with surprise.  My favourite find to date.  Thankfully the tape did retract again quite easily once I had signed the log.  Clever but so simple!

I've seen that approach, not with a tape measure, but with the kind of retractable keychain that custodians and security guards sometimes use.

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A sign attached to two short hollow plastic pipes. Usually they are metal and ferromagnetic, so this was a lucky find for the CO. (I am still looking for a (low) sign with similar pipes, as I would like to repeat this.) In one was a fishing rod with magnet, and that was then lowered into the other pipe to extract the cache. Hence the need for non-ferromagnetic pipes. Also, being low, people could easily 'fish'.

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I'm not sure if this fits what you're looking for.  I've used this hide technique a few times which especially fools newbies.  It is a way to hide a container the size of a peanut butter jar when it appears that there is no hiding place at the coordinates for a container of that size.  Some geocache hiders damage the post lid by drilling a bolt through the top.  Others try to use glue/adhesive that fails over the season.  Instead, I've devised a thick wire hanger that is secure and causes no damage or no outwardly visible attachment feature.  See pictures below for more detail.
 

The non-destructive hanger in the post cap:
2970fbac-6dfe-4da0-97c8-86b461c03b9f_l.j

 

In it goes:

d97dd30d-9cff-4997-ada9-8d901c7db8ef_l.j

 

Ground zero with no apparent place to hide a peanut butter jar-sized container:

f0b3cdb8-04bb-4998-8cc5-8dafdd1474d0_l.j

Edited by medoug
  • Upvote 1
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On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 8:43 PM, medoug said:

I'm not sure if this fits what you're looking for.  I've used this hide technique a few times which especially fools newbies.  It is a way to hide a container the size of a peanut butter jar when it appears that there is no hiding place at the coordinates for a container of that size.  Some geocache hiders damage the post lid by drilling a bolt through the top.  Others try to use glue/adhesive that fails over the season.  Instead, I've devised a thick wire hanger that is secure and causes no damage or no outwardly visible attachment feature.  See pictures below for more detail.
 

The non-destructive hanger in the post cap:
2970fbac-6dfe-4da0-97c8-86b461c03b9f_l.j

 

In it goes:

d97dd30d-9cff-4997-ada9-8d901c7db8ef_l.j

 

Ground zero with no apparent place to hide a peanut butter jar-sized container:

f0b3cdb8-04bb-4998-8cc5-8dafdd1474d0_l.j

 

I love this.

I've done many polecap caches, but I think your design for the tension clamp is aces, and certainly doesn't damage the fence's hardware.

 

Here's a suggestion to enhance it - Put a cable or wire from the inside of the plastic cap , with about a foot's slack, through the bottom of the plastic jar and secure it underneath. To close it, finders have to stuff the wire into the jar, but the jar will never slip off the cap and down into the bottom of the tube!

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On 12/31/2018 at 8:43 PM, medoug said:


 

The non-destructive hanger in the post cap:
2970fbac-6dfe-4da0-97c8-86b461c03b9f_l.j

 

 

 

 

Very nice. I like this for 2 reasons:

 

The non destructive way you came up with to hand the peanut butter jar from the cap. If you should ever retrieve your cache there would be no evidence that the cache was ever there. 

And the second reason, it's swag size (and in good shape)--more fun for more people. 

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2 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

 

Very nice. I like this for 2 reasons:

 

The non destructive way you came up with to hand the peanut butter jar from the cap. If you should ever retrieve your cache there would be no evidence that the cache was ever there. 

And the second reason, it's swag size (and in good shape)--more fun for more people. 

 

Plus, let's see the bears get THAT peanut butter jar!

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