Is Geocaching going too mainstream for you?

[+Panther&Pine]

For me caching is what it is now. I've been around for two years now (almost exactly) and I've enjoyed it for the most part. I would have loved to have started sooner as I'm from Washington state and lived in Portland OR before moving to Colorado. I haven't seen a huge change in the style of caches in my town but in the town I work in we've got lots of micro hides that I don't overly enjoy. But Silverton CO has a bunch of micros that I do enjoy (well the DNFs I enjoy as I have yet to find one of Jake92's caches in Silverton).

I'd like to see more clever caches (or humorous caches as it may be) and caches in a neat spot. So that is what I hide.

 

The issue with smartphones that they are not uniformly accurate when used for placing a cache. There is nothing that says that you cannot find caches with a smartphone, just placement should be done with a dedicated GPSr.

 

I've noticed that many smartphone users never make it as far as reading the guidlines or the knowledge books until after it would have helped them place their cache. Which isn't to say that you (as a cacher who's made it as far as the forums) didn't read them.

 

When we signed up we spent some time reading the site. Then ordered a GPS from REI and spent the next 2-3 weeks while waiting for it to come in reading the site. Then when it came in we decided we'd give it a month and then if we didn't like it we'd send it back. Obviously we've stuck with it.

[+Krejaton's Krew]

the bottom line is a smartphone lacks the accuracy of a proper gpsr.

 

My seven found, in the last hour, say you are wrong.

 

Signed,

 

An Improper GPS'r

 

First of all, I'm not anti-smartphone. That's what I used to "find" a handful of virtuals in Washington DC a week or so ago.

 

However, your response doesn't disprove what barreseaclaid wrote.

 

There are clearly a lot of caches out there that can be found without an accurate GPS receiver. I have found a lot of caches where I was pretty certain where the container was hidden before I even left my vehicle. There are also a lot of cache that are not found often (i.e. Shelter III in Indianapolis with 216 DNFs and only 4 finds) that have been sought by many seasoned cachers with expensive consumer handheld GPS receivers. Finding seven caches in an hour is more of an indication of the difficulty of the hide and proximity to each other.

 

You are correct that my finds yesterday don't disprove his statement, but here's what does: when I use my smartphone, it almost always gets me within 6' of a cache. I could be wrong but isn't THAT really the mark of a viable GPS device?

 

While I have under 100 finds, the vast majority were found not by ceaseless hunting across 40' swaths of land but looking in close proximity of where my smartphone guided me. Of those that I logged as DNF, I have noticed a bunch have now been archived as MIA.

 

Nope, I just don't have a flashy GPS that I can show off and make sure everyone around sees to "prove" that I am an uber-cacher and I am sure my ego necessarily suffers because of it. But, as I see it, the purpose of a GPS device, ANY GPS device, is to get your to within a close proximity of the cache--as close as possible. My experience has shown that to be absolutely the case with my smartphone. I am not talking about getting me within 25' of an LPH so that if I search the nearby ones in a parking lots I will likely discover it. Rarely am I more than 6' from a cache.

 

I would be the first to research and plop down my $150-$250 if I was struggling to find caches and was convinced that my HTC GPS just wasn't cutting it. But when my find rate is high and I seem to have only occasional DNF issues (which is par for the course), then why waste my hard earned money just to be one of the cool kids?

 

Perhaps my junk smartphone can't find Shelter III in Indy (never been to Indy to try, so I can't say...have you?), but I wasn't trying to make my 7-in-one-hour the benchmark for smartphone feasibility--just pointing out that it can get me close enough to my destination to make my geocaching a success. Furthermore, the $100+ I saved will certainly buy me a lot of gas (well, some gas) to find more caches and buy ice cream to share with my kids afterwards as we talk about our finds. As for me, I would take the latter, but to each their own. You find success and (hopefully) have boatloads of fun with your GPS device--fantastic-- but so do I and I saved $100+ doing it.

 

Hmmm that gives me an idea! Maybe I could start a new cool kids club where smartphone users look down our noses on those that blew their money on a GPS device they really didn't need! Nah! I prefer to spend my time and energy having fun finding caches with my daughters...can't wait for school to end!

Edited May 26, 2011 by krejaton