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proximity frustration


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Wah. Placing caches where I live is tough. On one hand, I just love that there are so many lovely caches to find. On the other hand, it's hard to find a good spot that doesn't have a cache in it. I feel like in a year or 2, there'll be not a single place here to put a new cache. I also would like to put caches near where I live so I can maintain them properly.

 

To add to that, we have alot of multi and puzzle caches in our area. Which is great, I really do enjoy them. However...it's gotten to the point where I *have* to do as many puzzle/multi caches as I can otherwist there's no way I can be placing caches. Just today, I found what I thought was a really great spot, checked all the puzzle-cache and multi-finals nearby, found a good hiding spot, hid it, took a waypoint at the trailhead, edited the cache page, then promptly got it rejected. Now I have to hike and put it somewhere else and hope it doesn't get rejected again. I enjoy the fresh air and exercise, but it's trying on the blood pressure. :(

 

Anybody else live in a saturated area?

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Anybody else live in a saturated area?
Nope. You're the only one. :P

 

According to the guidelines, the 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." So go find some new places to hide caches.

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My immediate area is hardly saturated, there's only been one other cache placer to live within 10 - 15 miles of me. They jumped in, cached, placed some, and disappeared.

 

But I've been having some trouble anyway, as a new trail opened that creates a loop with the most cache dense trail in my area. I've been walking it and walking it, looking at possible new cache placements. Tricky really, there are sections at both ends of this 2.5 mile trail where it's fairly parallel to existing trail, with caches already present....I find that one of the spots I like most is blocked by a cache I own ;-). There's a certain irony...

 

I've been fiddling with moving the old cache a bit, to get the new cache on the cool feature, but shifted away from the old cache as much as possible.... I may just archive the old hide, but it's 6 years old, and I'm fond of those older guys.

 

When I started, there were 3 long (10 - 13 mile) multi-caches. That cache owner had tied up serious amounts of real estate, and was occupying a bunch of the cooler locations on the trail system. Great multicaches, but you really had to find them all before thinking about placing anything.

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Within 10 miles of your common loon cache you have 1191. I'd consider that mid-high saturation. Trust me, you don't have it nearly as "bad" as some people. Portland Oregon? They have 2848; which nearly 2.5X your saturation.

 

Personal? I have what you could consider mid-high saturation at 769 caches within ten miles.

 

There are also other factors to consider when talking about saturation. For example, 10 miles is only so far, if you find all the geocaches in ten miles what do you do after that? In most area's that have good saturation this isn't an issue. That good saturation continues on for miles. This is because you have suburbs jam packed around a city that is already 20 miles long (I live in philadelphia) this means that despite having only 700 or so geocaches within ten miles of me, within 100 miles I have 24263 caches. So the long-term cachability in my area is very high. On the other hand las vegas, has 1162 geocaches within 10 miles, but due to the fact it's in the middle of a desert, there isn't much outside the city, so within 100 miles you only have 6591.

 

Honestly? In the end, you'll never run out of geocaches to search for if you have 400+ within ten miles of you, and as long as you have less then 2500 within 10 miles you could find somewhere to hide one (Portland OR, has 2800 I'm sure you can find more spots.)

 

The only person losing out on geocaching is someone with less then 200 caches. Less then 200 caches and you are in a very cache-less area.

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I found what I thought was a really great spot, checked all the puzzle-cache and multi-finals nearby, found a good hiding spot, hid it, took a waypoint at the trailhead, edited the cache page, then promptly got it rejected.

I encourage you to place a vote Here

 

Unfortunately, the experience you are having with trying to find a spot is all too common. I fully support the saturation rules, but it would make things easier if there was a way to check your spot before spending hours (possibly many hours) placing a cache and writing up a page only to be rejected.

 

By the way, one thing you can do already is to ask your reviewer if a spot is OK before bothering to place the cache or write up the cache page. This at least saves you some of the pain.

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I encourage you to place a vote Here

Ever play Battleships, where you locate the opponent's battleshps by lobbing shells at them?

 

palm_200.gif

 

 

Regarding Coldgear's analysis of cache density, you can't look at the absolute numbers, because available public land is what is really at question, not the sheer number of caches.

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I encourage you to place a vote Here

Ever play Battleships, where you locate the opponent's battleshps by lobbing shells at them?

I know, I know. I have heard all the battleship arguments many times. I never said there should not be controls. Limit the number of checks a day (one-a-day would be fine by me, who really needs to place caches faster than that). If a user is using the system excessively then send an email to the reviewer so he/she can check it out and decide if more checks will be allowed or user should be blocked, etc. The system could also look for obvious 'battleship' type behavior. I am just trying to save the reviewers and the cachers some time. If I have to find a bunch of potential places and ask the reviewer about each one and he/she has to check every one and I have to wait for a response then all this just wastes unnecessary time. This is a game based on technology, let's use some of it to save everyone a little time. Most of the caches in my area have coordinate checkers associated with their unknown caches anyway (presumably to save the CO time of being asked to verify coords for people). I think an appropriate system built by GC.com could be even more secure than that because they can still involve the reviewer in the system if there appears to be abuse.

 

Ok, stepping down from my soapbox now :laughing:

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I encourage you to place a vote Here

Ever play Battleships, where you locate the opponent's battleshps by lobbing shells at them?

I know, I know. I have heard all the battleship arguments many times. I never said there should not be controls. Limit the number of checks a day (one-a-day would be fine by me, who really needs to place caches faster than that). If a user is using the system excessively then send an email to the reviewer so he/she can check it out and decide if more checks will be allowed or user should be blocked, etc. The system could also look for obvious 'battleship' type behavior. I am just trying to save the reviewers and the cachers some time. If I have to find a bunch of potential places and ask the reviewer about each one and he/she has to check every one and I have to wait for a response then all this just wastes unnecessary time. This is a game based on technology, let's use some of it to save everyone a little time. Most of the caches in my area have coordinate checkers associated with their unknown caches anyway (presumably to save the CO time of being asked to verify coords for people). I think an appropriate system built by GC.com could be even more secure than that because they can still involve the reviewer in the system if there appears to be abuse.

 

Ok, stepping down from my soapbox now :laughing:

You've heard about that argument many times because it is a valid one. Limiting the number of checks a day would have to tied to an account. I have heard of groups of cachers trying to solve a puzzle by playing battleships with the reviewer. If instead, you tied number of checks to an area, it could adversely affect somebody that is legitimately trying to place a cache in an area that others are "battleshipping". I'm not sure how technology could solve those shortcomings.

 

Ok, stepping down from my soapbox now :)

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I encourage you to place a vote Here

Ever play Battleships, where you locate the opponent's battleshps by lobbing shells at them?

I know, I know. I have heard all the battleship arguments many times. I never said there should not be controls. Limit the number of checks a day (one-a-day would be fine by me, who really needs to place caches faster than that). If a user is using the system excessively then send an email to the reviewer so he/she can check it out and decide if more checks will be allowed or user should be blocked, etc. The system could also look for obvious 'battleship' type behavior. I am just trying to save the reviewers and the cachers some time. If I have to find a bunch of potential places and ask the reviewer about each one and he/she has to check every one and I have to wait for a response then all this just wastes unnecessary time. This is a game based on technology, let's use some of it to save everyone a little time. Most of the caches in my area have coordinate checkers associated with their unknown caches anyway (presumably to save the CO time of being asked to verify coords for people). I think an appropriate system built by GC.com could be even more secure than that because they can still involve the reviewer in the system if there appears to be abuse.

 

Ok, stepping down from my soapbox now :laughing:

You've heard about that argument many times because it is a valid one. Limiting the number of checks a day would have to tied to an account. I have heard of groups of cachers trying to solve a puzzle by playing battleships with the reviewer. If instead, you tied number of checks to an area, it could adversely affect somebody that is legitimately trying to place a cache in an area that others are "battleshipping". I'm not sure how technology could solve those shortcomings.

 

Ok, stepping down from my soapbox now :)

 

Besides, you have any idea how many user accounts I control? No, the saturation test idea isn't the way to go. Try asking your reviewer if a place is available before you got to the effort of creating and hiding the cache.

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If instead, you tied number of checks to an area, it could adversely affect somebody that is legitimately trying to place a cache in an area that others are "battleshipping". I'm not sure how technology could solve those shortcomings.

 

I know we will just have to agree to disagree on this one (and that's ok).

 

That said, the old way of contacting a reviewer directly would still be available so if the automatic system denies access to someone for whatever reason they still have the contact the reviewer method to get the answer.

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Anybody else live in a saturated area?

 

I do. Me and my buds and buddettes worked hard to get it that way. :laughing: Fortunately we don't set many multis or puzzles, so those aren't an issue. BTW: The 10=mile inquiry only yeilds 1242 caches, but much of the area is inaccessible wilderness.

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Wah. Placing caches where I live is tough. On one hand, I just love that there are so many lovely caches to find. On the other hand, it's hard to find a good spot that doesn't have a cache in it. I feel like in a year or 2, there'll be not a single place here to put a new cache. I also would like to put caches near where I live so I can maintain them properly.

I simply refuse to believe that you can't find a lamp post or a guard rail that is blocked.

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Wah. Placing caches where I live is tough. On one hand, I just love that there are so many lovely caches to find. On the other hand, it's hard to find a good spot that doesn't have a cache in it. I feel like in a year or 2, there'll be not a single place here to put a new cache. I also would like to put caches near where I live so I can maintain them properly.

I simply refuse to believe that you can't find a lamp post or a guard rail that is blocked.

That's what I'm trying to say! There's so many parking lots in my area, why can't more put them in the lamp post/ guard raiL?

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You've heard about that argument many times because it is a valid one. Limiting the number of checks a day would have to tied to an account. I have heard of groups of cachers trying to solve a puzzle by playing battleships with the reviewer.
I've worked with a group of cachers using one of the common coordinates checkers to battleship the location of a cache. It was interesting, and not terribly difficult. (And it was done with the CO's blessing, FWIW.)

 

If instead, you tied number of checks to an area, it could adversely affect somebody that is legitimately trying to place a cache in an area that others are "battleshipping". I'm not sure how technology could solve those shortcomings.
I still think the best way to reduce the abuse of an "Is this area free?" checker would be to implement location-based abuse checks. If you make battleshipping ineffective, then there won't be much collateral damage because few people will bother battleshipping.

 

The suggestion I've discussed in the feedback forum is to simply consider all checked locations to be physical waypoints for a week after the check. That makes it difficult to fine-tune your guesses, because future guesses will conflict with past guesses, at least until those past guesses expire.

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There are only 40 or so caches within 25 miles of my house - so it isn't anywhere close to an issue for me.

 

it's Refreshing to see you actually have something to say other then the 50 cents and a FTF will buy you a can of pop or some such nonsence like that.

I never put two and two together, but that quote, and your response made me figure it out. StarBrand is butthurt that he can't get FTF as he has no local community of cachers.

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There are only 40 or so caches within 25 miles of my house - so it isn't anywhere close to an issue for me.

 

it's Refreshing to see you actually have something to say other then the 50 cents and a FTF will buy you a can of pop or some such nonsence like that.

I never put two and two together, but that quote, and your response made me figure it out. StarBrand is butthurt that he can't get FTF as he has no local community of cachers.

Actually I think it probably is that StarBrand, like myself, are not big FTF players. Some are very serious, even going so far as to sign the logs before the caches are placed and published so they can log the find and claim the FTF when the cache is published. I think it is called Calvin caching.

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Within 10 miles of your common loon cache you have 1191. I'd consider that mid-high saturation. Trust me, you don't have it nearly as "bad" as some people. Portland Oregon? They have 2848; which nearly 2.5X your saturation.

 

Personal? I have what you could consider mid-high saturation at 769 caches within ten miles.

 

There are also other factors to consider when talking about saturation. For example, 10 miles is only so far, if you find all the geocaches in ten miles what do you do after that? In most area's that have good saturation this isn't an issue. That good saturation continues on for miles. This is because you have suburbs jam packed around a city that is already 20 miles long (I live in philadelphia) this means that despite having only 700 or so geocaches within ten miles of me, within 100 miles I have 24263 caches. So the long-term cachability in my area is very high. On the other hand las vegas, has 1162 geocaches within 10 miles, but due to the fact it's in the middle of a desert, there isn't much outside the city, so within 100 miles you only have 6591.

 

Honestly? In the end, you'll never run out of geocaches to search for if you have 400+ within ten miles of you, and as long as you have less then 2500 within 10 miles you could find somewhere to hide one (Portland OR, has 2800 I'm sure you can find more spots.)

 

The only person losing out on geocaching is someone with less then 200 caches. Less then 200 caches and you are in a very cache-less area.

 

How do you find how many are within 100 miles?

 

Within 10 miles I have 167; 2881 within 50 miles.

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Within 10 miles of your common loon cache you have 1191. I'd consider that mid-high saturation. Trust me, you don't have it nearly as "bad" as some people. Portland Oregon? They have 2848; which nearly 2.5X your saturation.

 

Personal? I have what you could consider mid-high saturation at 769 caches within ten miles.

 

There are also other factors to consider when talking about saturation. For example, 10 miles is only so far, if you find all the geocaches in ten miles what do you do after that? In most area's that have good saturation this isn't an issue. That good saturation continues on for miles. This is because you have suburbs jam packed around a city that is already 20 miles long (I live in philadelphia) this means that despite having only 700 or so geocaches within ten miles of me, within 100 miles I have 24263 caches. So the long-term cachability in my area is very high. On the other hand las vegas, has 1162 geocaches within 10 miles, but due to the fact it's in the middle of a desert, there isn't much outside the city, so within 100 miles you only have 6591.

 

Honestly? In the end, you'll never run out of geocaches to search for if you have 400+ within ten miles of you, and as long as you have less then 2500 within 10 miles you could find somewhere to hide one (Portland OR, has 2800 I'm sure you can find more spots.)

 

The only person losing out on geocaching is someone with less then 200 caches. Less then 200 caches and you are in a very cache-less area.

 

How do you find how many are within 100 miles?

 

Within 10 miles I have 167; 2881 within 50 miles.

Do a search on the front page. At the end of the link it will say dist=100 (default is 100 miles) change that to your liking.

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How do you find how many are within 100 miles?

 

Within 10 miles I have 167; 2881 within 50 miles.

Do a search on the front page. At the end of the link it will say dist=100 (default is 100 miles) change that to your liking.

 

Thanks, I wasn't looking in the most obvious place. So within 100 miles I have 7989.

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I can certainly empathize with the original poster. I live in a university town and IMHO, there is a glut of puzzle caches all over this place. It is a town where 9 month olds get the alphabet sung to them and if you are 3 and not riding a two wheeler, you are developmentally behind. I guess it is fitting that we would have all these puzzle caches . . . thanks for providing a place for me to vent. :sad:

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I can certainly empathize with the original poster. I live in a university town and IMHO, there is a glut of puzzle caches all over this place. It is a town where 9 month olds get the alphabet sung to them and if you are 3 and not riding a two wheeler, you are developmentally behind. I guess it is fitting that we would have all these puzzle caches . . . thanks for providing a place for me to vent. :sad:

 

Won't most of them be abandoned and probably archived in four to six years, at the most? :D

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I can certainly empathize with the original poster. I live in a university town and IMHO, there is a glut of puzzle caches all over this place. It is a town where 9 month olds get the alphabet sung to them and if you are 3 and not riding a two wheeler, you are developmentally behind. I guess it is fitting that we would have all these puzzle caches . . . thanks for providing a place for me to vent. :sad:

 

I got it right. I guessed Davis.

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We have a multi hidden, and only the first stage was what counted as far as cache proximity went. There is now a cache hidden between those two stages...which is fine, except that it is on private land, and the public right of way is a narrow strip. Where the new cache is situated is on farm land. The signs specifically request that users of the trail keep to the path.

Think about a multi, but be sure the final is on public land!

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Looking about 15-30 miles to your west I see huge expanses of uncached land. I don't know of the status of it, but could it all be private property or off limits to geocaching?

 

I'm not sure, there are caches there, but realistically it's too far for me to go.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I"ve added my vote, hopefully there can be some sort of way to check coordinates without bothering the reviewer. I think there can be ways to decrease the abuse of such a feature by limiting the # of checks. However...people cheat all the time with puzzle caches anyway, getting the solutions from their friends and then making the grab. If that's what they want to do, then I say, fine, it's not like they are making $$ out of it...

 

In meantime, I'll have to bug the reviewer more. :D

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Looking about 15-30 miles to your west I see huge expanses of uncached land. I don't know of the status of it, but could it all be private property or off limits to geocaching?

 

I'm not sure, there are caches there, but realistically it's too far for me to go.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I"ve added my vote, hopefully there can be some sort of way to check coordinates without bothering the reviewer. I think there can be ways to decrease the abuse of such a feature by limiting the # of checks. However...people cheat all the time with puzzle caches anyway, getting the solutions from their friends and then making the grab. If that's what they want to do, then I say, fine, it's not like they are making $$ out of it...

 

In meantime, I'll have to bug the reviewer more. :D

So how would you feel if you spent 6 weeks on a 5 star puzzle only to have it broken by a group of friends using a proximity checker?

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Looking about 15-30 miles to your west I see huge expanses of uncached land. I don't know of the status of it, but could it all be private property or off limits to geocaching?

 

I'm not sure, there are caches there, but realistically it's too far for me to go.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I"ve added my vote, hopefully there can be some sort of way to check coordinates without bothering the reviewer. I think there can be ways to decrease the abuse of such a feature by limiting the # of checks. However...people cheat all the time with puzzle caches anyway, getting the solutions from their friends and then making the grab. If that's what they want to do, then I say, fine, it's not like they are making $$ out of it...

 

In meantime, I'll have to bug the reviewer more. :D

So how would you feel if you spent 6 weeks on a 5 star puzzle only to have it broken by a group of friends using a proximity checker?

 

Don't you work? Why make a 5 star puzzle anyway? It's only going to get found 1/month at the most and then probably 3/4 of the people just asked their friends for hints/the solution.

 

Plus, how would you know they cheated? I don't think they'd fess up. All they'd say is thanks for the challenging puzzle.

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Looking about 15-30 miles to your west I see huge expanses of uncached land. I don't know of the status of it, but could it all be private property or off limits to geocaching?

 

I'm not sure, there are caches there, but realistically it's too far for me to go.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I"ve added my vote, hopefully there can be some sort of way to check coordinates without bothering the reviewer. I think there can be ways to decrease the abuse of such a feature by limiting the # of checks. However...people cheat all the time with puzzle caches anyway, getting the solutions from their friends and then making the grab. If that's what they want to do, then I say, fine, it's not like they are making $$ out of it...

 

In meantime, I'll have to bug the reviewer more. :D

 

If ranging 15 some miles for a hide is an issue for you and your immediate area is so saturated, then perhaps cache finding should be your focus.

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I've seen this complaint a lot. IMO, it's nonsense.

 

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to hide a new cache in one of the highest-density spots in the country: Sunnyvale, CA, which is near San Jose. More than 600 caches within 5 miles, and a lot of that space is taken up by the San Francisco Bay.

 

Even so, I was easily able to find an in-theme hiding spot and an in-theme red-herring spot, both more than 0.1 mi from the nearest cache. Even if I hadn't solved all the puzzles in the area, finding the spots would have been pretty straightforward.

 

My opinion (and it's only an opinion): the saturation excuse is pretty weak. There is plenty of room for good, clever hides almost anywhere.

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We lived in a cache rich environment in Germany: currently 57,619 active caches within 100 miles of Wiesbaden (17,747 within 50 miles, 6,326 within 25 miles, 1,741 within 10 miles). I see Victoria isn't quite as saturated: 21,765 active caches within 100 miles (5,322 within 50 miles, 2,605 within 25 miles, 1,278 within 10 miles). I know the situation is a little different, Wiesbaden being in the middle of western Germany and Victoria being on the edge of an island, but there are still plenty of spots out there. Keep plugging at it, you'll find a good spot.

 

Might want to start by looking at a map and getting general coordinates for the area(s) you want, then run them by your reviewer before you start the hike.

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Hmm... 4425 caches within 30 miles (my normal range). Nope. Never had a problem hiding a cache. I've only hidden 78 cache. Lots of great spots out there. If I find a spot I like, I load up all the local caches. Knock on wood, I've never run into a problem with multis or mysteries. Find a nice spot. Hide a cache. I run the gamut from 1 terain micros to 4 terrain regulars. Thirty-Five miles east. Twenty mies west. Twenty-five miles north. Ten miles south. WEhn I find the urge, I have not ever had a problem. YMMV.

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Your problem is obvious.

You are placing too much emphasis on putting out a really nice cache in an area where people would enjoy going even if there were not a cache there.

 

This ethos is totally out-dated.

 

Certainly there are some strip-mall parking lots with no cache nearby?

Perhaps somewhere near the dumpster behind the mall for added secrecy and less chance for the finder to be observed?

Possibly an ordinary turn-out along a rural road could host a cache?

The possibilities are truly endless!

 

 

 

Now...can someone help me pry my tongue out of my cheek? :D

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Wah. Placing caches where I live is tough. On one hand, I just love that there are so many lovely caches to find. On the other hand, it's hard to find a good spot that doesn't have a cache in it. I feel like in a year or 2, there'll be not a single place here to put a new cache. I also would like to put caches near where I live so I can maintain them properly.

 

To add to that, we have alot of multi and puzzle caches in our area. Which is great, I really do enjoy them. However...it's gotten to the point where I *have* to do as many puzzle/multi caches as I can otherwist there's no way I can be placing caches. Just today, I found what I thought was a really great spot, checked all the puzzle-cache and multi-finals nearby, found a good hiding spot, hid it, took a waypoint at the trailhead, edited the cache page, then promptly got it rejected. Now I have to hike and put it somewhere else and hope it doesn't get rejected again. I enjoy the fresh air and exercise, but it's trying on the blood pressure. :(

 

Anybody else live in a saturated area?

 

I'm going to answer this without reading the 60 or so replies. We have a basically new cacher that has started to put Mystery/Puzzle caches in my caching area. I actually have a pretty high IQ, yet I have no idea how to solve these puzzles. He's obviously smart fellow

 

As a result, I have no idea where I can hide caches, so I have stopped doing so.

 

Okay, enough of the dramatics. He's hiding them in urban areas where I wouldn't hide a cache anyway, yet I understand the frustration.

 

I have zoomed into the new beta maps and seen areas that are dominated by puzzles. How can a new cacher place a cache without having years of solutions to the puzzles?

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I have zoomed into the new beta maps and seen areas that are dominated by puzzles. How can a new cacher place a cache without having years of solutions to the puzzles?

 

It's easy:

 

First, find a spot where you would like to place a cache. Get good coordinates, and mark the spot so you can find it again.

 

Then, write up a dummy cache page using those coordinates. Put a reviewer note on the cache page telling the reviewer that the cache is not ready for publication, but you'd like him to check for proximity issues.

 

Finally, submit the cache and wait for the reviewer's reply.

 

If the reviewer gives you the green light, then place your cache, edit the page, and re-submit. If he indicates that you have proximity issues, ask for a hint. Sometimes the reviewer will tell you what you need, such as "if you can move it 100 feet east you'll be ok."

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