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Worlds Second Largest Power Trail


Olewaif

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This trail IS open to snowmobiles in mid-winter but You do NOT want to step off groomed trail once snow gets deep... sink to your butt. We get some serious snow here from Jan-March. I suppose you COULD snowmobile along.. stop.. don snowshoes.. trudge around off trail to find cache.. get back on snowmobile etc. I wouldn't want to do it. Like I said this is a working mans ' power' trail.. however you get them.

Ah, I can see it now. Instead of the local inn keeper on the 6 o'clock news talking about how business has been booming since the power trail came to town, we will see the local snowmobile shop keeper on the news instead talking about how rentals have been up.

 

But for some reason the snowmobiles seem to go for only 528 feet before the riders jump off and run into the woods.

Edited by BlueDeuce
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3. Monkey see, monkey do. 'Hey! Nevada gots a power trail and people are flocking there to do it...let's get one too! Oh, and to make sure we get noticed, let's make ours bigger than theirs...yeah, that's the ticket!'

 

Sadly, this looks like the beginnings of a regional power trail competition.

The awards banquet will be held 1 April 2015, so let's get busy tossing those film canisters! :laughing:

 

I agree... and although I don't mind doing power trails at certain times, I have done many including the ET Trail last month, I have seen quite a few "power" trails popping up. Seems to be happening more so since the ET trail was reinstated. I haven't decided if I think this is good or not. There is one near me that I sometimes dislike and like at other times. :mellow::huh:

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3. Monkey see, monkey do. 'Hey! Nevada gots a power trail and people are flocking there to do it...let's get one too! Oh, and to make sure we get noticed, let's make ours bigger than theirs...yeah, that's the ticket!'

 

Sadly, this looks like the beginnings of a regional power trail competition.

The awards banquet will be held 1 April 2015, so let's get busy tossing those film canisters! :laughing:

 

I agree... and although I don't mind doing power trails at certain times, I have done many including the ET Trail last month, I have seen quite a few "power" trails popping up. Seems to be happening more so since the ET trail was reinstated. I haven't decided if I think this is good or not. There is one near me that I sometimes dislike and like at other times. :mellow::huh:

 

It saddens me. When they pop up in our area I think "there goes another rail to trail".

 

What I'll do is try a few and if they are the same old same old - same container, same hide over and over again I'm not going to bother with the rest. I much prefer a trail that's scattered with different varieties of hiding styles. There's one south of me that are pill bottles hung in trees. Kilometer after kilometer of the same old pill bottles and the same old hide. Ho hum. Actually not totally true, a few are regular size - tin coffee cans with a half inch of rusty water inside. That's the problem with really long PTs, it costs too much to invest even $1 in watertight containers (orange waterproof match containers). They need to be free when you're planting hundreds or thousands.

 

The only PT I enjoyed was the Kissing Bridge trail which used mostly watertight peanut butter jars - good size for trading swag and TBs. Different hiding styles. All pb jars had logbooks, not logsheets. A few micros scattered in the mix but only a few.

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3. Monkey see, monkey do. 'Hey! Nevada gots a power trail and people are flocking there to do it...let's get one too! Oh, and to make sure we get noticed, let's make ours bigger than theirs...yeah, that's the ticket!'

 

Sadly, this looks like the beginnings of a regional power trail competition.

The awards banquet will be held 1 April 2015, so let's get busy tossing those film canisters! :laughing:

 

I agree... and although I don't mind doing power trails at certain times, I have done many including the ET Trail last month, I have seen quite a few "power" trails popping up. Seems to be happening more so since the ET trail was reinstated. I haven't decided if I think this is good or not. There is one near me that I sometimes dislike and like at other times. :mellow::huh:

 

It saddens me. When they pop up in our area I think "there goes another rail to trail".

 

What I'll do is try a few and if they are the same old same old - same container, same hide over and over again I'm not going to bother with the rest. I much prefer a trail that's scattered with different varieties of hiding styles.

 

A trail with a variety of container sizes and hide styles is, to me, an improvement over a trail where there isn't any attempt to make the hides different. That, however, is still not enough. Even when the container sizes and hide styles are different, there are still trails which attempt to places as many caches as possible along the length of the trail. If a series of caches are placed along a trail, such as a "rail to trail" I'd prefer to see locations identified along the trail that have something going for them other than the fact that it's located more than the minimum allowable distance from the nearest other cache. Instead of a 5 mile long trail with 50 caches placed ever tenth of a mile, a 5 mile long trail with a dozen caches, placed at "interesting locations" along the trail would still provide the opportunity to hike the trail and find some caches along the way. An "interesting location" might be a unique tree, a place where there are some mushrooms growing, a pretty pool along a creek with parallels the trail, etc. When caches are placed every tenth of a mile there may be some nice spots just off the trail in between that a cacher would never see because the proximity guidelines would prevent a cache being placed too close to a "manufactured" location consisting of a pile of rocks.

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Me, I have actually NOT placed a couple caches as I don't want the trail "discovered" as another power trail waiting to happen. I don't want to place a great cache in a great spot that gets reduced to "1 of 75 for today! TFTC" logs after it has been out a month.

 

Sadly, it seems that this is what it's coming to.

 

If you put out a few caches along a nice path (be it a scenic road or a 'rail-to-trail' path, someone will soon come along and 'fill-in the gaps' for you.

 

Because they can.

Because Groundspeak slipped-up and let it happen.

 

I don't 'hate' 'powertrails', I just think they should evolve naturally, not because someone thought XXXX caches in a row was a good idea.

 

And, not because someone thought having a 'big' powertrail was good for their community (state, province, township or whatever), or made them look like a big-shot in the Geocaching world.

 

Good luck with this one, and thanks for the tips...I'll be sure to obscure the plate on my motorcycle as I ride through.

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If you put out a few caches along a nice path (be it a scenic road or a 'rail-to-trail' path, someone will soon come along and 'fill-in the gaps' for you.

 

Because they can.

Because Groundspeak slipped-up and let it happen.

 

I don't 'hate' 'powertrails', I just think they should evolve naturally, not because someone thought XXXX caches in a row was a good idea.

 

And, not because someone thought having a 'big' powertrail was good for their community (state, province, township or whatever), or made them look like a big-shot in the Geocaching world.

 

This sums it up for me quite well.

 

It has reached the point that when a new cache comes out along a trail I don't even bother going for it for a few weeks because you just *know* other seekers will be placing their own caches out there.

 

Yes, I know I don't need to look for every cache but I find it annoying when a new cache gets published just a day or two after I complete a trail. There are so many great trails out there I'd rather being doing new ones each weekend rather than revisiting the same ones over and over again.

 

I don't mind local governments using caching as a way to promote tourism, but I'd rather they use the caches to highlight unique locations and features rather than just pandering to the numbers crowd. Maybe I'm being a little too highbrow.

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