Antipode caches

[jidanni]

Why of course, the perfect place to plant a cache,

at the antipodes of the center point of famous buildings, towers, etc.!

 

Wait, there aren't many, most of them are underwater.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes

 

Never mind.

[+Ambient_Skater]

It took a while for me to figure out what you meant. I agree, it wouldn't be the best idea.

[+Doctroid]

It took a while for me to figure out what you meant. I agree, it wouldn't be the best idea.

I think it's a great idea, if you forget about the "famous buildings" part and just settle for "antipodes". Looks like there are only three places in the United States with land antipodes, at least that I can find. Two are near the eastern border of Colorado. The antipodal points are islands I've never heard of: Ile Amsterdam (interesting name) and Ile Saint-Paul. There are caches in that general area but it doesn't look like any are antipode themed.

 

French Southern & Antarctic Lands is a much larger island group; its center seems to be antipodal to an area in Alberta about 20 miles north of the border, but its northernmost island (S48.453 E68.819) is antipodal to a point just outside Chester in northern Montana. There seem to be four caches in Chester and two on the road west, but again none that seem to have an antipode theme.

[jidanni]

Well OK but at least choose the antipode of a church steeple (exact point) or town hall (few square meters area) etc.

Else just picking a point inside the few hundred square kilometers of the antipode shadow of a whole island sort of dilutes the fun.

[+Doctroid]

Clarification: Wikipedia says "French Southern & Antarctic Lands" includes Ile Saint-Paul, Ile Amsterdam, and several other islands or island groups including Archipel des Kerguelen, which is the part antipodal to Alberta and Montana. The other islands in the territory are grouped around and to the south of Madigascar and are not antipodal to land.

 

Here's a tool I found: http://www.freemapto...f-the-earth.htm

 

Well OK but at least choose the antipode of a church steeple (exact point) or town hall (few square meters area) etc.

Else just picking a point inside the few hundred square kilometers of the antipode shadow of a whole island sort of dilutes the fun.

 

Doesn't look like there are any buildings at all on Ile Saint-Paul, though, and I haven't spotted any on Archipel des Kerguelen. Wikipedia says of the French Southern & Antarctic Lands as a whole, "The territory has no permanent population; the population consists of military personnel, civilian officials, scientific researchers and support staff." There appear to be buildings on Ile Amsterdam.

 

When I said "in the United States" before I was looking only at the lower 48. Part of Alaska, the very northernmost part, is antipodal to one edge of Antarctica. That doesn't help much! But all of Hawai'i is antipodal to Africa, pretty much inside Botswana. Looks like the villages of Dekar and Karakubis may be the biggest populated places antipodal to land in the Hawai'ian islands, though neither seems to be more than a handful of buildings if that. So we may be out of luck on church steeples and town halls.

[+Snoogans]

Why of course, the perfect place to plant a cache,

at the antipodes of the center point of famous buildings, towers, etc.!

 

Wait, there aren't many, most of them are underwater.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes

 

Never mind.

 

Well, I think it's a neat concept. Where the overlap exists, I think an Earthcache would be kinda cool. It would qualify.... I think.

[jidanni]

Here's a tool I found:

OK noting an often lack of important point sites on the other side of the world to pin our cache to on this side of the world, I have used above tool to find where e.g., their national border crosses our big highway, etc.: intersection of two liner features. Hmm, their coastline crosses our river, etc. The only problem is placing a cache upon a busy or wet linear feature...

 

(Well as my only cache is under my bed, I have little actual experience (that's why it is under my bed... I don't want to be a Virgin Cacher for life ) And not that kind of "busy or wet linear feature" you are thinking of please.)

Edited March 13, 2012 by jidanni

[+Huntleigh]

Here's a tool I found:

OK noting an often lack of important point sites on the other side of the world to pin our cache to on this side of the world, I have used above tool to find where e.g., their national border crosses our big highway, etc.: intersection of two liner features. Hmm, their coastline crosses our river, etc. The only problem is placing a cache upon a busy or wet linear feature...

 

(Well as my only cache is under my bed, I have little actual experience (that's why it is under my bed... I don't want to be a Virgin Cacher for life ) And not that kind of "busy or wet linear feature" you are thinking of please.)

 

I think this has the makings of a cool idea but I'm not sure how it could be implmented as a cache.

 

It could be run as a version of the OVER THE POLE (North to South) but that would require a standard cache on both ends.

 

NZ is particually blessed with antipodes, most of it being on the Iberian penisular. The nearest settlement to my home antipode is the village of Torrecilla de la Ordenbut I'm guessing not many of its 332 inhabitants are geocachers.

[jidanni]

Hmm, at first hearing, "Over the pole" sounds like it could be an 'antipode", but where both latitudes are in the same hemisphere (to avoid drowning.)

[+sshipway]

Interesting for us here in New Zealand, which is directly opposite Spain.

Madrid maps to Palmerston North, Auckland goes to Marbella, and Malaga balances the Coromandel peninsula.

Many opportunities for clever caches.

[+jamadad]

Digging a very deep hole Mystery Cache

GC19GK9

[+ChriBli]

Not sure what has happened to the antipodal idea in the past ten years, but I know the cache mentioned above has been used by some cachers to get a very good number for lowest elevation. The sea is deep where the question mark is. Maybe that loophole has been closed by now.

[+mustakorppi]

That cache (and all other known antipode caches) have been marked for exclusion from statistics. Also mystery caches must now be located within 2 miles of the bogus coordinates.

[+ChriBli]

8 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

That cache (and all other known antipode caches) have been marked for exclusion from statistics. Also mystery caches must now be located within 2 miles of the bogus coordinates.

Not from all statistics, it would seem. I just looked into Project-GC at an acount I knew had logged that cache, and that account still has the "Low Altitude Cacher" diamond bagde for logging a cache at -4959 m.

[+mustakorppi]

 

10 hours ago, ChriBli said:

Not from all statistics, it would seem. I just looked into Project-GC at an acount I knew had logged that cache, and that account still has the "Low Altitude Cacher" diamond bagde for logging a cache at -4959 m.

The stat exclusion isn’t reflected in the API. I don’t know how HQ handles it internally, but API partners would basically have to look at the bookmark list that lists these caches. I’m guessing Project-GC doesn’t. 

[+HuggableHamster]

16 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

 

The stat exclusion isn’t reflected in the API. I don’t know how HQ handles it internally, but API partners would basically have to look at the bookmark list that lists these caches. I’m guessing Project-GC doesn’t. 

There is a setting on the “Profile Stats” page called “Use official ignore list for travelling geocaches” which lets you choose whether these sort of caches register on your stats or not.  The official list is http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?code=BMAFMJR and includes R E F L E C T I O N S https://coord.info/GC2PPNP which is not quite antipodean but similar.