Puzzle caches without calculating final coordinates

[+-CJ-]

There once was a discussion about geocaches indoors. Some people said that such caches shouldn't be placed because GPS doesn't work indoors and GPS usage is essential according to the guidelines. This approach definitely works for traditional geocaches but what about puzzles?

 

Many puzzles that I know follow the same scheme: one should solve a puzzle, calculate coordinates and use a GPS device to get to the GZ. What if you don't need to calculate coordinates? Let's say, the published coordinates bring you to get to some spot. From this spot you follow the description (like Indiana Jones ). Thus, you use a GPS device to get to the starting point but not to the final one. Is anything wrong with such puzzles?

 

Guidelines say:

 

GPS usage is an integral and essential element of both hiding and seeking caches and must be demonstrated for all cache submissions. Projecting waypoints from a specific location already defined by set of coordinates is permissible. For geocaches that include additional waypoints see the guidelines specific to those cache types.

 

GPS is necessary to find the spot so the guidelines aren't violated, right?

 

Mystery/puzzle caches are introduced as follows:

 

The "catch-all" of cache types, this form of geocache may involve complicated puzzles that you will first need to solve to determine the coordinates. Mystery/Puzzle Caches often become the staging ground for new and unique geocaches that do not fit in another category.

 

"May involve", not exclusively. The phrase about "new and unique geocaches that do not fit in another category" also makes me think that not every puzzle must have a task of calculating of final coordinates.

 

Suppose there's an old abandoned building with many entrances and windows. The container is somewhere inside. I post coordinates of one of the entrances and publish a legend that will take a cacher to the container. "Enter. Go right. 20 stairs up. Turn left. Fifty steps more..." etc. You need your GPS to locate the correct entrance. You don't need the device to get to the hiding place.

 

Or there's a forest with many paths. Coordinates take you to some specific path and follow tiny marks on trees (plus maybe solve some puzzles) to get to the container. GPS is needed to get to the starting point. You cannot find it without GPS so it's essential. However, GPS is not needed for further searches.

[AZcachemeister]

Much like a letterbox hybrid, or a library cache (where the co-ordinates are for the front door).

 

As has been discussed here before, if I can see the starting point on a map and go there without using a GPSr, then the cache shouldn't be published based on the GPS usage guideline. You reviewer may have a different opinion.

 

If you place a container with some or all of the clue info in it, and make it necessary to find that container (using a GPSr) to complete the cache, then you have satisfied the GPS usage guideline.

[+TriciaG]

Try to make any non-coordinate clues true for everyone. "Go forward 50 steps" doesn't get a short person to the same spot as a tall one.

[+-CJ-]

if I can see the starting point on a map and go there without using a GPSr, then the cache shouldn't be published

 

I can see the starting point on a map at any traditional and multi-step geocache listing. I can print it from the website and go there without GPSr. Do you mean starting points that are already marked on maps, e.g. crossroads? Then I agree but I wasn't actually talking about such obvious objects.

 

A "typical" puzzle is 1) "do some not GPS-related tricks, then use GPSr to find the spot and grab the cache".

 

Let's change this order to 2) "use GPSr to find the spot, then do some not GPS-related tricks and grab the cache".

 

Is 1 valid but 2 invalid? If so, why? (And what guidelines stipulate this?)

 

Sometimes (in large cities / narrow streets) GPS signal may be so poor that GPSr just takes me to some area and I have to search hard using vague hints. That's my example no.2, isn't it?

 

I read guidelines as "one must use your GPSr during search for your cache". No rules regulate when to use GPSr in a puzzle cache - at all stages, at the start, at the end. Am I right?

[+-CJ-]

Try to make any non-coordinate clues true for everyone. "Go forward 50 steps" doesn't get a short person to the same spot as a tall one.

 

At one of my mountain geocaches I solved the problem you described by suggesting to "walk 300 piping hare steps" - to make short and tall people feel equal

Edited July 6, 2013 by -CJ-

[+dprovan]

Suppose there's an old abandoned building with many entrances and windows. The container is somewhere inside. I post coordinates of one of the entrances and publish a legend that will take a cacher to the container. "Enter. Go right. 20 stairs up. Turn left. Fifty steps more..." etc. You need your GPS to locate the correct entrance. You don't need the device to get to the hiding place.

Your thinking is correct: the GPS is required for some stage, but it doesn't have to be for the final stage. This particular example is close to the edge, but I think you could make a good case for it. The problem would be to insure that starting at that specific entrance, and therefore those specific coordinates, really is essential to finding the path. For example, as I understand it, if you gave coordinates, but then let slip that people were supposed to go in the green door at those coordinates, you'd be over the edge as the coordinates are no longer essential because the starting point can be found simply by knowing where the building is.

 

There's a lot of room for interpretation, so while I've heard reviewers and such describe it this way here in the forums, I'm not sure all reviewers would draw the line at precisely the same place.

[AZcachemeister]

I didn't mean to say that I THINK your cache shouldn't be published.

 

There was another thread here where a library cache was being discussed. Keystone indicated that if one could just drive to the library and follow the hints/clues/directions given on the page it didn't comply with the GPS usage guideline.

[+niraD]

There once was a discussion about geocaches indoors. Some people said that such caches shouldn't be placed because GPS doesn't work indoors and GPS usage is essential according to the guidelines. This approach definitely works for traditional geocaches but what about puzzles?

The requirement is that a GPS receiver be used to get accurate coordinates, and that accurate coordinates be an essential part of the cache hunt. There is no requirement that there is GPS reception at the cache location.

 

That applies to traditional caches too. I've found a number of caches where there was no GPS reception at the cache location. It was still possible for the CO to use a GPS receiver to obtain accurate coordinates, and it was still possible for cache seekers to use those accurate coordinates to identify GZ to start searching for the cache.

 

Many puzzles that I know follow the same scheme: one should solve a puzzle, calculate coordinates and use a GPS device to get to the GZ. What if you don't need to calculate coordinates? Let's say, the published coordinates bring you to get to some spot. From this spot you follow the description (like Indiana Jones ). Thus, you use a GPS device to get to the starting point but not to the final one. Is anything wrong with such puzzles?

In general, that's fine. I've found a number of multi-stage puzzle caches where some of the stages did not involve GPS coordinates at all. But at some point during the cache hunt, accurate GPS coordinates need to be used.

 

Where some people run afoul of the current interpretation of the guidelines is that they use coordinates, but they don't really use accurate coordinates. If you just need to get to a trailhead parking lot, then that isn't using accurate coordinates. But if you need to get to a specific location in that trailhead parking lot (say, a plaque explaining something about the history or ecosystem of the area, or a container with a physical puzzle inside it), that that is using accurate coordinates.

 

Suppose there's an old abandoned building with many entrances and windows. The container is somewhere inside. I post coordinates of one of the entrances and publish a legend that will take a cacher to the container. "Enter. Go right. 20 stairs up. Turn left. Fifty steps more..." etc. You need your GPS to locate the correct entrance. You don't need the device to get to the hiding place.

That sounds like the letterbox hybrid caches that I've found. You need the GPS to get to the correct starting point. The directions don't make sense unless you find the correct starting point (or maybe they make sense, but take you to the wrong place). I am not a volunteer reviewer, but that sounds like it could work, as long as accurate GPS coordinates are really needed to get to the starting point.

 

Or there's a forest with many paths. Coordinates take you to some specific path and follow tiny marks on trees (plus maybe solve some puzzles) to get to the container. GPS is needed to get to the starting point. You cannot find it without GPS so it's essential. However, GPS is not needed for further searches.

Replace "tiny marks on trees" with "tiny reflectors on trees" and that describes some of the night caches I've done. As long as the "tiny marks on trees" don't violate the guidelines against defacing the natural environment, that should work too. But again, I am not a volunteer reviewer.

[+-CJ-]

The position of our reviewer is that with GPS coordinates one should find something, not just get to some spot. It wasn't totally clear to me since the guidelines allowed different interpretations.

 

Thanks a lot. Your explanations helped me to get deeper in these issues and understand some things I've never thought about.

[+dprovan]

The position of our reviewer is that with GPS coordinates one should find something, not just get to some spot. It wasn't totally clear to me since the guidelines allowed different interpretations.

What would be the purpose of getting to some spot if you didn't find something there? That's the problem your reviewer faces. You say your coordinates get to some spot, and the reviewer says "Why there?", and you say...? If you say, "So you can see there's a big huge building right in front of you," I can see why he'd reject it. If you said, "So you can find the critical door that makes the other directions make sense," he'd have his something. I would hope that something could even be a view: if you aren't standing right there, you won't be able to see the green door somewhere in the middle of the building, for example.

[+-CJ-]

if you aren't standing right there, you won't be able to see the green door somewhere in the middle of the building, for example

 

Yes, something like that.

 

Perhaps the difference is made by what you find. When it's something physical (container or plaque, for example), no one asks any questions. If it's something you cannot touch (like in your example - some spot from which one can see ...), it's not so obvious.