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Useless Hints


Jamie Z

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I just this one on a DNF that I spent at least 45 minutes looking for

 

Description should be clear enough

 

The entire description is

 

Cache is a standard ammo can. Filling is compliments of Micky D's. Cache is located several feet off of the Mission Creek Trail.

 

The cache is located in a second or third growth state forest. All the trees are about the same age and variety and the undergrowth is primarily sword fern. The forest has been thinned and some of the trees that were cut have been left on the ground. There are plenty of possible hiding holes in the area and with the trees overhead, EPEs run high.

 

What really hurts is that someone came in a few days after I was there and found the dang thing.

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I had a recent DNF which took hours to get to: 'Its near the Bride'. So you think Church? Registry Office? Nope, they meant BRIDGE. I hate entries that have bad spelling.

Yes.. in the forums I understand people can be rushed and make a typo.. but on the finished cache page? Everyone has spell check. Use it. Sometimes they look like they have been written in some secret code. :ph34r:

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I had a recent DNF which took hours to get to: 'Its near the Bride'. So you think Church? Registry Office? Nope, they meant BRIDGE. I hate entries that have bad spelling.

Yes.. in the forums I understand people can be rushed and make a typo.. but on the finished cache page? Everyone has spell check. Use it. Sometimes they look like they have been written in some secret code. :ph34r:

Yeah, but that one did pass spell check, right? :D:mad:

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I had a recent DNF which took hours to get to: 'Its near the Bride'. So you think Church? Registry Office? Nope, they meant BRIDGE. I hate entries that have bad spelling.

Yes.. in the forums I understand people can be rushed and make a typo.. but on the finished cache page? Everyone has spell check. Use it. Sometimes they look like they have been written in some secret code. :blink:

Yeah, but that one did pass spell check, right? :o:o

Yes I guess it would.. forgot to mention doing a read check first????

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my first cache I gave the hint "nothing" but had asked three questions to be answered then totaled and added or subtracted from the cords. The answers were nothing or zero. So what looked like a dumb hint was actually the answer. the questions were ,what is greater than god....what is more evil than the devil and ...what if you eat only it you will die.

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This was a very helpful clue if you wanted to know what happened while you went to get your hot dog.

 

HINT:

 

KO DAT VEY STEPS UP TO THE PLATE. KLEINER GOES INTO THE WINDUP, ITS A FAST BALL RIGHT DOWN THE CENTER. KO DAT VEY SWINGS!! ITS A LONG FLY BALL INTO CENTER FIELD,KO DA UDDER VEY GETS UNDER IT BUT DROPS IT. KO DAT VEY IS ROUNDING 2ND AND RUNNING HARD. KO DA UDDER VAY MAKES THE THROW TO KO TIS VEY WHO RELAYS TO HOME AS KO DAT VEY ROUNDS 3RD.THE CATCHER KING BOREAS MAKES THE CATCH AS KO DAT VEY SLIDES INTO HOME BASE ...... I CANT LOOK!! ...... WHEN YOU LOG THE CACHE, PLEASE VOTE AS TO WHETHER KO DAT VEY IS SAFE OR OUT

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This was a very helpful clue if you wanted to know what happened while you went to get your hot dog.

 

HINT:

 

KO DAT VEY STEPS UP TO THE PLATE. KLEINER GOES INTO THE WINDUP, ITS A FAST BALL RIGHT DOWN THE CENTER. KO DAT VEY SWINGS!! ITS A LONG FLY BALL INTO CENTER FIELD,KO DA UDDER VEY GETS UNDER IT BUT DROPS IT. KO DAT VEY IS ROUNDING 2ND AND RUNNING HARD. KO DA UDDER VAY MAKES THE THROW TO KO TIS VEY WHO RELAYS TO HOME AS KO DAT VEY ROUNDS 3RD.THE CATCHER KING BOREAS MAKES THE CATCH AS KO DAT VEY SLIDES INTO HOME BASE ...... I CANT LOOK!! ...... WHEN YOU LOG THE CACHE, PLEASE VOTE AS TO WHETHER KO DAT VEY IS SAFE OR OUT

Was the cache under home plate? It's a lot of decoding to just say that, but if it works...

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Some of the gems I have seen as of late....

 

 

"Common cache hide. Not too difficult."

 

"Veterans will just nod. Beginners might have a little more trouble."

 

"Where else would you look?"

 

"You thought I would make this easy by putting all the hints hear?"

 

"No hint necessary"

 

"The squirrels are jealous." (cache in a fallen tree...why would a squirrel want to live there?)

 

"It's due south of the pavilion." (The pavillion is on the other side of the lake from the cache)

 

"Lots of downed branches around here."

 

"Park at Loebe Center"

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I had a recent DNF which took hours to get to: 'Its near the Bride'. So you think Church? Registry Office? Nope, they meant BRIDGE. I hate entries that have bad spelling.

Yes.. in the forums I understand people can be rushed and make a typo.. but on the finished cache page? Everyone has spell check. Use it. Sometimes they look like they have been written in some secret code. :anibad:

I just saw this cache listed near my home coordinates in Massachusetts, and I was immediately tempted to add it to my watch list after reading the long description and seeing that the owner has zero finds.

 

I'll never understand why these get approved... anyone want to wager that the ammo can still bears the military "HIGH EXPLOSIVES" markings?

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Bride is spelled correctly. The spell checker won't get it.

In a scientific paper I was co-author on we had split spelled as spilt. No one (5 people) noticed it until the final read through befire submission. I also saw a published paper that had data not known instead of data not shown (common) in it.

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I had a recent DNF which took hours to get to: 'Its near the Bride'. So you think Church? Registry Office? Nope, they meant BRIDGE. I hate entries that have bad spelling.

Yes.. in the forums I understand people can be rushed and make a typo.. but on the finished cache page? Everyone has spell check. Use it. Sometimes they look like they have been written in some secret code. :anibad:

I just saw this cache listed near my home coordinates in Massachusetts, and I was immediately tempted to add it to my watch list after reading the long description and seeing that the owner has zero finds.

 

I'll never understand why these get approved... anyone want to wager that the ammo can still bears the military "HIGH EXPLOSIVES" markings?

that one cache owner had no finds as well and one hide? I went and found 10 caches before my first hide. He probably went and looked and got frustrated when his GPS could not get zeroed out, and htought he could do a better job, so I am also betting, if anyone does find his cache, it may be like more then 200 feet away from the actual coordinates

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During a Geo-Campout Event last weekend, I looked for a cache located in a big rockpile high up a steep hill from a large desert wash.

 

Some of the rocks were nearly car-sized. Others were merely boulder-sized. After searching around GZ for a while and not having any luck, I looked at the hint:

Watch for a large cavity in the trail up the canyon. Cache is approximately 100 feet beyond the cavity, up trail and then to the left in the rocks above.

B) Uh . . . that's where my GPSr brought me. I could have used a little more specific hint . . .

 

That was one of six DNFs for the day . . . :anibad:

 

But I found 44 other caches over the weekend . . . B)

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I was out hunting a 1/1 in 6" snow and having a devilish time finding it. I finally broke down to read the hint:

 

Behind the thin tree

 

Of course there is the problem with what is meant by "behind" but, heck, I am willing to look at all sides of a tree just to get "behind" it. The problem with the hint was the use of the words "thin tree" in a an area full of -- you guessed it -- trees.

 

I eventually DNFed. ;) However the worst part is that when the snow melted I went out and found the cache within 30 seconds ... behind a thin tree.

Edited by RPW
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Well, I have not encounted any "bad" clues yet (I've been caching for only a month now) I did have problems with this clue. (the"G-spot" in the clue below is a reference to a very large plywood "G" on a steep hillside in a small Oregon coastal town of Garibaldi).

 

From the g-spot head up the trail to the west (not steep). Follow the trail until you reach the first large birch tree that is growing out of the left side of the path. The cache is behind the birch trees on opposite side of trail (third large birch on the right).

 

BTW I recomend this cache to anyone who can do a 4-star terrain cache. the view is spectacular!

 

My problem was, twofold, there wasn't a birch tree in sight, just alders, lots of them. That was easy to figure out, the mistake (birches for alders) is an easy one to make. The other part was entirly my fault, I didn't want to decode more than I "had to". Between trying to decode as little of the clue as necessary and the way the clue is worded, I initially searched the wrong location <first large birch...left side> why not just say "third birch on right"? I was looking on the left for 10 minutes before I gave up and decoded the whole clue.

 

A personal preference of mine is for the clues to be just clues. I don't want to be told where it is, just narrow my choices a little" I know, it is a difficult distinction to make, what may be competely obvious for one is not apparent at all to another. It is interesting to read logs sometimes where one cacher says "easy find" and another says "searched for 2 hours, need help!" I guess sometimes you're in the "zone" and sometimes your not.

Edited by whatson II
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At the pavillion, about 90 degree angle straight into woods or follow trail as much as you can

 

This was for a 2 / 1.5 rated cache. GPS accuracy continuously jumping between 15 and 40+ feet due to tree cover. There were two large fallen trees within the EPE radius, and the forest floor was covered with several inches of fallen leaves.

 

I finally consulted the hint after searching for the cache for at least 45 minutes, hoping it would lessen my search radius somewhat. I was, of course, well past the pavillion and the trail, and pretty confident I was within a 100 ft. radius of the cache by this time, so the hint was totally useless. :ninja:

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My least favorite useless hints? Image hints. :rolleyes:

 

I'm not talking about spoiler photos. I'm talking about caches where the encrypted hint reads, "see hint photo", and one of the images posted to the cache page contains a text hint with a pretty background. Completely useless in the field unless I either specifically print them all out beforehand (and risk accidentally reading the hints, spoiling the experience), or call someone at home. If the hint is going to be text, just put it in the additional hint field where it belongs.

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:anitongue: You'd hate my latest hints .....

 

Just Find It

 

and

 

It could be covered with snow

 

 

Both for the same cache ;)

Why? Especially after reading this thread, why would you put a useless hint? It's much better to put no hint at all than put something that will just frustrate someone who has been searching for the cache and wants the hint because they're having trouble.

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For an event. We need hints for an event? I'm sure he was just being silly: (Kroghs Brewpub in Sparta, NJ. Festivities start at 12:00 (noon).)

(Near berries(in warmer weather only), and covered in tarp) Those are rose bushes, and that's not a tarpaulin.

My favorites are still the directional ones: (On the right side of the trail). Or (twelve paces from the pine tree). Who's pace size is that? And that's a cedar.

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"The trail continues on the other side of the field if you look carefully."

 

Doesn't tell you a thing about the cache, but worse, referred to a secondary entrance to the forest not the entrance the owner suggested as the preferred parking spot. Oh yeah, and at the preferred parking spot the "trail" (was it really a trail) ran out after about 100ft and was covered with fallen trees. Ugh!!

 

JDandDD

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From a cache being discussed elsewhere in the forums, because a finder was flamed by the cache owner for commenting on the presence of weapons and ammo in the cache:

 

If you don't find it you are looking under the wrong rock. Give up go home and sell your GPS.

 

From the several DNF logs, it sounds like a needle in a haystack hide in a rock field after a long hike.

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This one maybe hard so I will say the cache is in the back corner of the lot in some about six paces off the pavement in a SMALL tree or branches....past the second light and behind a sign....big spoiler

 

Uh, right. I'm out looking for a cache at night, which is putting me in front of someone's house in college town. After looking for 10min, went back to the car to read the hint (200' away). Oh hey, there's lightpoles here, there's even a sign. Hmm, lets look around.

 

I count out the light poles, and coming from the north, there's 6, from the east, there's 3. I went with the 3 lights. Now 6 paces in from the sign eh? Okie, (it's a completely open strip of grass) 1 step, 2 step, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 (all are a long stride). And there's the cache completely in the open, 190' away from the coords, hint all screwed up, not one piece was accurate.

 

The owner only has 7 finds (2 virtual), 1 hide, and hadn't logged into the since since November, that is until yesterday. about 5 of us so far have given new coord's, but it's not going to help all that much since no one really reads the logs before they go out, hints sure, but not the logs.

 

I even asked the reviewer to edit the coords, but he says he's not allowed to. :)

 

ugh, stupid people. :)

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Some more gems I found this morning while using GSAK:

 

The additional hint is located deep down in the pit of your stomach.

 

Don't park on a hwy. There is plenty of safe parking on pubic land if you approach it right.

 

one hundred miles

 

YOU DIDNT THINK I WAS GOING TO GIVE A CLUE WITH GOOD STUFF LIKE THAT IN THERE DID YOU

 

If you decide to cook at the cache site, you will need to bring a grill.

 

Container is cammo covered.

 

Just a slingshot off the road.

 

Enjoy the walk.

 

This is a great walk in the park, but I think it won't be that easy.

 

Too easy for a hint.

 

you really don't need one it is obviously the only place to hide it.

 

Briers and Poison ivy nearby

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Very new to the sport, and after 2 hours of fruitless looking on my first day for this one, I caved in and decrypted the hint. It was simply,drumroll please:

 

"oak".

 

Mind you, I was in a 650 acre nature preserve with several hundred thousand oak trees. Logged a DNF with a smile. :ph34r:

 

I am ex-military and exceedingly proficient at land nav with a compass and protractor, but this particular one almost made me find some other way to pass my time. Thankfully , I found the next four in a row to get myself fired up again.

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This is the hint to one I did yesterday, and I got to the cache just as it got dark:

 

Root around the base of "Y" tree twenty-five feet from the path.

 

There were two paths, and the area was full of trees growing in a Y shape. And where was the cache? At the base of a fallen over tree that was the only one 'not' in a Y shape.

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