A Waymarking Geocache Challenge

[+xptwo]

Picking up on an idea discussed a few months ago on the forum, I decided to create a geocache that involved Waymarking. In my case, though, I made it fairly easy so cachers might be encouraged to give it a try. The folks going for the cache have to have found 10 geocaches, 10 benchmarks, and 10 waymarks. The name is "10 - 10 - 10 Challenge" and it can be found at http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=cf1680e0-0218-4083-ab58-a90f75cc9413.

 

It has been out a few days, and the number of my waymarks with visits has really gone up. Maybe we might get some new active waymarkers out of this.

 

David

[+Harry Dolphin]

Guess that's why no one bothers? On my nearby list:

Visit a church: 2 Waymarks

Visit a local park: 5 Waymarks. 3 for one statue. 2 others within a few feet.

Local historic house: 3 waymarks.

Okay. That was easy. But why would I bother?

[Mr.Yuck]

Your cache page link is 404!! I'm sure I could find it in your profile, but didn't check.

 

There is actually a "visit 100 Waymarks" challenge in my area, and I believe I was at about 70 when it came out, and stepped it up to 100 visits. I might be at like 130, 2 years later. It should definitely generate visits to Waymarks and Benchmarks in your area. I see I've only logged 8 Benchmarks, but I've probably missed about 100 I was at, and could get my required 2 for your challenge within about 10 minutes of leaving the house.

[+xptwo]

The cache is GC4JM1D. Here's another attempt at the link: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=cf1680e0-0218-4083-ab58-a90f75cc9413

 

Not everyone will be interested in Waymarking. My hope is just to help some who do not know of Waymarking discover it and see if they find something they can enjoy doing.

[+BruceS]

Guess that's why no one bothers? On my nearby list:

Visit a church: 2 Waymarks

Visit a local park: 5 Waymarks. 3 for one statue. 2 others within a few feet.

Local historic house: 3 waymarks.

Okay. That was easy. But why would I bother?

People visit film canisters under lamps by the thousands and magnetic key holders on guardrails by the thousands. Why bother with those. I am sure if you put out a 100 lamppost challenge you would have plenty to find it.

 

The cache does not specify what 10 waymarks you visit. You could visit the 10 closest and see a church a park, a couple of statues and a historic house. Or you could choose to visit the 10 nearest mountain top summit waymarks or 10 waterfall waymarks or whatever you you find interesting.

Edited August 17, 2013 by BruceS

[+MountainWoods]

Agreed. If I want to visit 10 waymarks, I can go out into the Ozarks and find all kinds of interesting rock formations, stalagmites, sink holes, caves, Native American Trail Trees, and so on. (Yes, I could also go into the city of Cassville and see a Subway, a McDonalds, a Walmart, and other boring things that probably should not have been made into Waymarking categories, in my opinion.)

 

It all depends where you look. Do not throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

I do agree whole-heartedly with what BruceS said in comparing GCs with WMs: Geocachers can visit hundreds of lame GCs in the most boring areas, and then complain about Waymarking because it also has a few boring categories -- ignoring the majority of hundreds of really fantastic categories.

 

I wonder why this is a one-way street. We Waymarkers could insist that the whole GC game be thrown out or ignored because there are so many lousy GCs. I do both games, but I'm not going to throw out one or the other simply because of some lame listings that bring a person to a boring GC or WM.

 

But I guess we Waymarkers are more magnanimous.

[+thegorilla23]

I have 3 Waymarking caches hidden. One is similar to the one talked about here.

 

GC4ARYD - Groundspeak Challenge - Find 5 of all things that Groundspeak has a site for. So you must log 5 Caches, 5 Waymarks, 5 Benchmarks, and 5 Wherigos

 

GC3N5JJ - 1000/100/10/1 Waymark Challenge - Find 1000 total waymark visits, at least 100 categories in total visited, at least 10 in all departments, and 1 department with at least 100 visits

 

GC3GVNB - Indiana Waymarking Alphabet Soup - Find at least 1 waymark in the state of Indiana that starts with each letter of the alphabet

 

I had hoped more people would start Waymarking because of these challenges but it hasn't really caught on yet. There are a few more visits to some of my waymarks, but not many.

[+xptwo]

I have 3 Waymarking caches hidden. One is similar to the one talked about here.

 

GC4ARYD - Groundspeak Challenge - Find 5 of all things that Groundspeak has a site for. So you must log 5 Caches, 5 Waymarks, 5 Benchmarks, and 5 Wherigos

 

GC3N5JJ - 1000/100/10/1 Waymark Challenge - Find 1000 total waymark visits, at least 100 categories in total visited, at least 10 in all departments, and 1 department with at least 100 visits

 

GC3GVNB - Indiana Waymarking Alphabet Soup - Find at least 1 waymark in the state of Indiana that starts with each letter of the alphabet

 

I had hoped more people would start Waymarking because of these challenges but it hasn't really caught on yet. There are a few more visits to some of my waymarks, but not many.

 

Actually, after seeing your post, I am reminded that a previous forum entry about your caches must be what I was thinking about. The main difference is that I decided to go with easy rather than challenging to encourage as many as possible to give Waymarking a try. I like your writeup on GC3N5JJ. Now I need to see if I qualify for that one after a couple of years of being active in Waymarking.

Edited August 20, 2013 by xptwo

[+iconions]

 

A little picture I'm kinda proud of and one I got because I was Waymarking. I was at the Black Jack Cemetery east of Baldwin City, Ks. yesterday and had taken the pictures I needed of the old cemetery and a historical sign about the abandoned town site of Black Jack. All of a sudden, the meadowlark decided it would like to give a concert. Another reason I waymark!

[+Chasing Blue Sky]

I'm glad to hear that you are putting out Waymarking Geocache Challenges in your area. There will always be naysayers, and it may not be as productive as you're hoping, but it does work. I'm proof of that! I started geocaching in the August 2008. There is a local geocacher that liked to put geocaches near benchmarks. On the cache description, he always said that this was a three-fer - geocache, benchmark, & waymark. Finding a few of these, I briefly looked into Waymarking. To tell you the truth, my first reaction was, "I'm looking for geocaches, I don't have time to worry about whether there's a Post Office, McDonalds, or Fire Station nearby". So there's were it stayed. On those "three-fers", they were only two-fers for me as I claimed the geocache and the benchmark - which was fine with me. Fortunately, I took pictures of the benchmarks, so I've been able to go back and claim them as waymarks.

 

There are literally hundreds of Geocache Challenges in the region that I live - I've created a few myself. I've always been drawn to Geocaching Challenges and have completed quite a few in my area. It wasn't until about January of 2011, that I started noticing Waymarking Geocache Challenges in my area, as well. Hey, it was, in fact, January. It can get pretty difficult to find geocaches in January at 4200+ feet in elevation - especially after a good snow storm. I looked at a few of the Waymarking Geocache Challenges, and thought, "how hard can that be?" By the time I finished the challenges, I was hooked. I still geocache, but now, I spend more time Waymarking than Geocaching.

 

These are the local Waymarking Geocache Challenges that got me started:

 

GC2MXRC - Challenge of the Century: Waymarking Categories

 

GC2P4WW - Waymarking History Challenge

 

GC2NJGC - Waymarking 101

 

GC2D78V - Waymark Blackout challenge.

 

GC2N938 - Waymarking Challenge--Give me an X

 

GC2N939 - Waymarking Challenge--20 in a snake

 

GC2N936 - Waymarking Challenge--10 in any row

 

GC2P4VN - Waymarking Salt Lake City Challenge

 

Check them out, maybe you can do something similar in your area.

 

There are a number of waymarkers in my area, some very active, some quite active, some moderately active, and quite a few only occasionally active. When I started searching out waymarks to complete the challenges, there was a lot to choose from in my area to make a Waymarking visit. At first I ony took one picture - the quicker I can get this challenge completed, the better. I quickly learned that taking one picture wasn't enough, because what I thought would have definitely been waymarked, wasn't. I soon realized that if I take more than one picture, hey, maybe I can submit one.

 

Actually, when I go to local geocaching events, the complaint I hear most often about Waymarking is not, "Okay. That was easy. But why would I bother?" It is, "why do I have to submit a visit and post pictures to multiple waymarks on the exact same thing!?!" That simple thing turns them off. At first, I thought that was a little bothersome. But the more I waymark, the cooler it is to visit some place that has dozens of waymarks associated with it. So, you have to post pictures multiple times - you're getting visits to multiple categories. How cool is that!?! It's even cooler when you're the first to get pictures of a place or area that hasn't been waymarked and submit them. Probably, more precisely, you're the first to publish the waymarks in the area you've got pictures for. More than likely, some other waymarker(s) has pictures of the place already, but because they have so many pictures, they haven't yet gotten around to posting the ones for that area. How many of you are in that group? Yeah, I thought so.

 

I would say that most of the waymarks I've submitted have not been visited. So be it. If my happiness is based on someone else's actions, I've got bigger problems than I realize. It seems like my waymarks that get the most visits are the ones located in areas that are popular with tourists. My waymarks in small towns or remote areas may never get visited. I believe they are just as worthy a waymark as any other I've created - even the ones that get visited often.

 

I agree with BruceS and others in response to, "Okay. That was easy. But why would I bother?". I've put out over a hundred geocaches - some of them are LPCs and some of them more challenging. No question, the LPCs get visited the most. There are only a few hard core geocachers that would say, "Okay. That was easy. But why would I bother?". The vast majority of geocachers do them because they are quick and easy. Geocache power trails are the epitome of this. I've done a few power trails while geocaching. I haven't done the ET Highway power trail - probably never will. But I've done a few that were a couple hundred. I could ask the same thing, "Okay. That was easy. But why would I bother?" But I already know the answer - numbers! There is no other reason to do a geocache power trail. But thousands of geocachers do them. In fact, many travel great distances to do them.

 

But I found that after about an hour of:

 

...set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr, set your GPSr to the nearest cache, drive to it, get out of your car, find the cache, sign the log, get back in your car, claim the find on your GPSr,...

 

There is clearly no fun involved here. Monotonous is how I would describe it. Doing a power trail is strictly for the numbers.

 

Some people will never get Waymarking. Sorry geocachers, but as some people will never get geocaching either. So be it! For me, it's not about what others enjoy; it's about what I enjoy.