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Bulk Placements?


Fredsjunk

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I'm in the process of placing 35 +/- caches all the same container, height, hint, ect along a rail trail. the only thing that really differs from each placement is the name. Is there a way that I'm missing to bulk List these for publication/review or do I really need to go through all the same steps/pages for each, one at a time?

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You're using the primary "online form" >>> Once you are prepared, fill out our online form. This is a cache report form in "steps/pages".

 

Instead use this link > "Go back to the old page" linked near the top of the current "new" report form. This is the old cache report form all one page, much easier for your purpose.

Edited by Isonzo Karst
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I'm in the process of placing 35 +/- caches all the same container, height, hint, ect along a rail trail. the only thing that really differs from each placement is the name. Is there a way that I'm missing to bulk List these for publication/review or do I really need to go through all the same steps/pages for each, one at a time?

 

Yes, each new placement needs to be reviewed individually. There is no facility to "bulk" list geocaches with Groundspeak.

 

 

B.

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I don't think there's a powertrail submission option yet, but with the amount of "numbers" trails (I.e. - walk five hundred feet and find the exact same hide you just found five minutes ago) popping up, I won't be surprised if TPTB eventually float that idea around.

 

In any case, there's no way to "bulk submit" your trail as far as I know. Do yourself a favor though, and contact your local reviewer if you haven't already done so before submitting that many caches. It seems that a lot of reviewers generally like to know about these things ahead of time instead of just seeing 35+ listings pop up in their queue.

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

 

If they did, they should introduce it simultaneously with a PT attribute or separate PT cache type...and only allow the bulk submit with caches of that type or with that attribute.

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

 

If they did, they should introduce it simultaneously with a PT attribute or separate PT cache type...and only allow the bulk submit with caches of that type or with that attribute.

 

I really hope none of this ever happens. It's scary to think about. I'm going to have nightmares of lame powertrails now :-\

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

 

If they did, they should introduce it simultaneously with a PT attribute or separate PT cache type...and only allow the bulk submit with caches of that type or with that attribute.

 

I really hope none of this ever happens. It's scary to think about. I'm going to have nightmares of lame powertrails now :-\

 

GS could buy the powertrail.com domain and outsource all powertrails to there. :laughing: Would tidy up the map a bit more.

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

 

If they did, they should introduce it simultaneously with a PT attribute or separate PT cache type...and only allow the bulk submit with caches of that type or with that attribute.

 

I really hope none of this ever happens. It's scary to think about. I'm going to have nightmares of lame powertrails now :-\

 

GS could buy the powertrail.com domain and outsource all powertrails to there. :laughing: Would tidy up the map a bit more.

 

There you go. Problem solved!

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

 

Bulk cache submissions would be the final proof that the game being played is no longer the one that I signed up for. Oh, people are already competing over who can hide the most caches.

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Power trails?

We should be able to just drive down the trail and log each find as we drive past, because we know it's there. Then wet soggy logs wouldn't matter.

Then there would be no problem logging 1000 finds a day. Then we could advance the game to allow fly overs and we could do 4 or 5 power trails a day from an airplane!

 

Seriously, I don't waste my time on a PT. Would rather hike and/or drive miles into the back country to find ONE Geocache the gets 3 or 4 hit a year or less. To me power trails is one step from arm chair caching, but each plays there own game.

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Is there a way that I'm missing to bulk List these for publication/review or do I really need to go through all the same steps/pages for each, one at a time?
FWIW, I once suggested a new cache type for numbers run trails that would allow cache owners to enter a single description for any number of bulk cache placements, and that would allow finders to log any number of finds for such bulk caches with just a single log. It wasn't very popular with anyone though, so don't expect anything like it to be supported on the geocaching.com site.
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Uhhh.. Sorry I asked.

So you guys dont sound in favor of the 3,765 bison tubes I hid in every 7th sidewalk crack through out the city? -- Just kidding. I'm keeping it at the 35 mark on an old train track section. Thanks for the replies though..

 

Don't worry about what others think. If you have something with waterproof containers that you maintain, and think people will hike or bike to get them all, hide away.

 

For the record, I would find the series if it was close to me because I like biking on rails to trails.

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GS could buy the powertrail.com domain and outsource all powertrails to there. :laughing: Would tidy up the map a bit more.

 

What a fantastic idea! My map would look so much better without all of the PTs in the area.

It takes work but the "ignore" feature works well for this. The ability to bulk "ignore" would be a welcome addition.

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This site is great for messing with someone for asking a question. I agree that finding many caches in a row that are all the same can be kind of boring but some like it. I think it would be a cool power trail the OP is setting up. Go for it and I would just copy and paste everything to the new cache listings. We have a power trail as well but made every cache fun and different. We would be happy to go find them and if there are no caches there now then why not have a cool power trail there. Good luck with it and hope it all gets published.

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Uhhh.. Sorry I asked.

So you guys dont sound in favor of the 3,765 bison tubes I hid in every 7th sidewalk crack through out the city? -- Just kidding. I'm keeping it at the 35 mark on an old train track section. Thanks for the replies though..

 

I'm trying to wrap my head around this, and trust me, it's not just you, it seems to be a new phenomenon. I don't understand the desire to go and place 35 caches on a single hiking trail. I'm assuming that this is a good trail that you may want to hike more than once, perhaps even hike if there were no caches? In the past, one cacher would hike a trail and hide four or five caches, spaced at least a 1/2 mile apart, then as others went and found those caches, they would hide a few of their own. Not only does this allow others to own caches on the trail, it gives you a good reason to go back and find the caches and maybe even helps prioritize maintenance on your caches.

 

I keep track of new caches in several western states and it seems like the trend is now for one cacher to go out and place 20 caches at once along 2 miles of hiking trail. I personally think that this is overkill.

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In the past, one cacher would hike a trail and hide four or five caches, spaced at least a 1/2 mile apart, then as others went and found those caches, they would hide a few of their own. Not only does this allow others to own caches on the trail, it gives you a good reason to go back and find the caches and maybe even helps prioritize maintenance on your caches.

 

.... the trend is now for one cacher to go out and place 20 caches at once along 2 miles of hiking trail. I personally think that this is overkill.

 

This ^^^

 

It's like a game of 'stake your claim'. 'This trail is all mine. No one shall hide on this trail but me.'

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Fredsjunk,

 

if you want to place many caches why not make them something special? There are some hiking series around that have a nice story to tell, or long enough walking distances to really enjoy the landscape.

 

Here's an example of the former: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=c89203e1-951d-4b06-933e-504912f4b5b3

And here the first one of a small series for the latter: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3CAP4_pt1-monday

 

Both are about 14km long, one has about 20 caches along the route and a nice story, the other just 7 and a bonus and great views and different hides for all of them.

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OK, I dont know why this went the direction it did. Everyone has their own " I Like xxx" or "I hate XXX". Personally I LOVE biking 20 or 30 miles of rail trails grabbing caches tight along the edges jumping back on the bike them zooming to the next and repeat. I know most of you dont like that. What I hate is urban caches. I cant stand looking for caches in cities, around businesses, or near houses. BUT I understand lots of people like those. Thats OK I dont get all over those people or the ones that place them.

The 35 I want to place are along a 8 mile section of "rail trail" that has not been "developed" - That is to say, the ties and rails were removed years ago, the "trail" is closer to a 2 foot wide overgrown foot path that people Bike, Walk, and Ski on. this is located out in the middle of no where, so there is no "story" to tell that I am aware of. Also placing 35 in 8 miles DOES leave room for other to place in the same area if they choose SO, ONE of the reasons for me placing this "Boring" series is for Winter access. How many of you have gone caching on Ski's (or snowshoes which I find much easier)? if the caches are not all above a few feet they will be buried under a couple feet of snow (which is the reason I said all the same height-but thats boring?). also imagine trying to manipulate ski's in/out/around trees up/down steep hills to either side of the tracks ( Im sure you know how they loved fill and rock cuts when laying tracks). Another reason I wanted to place these is to let another cacher that has placed Hundreds in this same manor a chance to FIND instead of placing..

 

Since everyone was voicing their "do's and dont's" I just wanted to let you know my why..

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You would probably have gotten a different response had you fully explained what you were planning. I and others assumed (there's that nasty word again) that you were planning one every 529 feet.

 

Personally I don't care how far apart people place their caches but there are many who don't like power trails. I don't understand it when people say that close placement along a trail spoils it for them since they don't have to stop for each cache. We have areas here that as they become open property get stuffed full fairly quickly. I often pass by some since I know I will be hiking and biking that area many times even after all the caches have been found by me.

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OK, I dont know why this went the direction it did. Everyone has their own " I Like xxx" or "I hate XXX". Personally I LOVE biking 20 or 30 miles of rail trails grabbing caches tight along the edges jumping back on the bike them zooming to the next and repeat. I know most of you dont like that. What I hate is urban caches. I cant stand looking for caches in cities, around businesses, or near houses. BUT I understand lots of people like those. Thats OK I dont get all over those people or the ones that place them.

The 35 I want to place are along a 8 mile section of "rail trail" that has not been "developed" - That is to say, the ties and rails were removed years ago, the "trail" is closer to a 2 foot wide overgrown foot path that people Bike, Walk, and Ski on. this is located out in the middle of no where, so there is no "story" to tell that I am aware of. Also placing 35 in 8 miles DOES leave room for other to place in the same area if they choose SO, ONE of the reasons for me placing this "Boring" series is for Winter access. How many of you have gone caching on Ski's (or snowshoes which I find much easier)? if the caches are not all above a few feet they will be buried under a couple feet of snow (which is the reason I said all the same height-but thats boring?). also imagine trying to manipulate ski's in/out/around trees up/down steep hills to either side of the tracks ( Im sure you know how they loved fill and rock cuts when laying tracks). Another reason I wanted to place these is to let another cacher that has placed Hundreds in this same manor a chance to FIND instead of placing..

 

Since everyone was voicing their "do's and dont's" I just wanted to let you know my why..

 

Thanks for your reply, and please don't take anything anyone says here personally.

 

I guess it is just a matter of scale. In the past, I would hide 3 to let the guy who hid 6 have something to find. Now, it's 100's and 35.

 

The reason that the thread took the direction that it took is because most of the responders started caching at a time when this wasn't even allowed. With 8 miles of trail, your reviewer may have only allowed you to place 15, and he would not let you place them all at once. Identical caches spaced evenly apart with identical cache description pages and identical names was unheard of.

 

Most of us feel that "bulk placements", (your term), is not healthy for the game, and anything that made it easier for people to do this, such a bulk cache submission process, would not be good at all.

 

With that said, if you feel that your caches will be a benefit to the area, go for it. 35 in 8 is a lot more desirable than my example of 20 in 2. As far as making the names and descriptions interesting, I'm guessing that a train ran down those tracks at some time and that the train was owned by a railroad. Do some research. The railroads built this country and they built the towns along the way. Perhaps instead of Cache #1, Cache #2, Cache #3, name them after the towns that the railroad built or served. Make the descriptions about the town's history's, what product the train imported or exported, etc.

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Most of us feel that "bulk placements", (your term), is not healthy for the game, t the train i

 

I don't that that you have the right to such a general statement about how the majority feel. It is very common in any activity that those who have been around for awhile lament that "it isn't the way it used to be". Hobbies are evolutionary and change. It has always been and always will be that way.

 

If the "bulk placements" weren't healthy for the game why are there so many?

 

Why do people organize expeditions to get thjem?

 

Why are the number of cachers growing at a very high rate?

 

It seems to me that the hobby is healthier than it has ever been. Those that don't want to do power trails don't have to but to say they are not good caches is somewhat intolerant and shows a lack of understanding about how organizations grow.

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Most of us feel that "bulk placements", (your term), is not healthy for the game, t the train i

 

I don't that that you have the right to such a general statement about how the majority feel. It is very common in any activity that those who have been around for awhile lament that "it isn't the way it used to be". Hobbies are evolutionary and change. It has always been and always will be that way.

 

If the "bulk placements" weren't healthy for the game why are there so many?

 

Why do people organize expeditions to get thjem?

 

Why are the number of cachers growing at a very high rate?

 

It seems to me that the hobby is healthier than it has ever been. Those that don't want to do power trails don't have to but to say they are not good caches is somewhat intolerant and shows a lack of understanding about how organizations grow.

 

Okay, let me rephrase it. Most of us who have responded in this thread, feel that "bulk placements", (your term), is not healthy for the game...

 

I was NOT speaking generally but replying to the OP's question as to why the thread took the direction that it took. I think after looking at the replies in this thread, my statement is accurate. It also was not an invitation to debate power trails but to explain why the OP was getting the resistance that he is getting.

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Most of us feel that "bulk placements", (your term), is not healthy for the game, t the train i

If the "bulk placements" weren't healthy for the game why are there so many?

 

  • Greed. Gobbling up a trail, area, roadside to claim it as their own
  • Notoriety. Good or bad it's cool to have a PT that gets mentioned in the forums, on blogs, at events
  • Just to have one. A lot of COs like to have one of everything in their repertory of hides - an EarthCache, a Letterbox, a PT, etc.
  • They see geocaching as a competitive game - it's mostly and perhaps only, about the smiley count

I don't think these reasons are healthy. A bulk submission form would not be healthy for the game. If you read the comments in this thread, most of them list a lot of unhealthy reasons that PTs are not good for the game. What about PTs is healthy for the game, that couldn't be accomplished with a multi, or fewer cache placements with a variety of well-maintained, quality hides and containers?

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If the "bulk placements" weren't healthy for the game why are there so many?

 

Why do people organize expeditions to get thjem?

 

Why are the number of cachers growing at a very high rate?

 

It seems to me that the hobby is healthier than it has ever been. Those that don't want to do power trails don't have to but to say they are not good caches is somewhat intolerant and shows a lack of understanding about how organizations grow.

 

a Star always shines brightest just before it explodes and dies.

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Not knowing any better we did this to a lake near our house. We thought it would be cool to have a bunch of 5 terrain caches out with a bunch of different hides and difficulty's to bring everyone to visit and get a bunch of finds while kayaking the lake. There was no one that seemed to have a interest in hiding one on the lake before we did. It was us and another cacher that made all the hides. We left a few open spots and we let other cachers we took fill in the few blanks. Heck we would have loved for someone else to hide some there so we could find them but no one was doing it even with our few spaces left. Now I feel kind of bad because a cacher wants to hide one there but there isn't room. There is a cache on shore that is about to be archived so hopefully he will soon be able to place it. We would just archive one for him but we have yet to archive one of our caches. Except one that was a mistake and the new cache is still there. However we still think it is a fun kayak cache series that many have driven a long ways to go find. If others wanted to hide caches there they could have done so before we did. Now that they are out there where we took them to they want to hide one but if we had never hidden them I doubt it would have ever crossed there mind to go do it.

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Most of us feel that "bulk placements", (your term), is not healthy for the game, t the train i

If the "bulk placements" weren't healthy for the game why are there so many?

 

  • Greed. Gobbling up a trail, area, roadside to claim it as their own
  • Notoriety. Good or bad it's cool to have a PT that gets mentioned in the forums, on blogs, at events
  • Just to have one. A lot of COs like to have one of everything in their repertory of hides - an EarthCache, a Letterbox, a PT, etc.
  • They see geocaching as a competitive game - it's mostly and perhaps only, about the smiley count

I don't think these reasons are healthy. A bulk submission form would not be healthy for the game. If you read the comments in this thread, most of them list a lot of unhealthy reasons that PTs are not good for the game. What about PTs is healthy for the game, that couldn't be accomplished with a multi, or fewer cache placements with a variety of well-maintained, quality hides and containers?

 

I 100% agree with this. I also agree with everything Don J has mentioned.

 

I'm curious....what on earth is the point of splattering a trail with the same hide, same description and same name other than for the sake of numbers?

 

There was recently a trail put out in my area of 20+ caches. It's called the "no dumping" trail. Can you guess where each cache was hidden? Every one within thirty feet of an illegally dumped heap of trash. When another cacher asked the CO why on earth they would put a cache here, let alone a trail.....she responded that "nobody else was placing caches in this area and I've been wanting to do a power trail for people in the area to boost their numbers". The lazily, slapped together, cookie cutter cache pages go on to recommend "CITOing" the area and mentions that the area needed caches.

 

So....how is that healthy for our game? I know not every PT is that way, but she got the notion to do this from examples that were set. So somewhere along the line she got the idea that it would be okay to put something like that out so long as numbers were involved and cachers could pick up a quick twenty-something smilies.

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I'm in the process of placing 35 +/- caches all the same container, height, hint, ect along a rail trail. the only thing that really differs from each placement is the name. Is there a way that I'm missing to bulk List these for publication/review or do I really need to go through all the same steps/pages for each, one at a time?

 

All you need to do is hide one cache and instruct geocachers to record the distance they traveled on the trail in tenths of a mile, and for them to log it one time for each tenth of a mile they traveled. Finding caches takes a lot of time, and so does hiding them. This simplifies the process to a win/win situation. Nobody audits those pesky powertrail logsheets anyway. Ten finds per mile couldn't be easier!

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I hope they never provide a bulk placement form.

 

In some areas we are overrun with PTs. Easy bulk submission will encourage more and more PTs. More and more COs will take up miles and miles of trails with the same-old-same-old experience every .1 miles. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cheap leaky containers that barely, if at all, get maintained by the CO(s). Individual caches that were planted on the trail first and or are within one mile of the PT get swallowed up and get swamped with the usual PT cut-and-paste log thanking the PT owner(s) for the find. Then, since it would be easy peasy to submit 1000s of PT caches, the competition will begin to see who can plant the most PTs. One, or a group of cachers could take up a whole city/state/province/territory with their record breaking PT. I shudder at the thought of what might happen.

 

+1

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I'm in the process of placing 35 +/- caches all the same container, height, hint, ect along a rail trail. the only thing that really differs from each placement is the name. Is there a way that I'm missing to bulk List these for publication/review or do I really need to go through all the same steps/pages for each, one at a time?

 

All you need to do is hide one cache and instruct geocachers to record the distance they traveled on the trail in tenths of a mile, and for them to log it one time for each tenth of a mile they traveled. Finding caches takes a lot of time, and so does hiding them. This simplifies the process to a win/win situation. Nobody audits those pesky powertrail logsheets anyway. Ten finds per mile couldn't be easier!

 

I like that. If I bike past that cache while doing a 20 mile bike ride I get 200 finds which gets me 20 favorite points and after giving one to this cache I have 19 for real caches. Now we need a way to bulk log and you can do it in GSAK. Bring up the cache in the publish logs api and click clone 200 times (you can to that with your margarita in the other hand) and hit publish.

 

Just had another thought. Can I count the 25 miles each way I drove to the trailhead for another 500./

It just keeps getting easier and easier.

Edited by Walts Hunting
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I'm in the process of placing 35 +/- caches all the same container, height, hint, ect along a rail trail. the only thing that really differs from each placement is the name. Is there a way that I'm missing to bulk List these for publication/review or do I really need to go through all the same steps/pages for each, one at a time?

 

Zero finds, Zero hides......does this sock have a foot?

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