That Old Time Rock and Hole

October 5, 2014

Sorry about the title :lol:

Let me start by saying I have no designs in mind to hide a cache this way, nor do I have an existing cache I am targeting, I just wanted to put this question out to the community for discussion. I would personally be okay with this kind of hide.

Imagine that you are walking through the forest and you come across a gap in the trees that gives you a lovely view and you think to yourself This would be a great place for a cache. You notice several small boulders in the area, some about the size of your head. You push against one of these boulders and flip it over, exposing the ground underneath and the HOLE that is left behind from the compression of the earth by the weight of the boulder. You place a cache (a brand-name, sandwich-sized, fully-labelled Lock&Lock with a Rite-in-the-Rain logbook and some nice swag, which you conveniently have in your backpack) in this hole and cover it with leaves or sticks or stones for camouflage.

Legal hole or guideline violation?

2.4k · October 5, 2014

I would *think* legal hole, as you didn't have to dig it. I would want to be sure that the boulder doesn't want to roll back crushing the cache, or worse, someone's fingers.

6.1k · October 5, 2014

I would say its fine, although someone may have a negative impression if they didn't know it was an impression.

3.3k · October 5, 2014

I would say its fine, although someone may have a negative impression if they didn't know it was an impression.

Related questions have come up before because it's iffy. People will think a hole was dug. On the practical side, the low spot may fill up with rainwater and drown your cache.

2.4k · October 5, 2014

Do you need to use a tool to remove the boulder? :anitongue: You ARE disturbing the ground (i.e. the rock) to place the cache. . . .

Edited October 5, 2014 by TriciaG

3.4k · October 5, 2014

I would say its fine, although someone may have a negative impression if they didn't know it was an impression.

Related questions have come up before because it's iffy. People will think a hole was dug. On the practical side, the low spot may fill up with rainwater and drown your cache.

This and this and this. One of my Friends has a cache on the property of a fire station--with permission. The firemen made a nice little depression to fit the cache, but the CO has had to write into the cache page a request that it not be used, because water pools there and soaks the cache.

8k · October 6, 2014

Was it a balancing boulder. If was a balancing bolder you can move it but only if you're a Boy Scout leader. :unsure:

October 6, 2014

My hubby mentioned pooling water as a problem - and it likely would be - but putting a cache in a puddle isn't against guidelines. Let's assume that all other variables are perfect.

3.3k · October 6, 2014

Was it a balancing boulder. If was a balancing bolder you can move it but only if you're a Boy Scout leader.

Here are the scouts.

3.3k · October 6, 2014

My hubby mentioned pooling water as a problem - and it likely would be - but putting a cache in a puddle isn't against guidelines. Let's assume that all other variables are perfect.

If the puddle's big enough, you get an underwater container and make it a t5 scuba cache.

Edited October 6, 2014 by wmpastor

6.1k · October 6, 2014

I'd take the rock and paint it orange, place it in a net and nail the net to a live tree with a few railroad spikes and a note explaining that the ground was not dug out in any way. Since it's not really part of the cache, then it should be fine.

October 8, 2014

Was it a balancing boulder. If was a balancing bolder you can move it but only if you're a Boy Scout leader.

Ouch!

October 8, 2014

I think it is a bad idea due to the fact that it looks like it is ok to dig a hole. The drainage problem is going to make it a nasty cache to retrieve and we got enough of that! Trying to find loop holes in the rules is probably not best and will do more harm than good. Put all your great energy into finding a great place to take someone and let them get the rewards for being outdoors. Take your time and don't be offended if your ideas are challenged! You are on the right track - love the fact that a good hide is important to you!

October 9, 2014

We use to have a cache in the woods like that. There was a natural deep (about 6 inches) depression that would hold a lock n' lock perfectly. I lined the bottom with sticks to give it some drainage. I had the cache for about 4 years with no maintenance problems.

October 9, 2014

I think it is a bad idea due to the fact that it looks like it is ok to dig a hole. The drainage problem is going to make it a nasty cache to retrieve and we got enough of that! Trying to find loop holes in the rules is probably not best and will do more harm than good. Put all your great energy into finding a great place to take someone and let them get the rewards for being outdoors. Take your time and don't be offended if your ideas are challenged! You are on the right track - love the fact that a good hide is important to you!

Thanks for your reply GPS-Hermit but we aren't looking to hide a cache in this manner - or at all right now :lol: We have four caches that are doing very well and are water-free (though we did have an infestation of noodles once). We are always careful about choosing interesting and appropriate places to hide caches.

I just wanted to open up this potential hide style for discussion as the community often spends lots of time picking apart the minutae of the guidelines. I like that we talk about the details - it means we are all passionate about the hobby.

So what if a cache owner were to lift up a rock, place a few smaller rocks underneath it and place the rock back in the same exact spot but now there is a gap underneath where a cache could be tucked in. House of Rock?

1.5k · October 9, 2014

Sorry about the title

Let me start by saying I have no designs in mind to hide a cache this way, nor do I have an existing cache I am targeting, I just wanted to put this question out to the community for discussion. I would personally be okay with this kind of hide.

Imagine that you are walking through the forest and you come across a gap in the trees that gives you a lovely view and you think to yourself This would be a great place for a cache. You notice several small boulders in the area, some about the size of your head. You push against one of these boulders and flip it over, exposing the ground underneath and the HOLE that is left behind from the compression of the earth by the weight of the boulder. You place a cache (a brand-name, sandwich-sized, fully-labelled Lock&Lock with a Rite-in-the-Rain logbook and some nice swag, which you conveniently have in your backpack) in this hole and cover it with leaves or sticks or stones for camouflage.

Legal hole or guideline violation?

Guideline violation.

What's the difference if you make a hole by moving a rock, or dirt. Aren't you still digging a hole? You just got it all in one lump with the rock. And what about drilling holes into perfectly good rocks? I see it all the time .... digging another hole! All against the guidelines.

14k · October 9, 2014

Sorry about the title

Let me start by saying I have no designs in mind to hide a cache this way, nor do I have an existing cache I am targeting, I just wanted to put this question out to the community for discussion. I would personally be okay with this kind of hide.

Imagine that you are walking through the forest and you come across a gap in the trees that gives you a lovely view and you think to yourself This would be a great place for a cache. You notice several small boulders in the area, some about the size of your head. You push against one of these boulders and flip it over, exposing the ground underneath and the HOLE that is left behind from the compression of the earth by the weight of the boulder. You place a cache (a brand-name, sandwich-sized, fully-labelled Lock&Lock with a Rite-in-the-Rain logbook and some nice swag, which you conveniently have in your backpack) in this hole and cover it with leaves or sticks or stones for camouflage.

Legal hole or guideline violation?

Guideline violation.

What's the difference if you make a hole by moving a rock, or dirt. Aren't you still digging a hole? You just got it all in one lump with the rock. And what about drilling holes into perfectly good rocks? I see it all the time .... digging another hole! All against the guidelines.

Whenever the "no buried caches" guideline comes up I try to imagine seeing it from the perspective of a land manager. I doubt that a land manager is going to care, upon discovering a geocache placed in a hole, whether or not it's "legal" or a guideline violation. They're just going to see a hole in the ground on the property they manage that they can associate with the game of geocaching. It doesn't matter if that hole was created using a shovel, removing a boulder, or dropping a bowling ball from air plane. If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes, they're likely to going to come away with the perception that geocaching is a game that involves "burying containers", and the whole point behind the no buried caches guideline is to prevent that from happening.

7.8k · October 9, 2014

Whenever the "no buried caches" guideline comes up I try to imagine seeing it from the perspective of a land manager. I doubt that a land manager is going to care, upon discovering a geocache placed in a hole, whether or not it's "legal" or a guideline violation. They're just going to see a hole in the ground on the property they manage that they can associate with the game of geocaching. It doesn't matter if that hole was created using a shovel, removing a boulder, or dropping a bowling ball from air plane. If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes, they're likely to going to come away with the perception that geocaching is a game that involves "burying containers", and the whole point behind the no buried caches guideline is to prevent that from happening.

^This

It's all about land manager perception. A land manager likely wouldn't care about the semantics surrounding the creation of the hole. They just care that there's a hole.

...and BTW...

If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes...

...I wouldn't recommend hiding caches in any holes that may appear on a land manager! :laughing:

8.3k · October 9, 2014

Whenever the "no buried caches" guideline comes up I try to imagine seeing it from the perspective of a land manager. I doubt that a land manager is going to care, upon discovering a geocache placed in a hole, whether or not it's "legal" or a guideline violation. They're just going to see a hole in the ground on the property they manage that they can associate with the game of geocaching. It doesn't matter if that hole was created using a shovel, removing a boulder, or dropping a bowling ball from air plane. If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes, they're likely to going to come away with the perception that geocaching is a game that involves "burying containers", and the whole point behind the no buried caches guideline is to prevent that from happening.

Not only do you have the problem of the land manager associating the hole in the ground with geocachers burying the caches, right after the land manager sees the hole is from a boulder being moved they are going to associate geocaching as causing wanton destruction of the environment by moving boulders around. Not being familiar with the saturation guidelines they no doubt will figure the boulder has been moved to make another hole to bury a cache. Overall a bad idea. Even a pile of sticks is some what nebulous, you are after all disrupting the environment by gathering up the sticks to place over the cache.

7.8k · October 9, 2014

Even a pile of sticks is some what nebulous, you are after all disrupting the environment by gathering up the sticks to place over the cache.

Don't worry, it won't be long until finders stop covering it back up properly and the sticks will begin to disperse. :laughing:

14k · October 9, 2014

Whenever the "no buried caches" guideline comes up I try to imagine seeing it from the perspective of a land manager. I doubt that a land manager is going to care, upon discovering a geocache placed in a hole, whether or not it's "legal" or a guideline violation. They're just going to see a hole in the ground on the property they manage that they can associate with the game of geocaching. It doesn't matter if that hole was created using a shovel, removing a boulder, or dropping a bowling ball from air plane. If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes, they're likely to going to come away with the perception that geocaching is a game that involves "burying containers", and the whole point behind the no buried caches guideline is to prevent that from happening.

^This

It's all about land manager perception. A land manager likely wouldn't care about the semantics surrounding the creation of the hole. They just care that there's a hole.

...and BTW...

If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes...

...I wouldn't recommend hiding caches in any holes that may appear on a land manager!

I'm not going to touch that one with a 10 foot ladder.

2.1k · October 9, 2014

Guideline violation.

What's the difference if you make a hole by moving a rock, or dirt. Aren't you still digging a hole? You just got it all in one lump with the rock. And what about drilling holes into perfectly good rocks? I see it all the time .... digging another hole! All against the guidelines.

The rocks that I've seen done that way have been brought in by the cacher, so they are adding to the hiding environment not taking away from it.

1.5k · October 9, 2014

Whenever the "no buried caches" guideline comes up I try to imagine seeing it from the perspective of a land manager. I doubt that a land manager is going to care, upon discovering a geocache placed in a hole, whether or not it's "legal" or a guideline violation. They're just going to see a hole in the ground on the property they manage that they can associate with the game of geocaching. It doesn't matter if that hole was created using a shovel, removing a boulder, or dropping a bowling ball from air plane. If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes, they're likely to going to come away with the perception that geocaching is a game that involves "burying containers", and the whole point behind the no buried caches guideline is to prevent that from happening.

^This

It's all about land manager perception. A land manager likely wouldn't care about the semantics surrounding the creation of the hole. They just care that there's a hole.

...and BTW...

If they're at all concern about holes in the ground appearing on the land manager, and they find geocaching containers located in those holes...

...I wouldn't recommend hiding caches in any holes that may appear on a land manager!

I'm not going to touch that one with a 10 foot ladder.

:lol: :lol:

October 9, 2014

Actually land managers encourage digging holes. Ever read some back country hiking etiquette. As for bringing in an invasive rock species that is a different topic. A lot depends on where the cache is located, a public city park versus a back country place of the beaten path.

Edited October 9, 2014 by snow_rules

1.5k · October 9, 2014

Actually land managers encourage digging holes. Ever read some back country hiking etiquette. As for bringing in an invasive rock species that is a different topic. A lot depends on where the cache is located, a public city park versus a back country place of the beaten path.

:lol: :lol:

Would that be a problem like the Asian Carp?

14k · October 10, 2014

Actually land managers encourage digging holes. Ever read some back country hiking etiquette.

I think there is even a book dedicated to the subject.

8k · October 10, 2014

Actually land managers encourage digging holes. Ever read some back country hiking etiquette.

Of course you're expected to fill in those holes when you're finished using them.

IMO, the no holes/no digging guideline is based on a fallacy. The story is that in the early days of geocaching, the NPS decided to ban geocaches because some park ranger was convinced that geocaches were buried and imagined cachers to be much the same as treasure hunters with metal detectors. Many national parks are historic and have a problem with treasure hunters looting archeological artifacts. And the NPS also doesn't want people destroying the pristine natural areas in parks by digging a bunch of holes. I suspect that the NPS was going to ban caches anyhow. When TPTB made a guideline that caches are never buried, the NPS proclaimed that caches are illegally abandoned property and pointed to existing regulations. A blanket "no buried" rule has resulted is convincing geocachers that rather than work with park managers we should just not even try anything that might remotely anger a park manager. Then we get requirements creep when someone asks if it's OK to remove a rock that leaves a depression. It used to be that digging meant using a shovel, trowel, or other tool to dig. Now it has become "don't make holes". The next update to the guideline will surely say "don't move anything". <_<

Edited October 10, 2014 by tozainamboku

3.3k · October 10, 2014

Actually land managers encourage digging holes. Ever read some back country hiking etiquette. As for bringing in an invasive rock species that is a different topic. A lot depends on where the cache is located, a public city park versus a back country place of the beaten path.

:lol:

Would that be a problem like the Asian Carp?

It's more like the old movie "The Blob." People don't realize it, but those inanimate objects can get out of control quickly and unexpectedly! For instance, granite is invasive. Set down that innocent looking granite rock, and all of a sudden the slate starts disappearing!

October 10, 2014

The rocks that I've seen done that way have been brought in by the cacher, so they are adding to the hiding environment not taking away from it.

Except that finders may not realize the rock was "privately owned" and brought in for that purpose. Same thing with cut logs and the like. They love the cache so much they want to place one like that themselves, so off they go into the woods with their chainsaws and and hammer drills...

6.1k · October 10, 2014

I really don't know what the answer to this is. Quite a while ago I started a thread asking if it was okay to spray paint coordinates on an abandoned water heater in the woods and a moderator told me it was defacement. That moderator has also disappeared, and the answer also seems ridiculous. A discarded piece of garbage should not have any restrictions. If it was an abandoned vehicle, maybe, but really? I've noticed some hides completely ignoring guidelines, while others that could cause no problems be culled out. How would anyone know that you moved the rock? What is the overall environmental impact, and the effect on wildlife? What is the percentage of limited intelligence personnel that would be influenced by this hide? :rolleyes:

2.6k · October 10, 2014

I suggest to use your judgement and do what feels right.

I think it is normal to move rocks and sticks. Just yesterday I was hiding a small container. At the base of a tree I saw a flat rock, and what looked to be a gap under it. I lifted the rock, and there was the perfect size hole for my container. I placed it with the flat rock back on top. The location appeared unchanged except my cache was there. I'm happy with the hide.

3.7k · October 11, 2014

I personally feel that if you find yourself rolling boulders around to hide a cache, then you're going too far. :unsure:

2.1k · October 11, 2014

The rocks that I've seen done that way have been brought in by the cacher, so they are adding to the hiding environment not taking away from it.

Except that finders may not realize the rock was "privately owned" and brought in for that purpose. Same thing with cut logs and the like. They love the cache so much they want to place one like that themselves, so off they go into the woods with their chainsaws and and hammer drills...

Isn't it safe to assume that most cache container and their camo are brought in by the cache owner?

3.8k · October 13, 2014

as causing wanton destruction of the environment by moving boulders around.

OMG, correlating moving boulders to wanton destruction?? This thread has just gone over the deep end.

1.5k · October 13, 2014

as causing wanton destruction of the environment by moving boulders around.

OMG, correlating moving boulders to wanton destruction?? This thread has just gone over the deep end.

This thread was over the edge when it was started! :lol:

1.2k · October 13, 2014

as causing wanton destruction of the environment by moving boulders around.

OMG, correlating moving boulders to wanton destruction?? This thread has just gone over the deep end.

moving rocks

Edited October 13, 2014 by cheech gang

8k · October 13, 2014

as causing wanton destruction of the environment by moving boulders around.

OMG, correlating moving boulders to wanton destruction?? This thread has just gone over the deep end.

moving rocks

That's a National Park. Do you think they'll stop banning geocaches now that we can show it wasn't geocachers moving the bolders?

That Old Time Rock and Hole

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