Number of new caches decreasing?

[+L0ne.R]

I just archived another of our caches after getting yet another GSAK-style group caching log that thanked us (#cacheowner) for our cache.

We're down to 3 active caches now. 

[+Mudfrog]

I have a 50 mile radius newly published notification set up. I honestly couldn't remember the last time a notification came in so did a query just now to find out. The last cache published was on September 15,,, almost a month ago. At the same time, I also have the archival notification set. The last archival notification, because of lack of owner response, came in 4 days ago. Unfortunately, the archival notifications come in fairly routinely these days. ☹️

Edited October 12, 2018 by Mudfrog

[+The Jester]

I haven't tracked long term, but my update today shows 12 new caches hidden within 25 miles since Monday, and 1 cache archived (plus two past events).

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

1 hour ago, The Jester said:

I haven't tracked long term, but my update today shows 12 new caches hidden within 25 miles since Monday, and 1 cache archived (plus two past events).

 

I see 6 new caches since September 12th within *50* miles, zero within 25 miles.  If I limit it to 25 miles, and go back to August 12 (2 months) I get 9 new caches and only 2 since September 1st.   If I search for new caches since Monday I get 3 caches within 100 miles and none within 80 miles.  

[+barefootjeff]

In my region (Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia), two new caches were published yesterday, the first since July. I have a new one in the wings which I'll likely submit in the coming week, so that'll be three for the back half of the year. I've almost forgotten what an FTF race was like.

[+Mineral2]

I'm looking at my area, giving it a 100 mile generous radius because I live in a pretty rural area, and there have been around 20, give or take, new caches placed each month over the summer. This 100 mile radius does capture Spokane and Coeur d'Alene for which there is a pretty active caching group. June saw the largest growth with 70 new caches because of the Spokane Trains and Railroads geotour challenge. There were 44 new caches in July as the local WSGA chapter replaced a popular power trail that fell into disrepair. 

I'm not sure about the rate of archival. I haven't kept track of total numbers, and I do update the archived caches in my database every now and then to sweep for caches that become unarchived that miss the pocket queries. So unfortunately I can't sort those by GPX date, and there's no easy way to sort by last log or date of archival log.

Recently, a local cacher who had been out of the game for a while came by and archived many of his hides - he had well over 100 in the Lewiston-Clarkston valley, but is no longer active in the area. And another prominent couple who had over 200 hides between them are going the full-time RV route and archived a bunch of their hides and adopted out the rest. So it feels like a reduction in caches, but there have been enough new ones to at least soften the blow.

I think I've posted before on this thread that the number of hides isn't the best metric for how well geocaching is doing in an area. Hides may be level because of saturation or declining because of over saturation of bad hides by people not well-invested in the game. I think we're at the point in the game where we'll retain users if those of us hiding caches focus on the quality of the hide rather than the quantity - make people's geocaching experience memorable.

* I'll add an addendem that my estimates also don't include puzzle/mystery caches because I exclude those until I solve them. I also excluded events since these are temporary listings anyway. There are about 7300 caches (excluding events and mystery caches) in that 100 mile radius, and around 7900 in total, which is pretty good for a rural and sparsely populated area.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Mineral2

[+barefootjeff]

15 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:

I think I've posted before on this thread that the number of hides isn't the best metric for how well geocaching is doing in an area. Hides may be level because of saturation or declining because of over saturation of bad hides by people not well-invested in the game. I think we're at the point in the game where we'll retain users if those of us hiding caches focus on the quality of the hide rather than the quantity - make people's geocaching experience memorable.

 

The cache density here is about one per square kilometre so it's nowhere near saturated. Most of the caches are also of good quality, with over half more than three years old and sixteen percent over ten years old, so they're made to last. It's just that there are so few active cachers living here now.

[+Mineral2]

1 minute ago, barefootjeff said:

 

The cache density here is about one per square kilometre so it's nowhere near saturated. Most of the caches are also of good quality, with over half more than three years old and sixteen percent over ten years old, so they're made to last. It's just that there are so few active cachers living here now.

Saturation isn't just about placing them the minimum distance apart, nor is quality about how long they last. In many places, there just aren't many meaningful spots to hide a geocache. Placing one on every guard rail or every lamp post doesn't bring people to unique and special places, nor does placing them every tenth of a mile along a road or hiking trail. When I think of quality locations, I think of unique attractions that I would want cachers and other people to discover and visit. That could be a historic site or a natural landmark or an interesting store, etc.

But if we do have to fill every parking lot with a cache, why place a film canister under a lamppost skirt? Or even a Lock n' Lock in a bush? I can understand wanting to throw out an ammo can under a log or rock pile if placing a cache on a mountain summit. But in town, unique and creative hides, both location and container/cammo will win people over more than just another trope that's been done to death. Sure, these hides might require extra effort to create. I think of all the gadget caches in Germany. I think if we are to focus on the numbers, we ought to be thinking about building caches for favorite points rather than find counts.

[+barefootjeff]

1 minute ago, Mineral2 said:

Saturation isn't just about placing them the minimum distance apart, nor is quality about how long they last. In many places, there just aren't many meaningful spots to hide a geocache. Placing one on every guard rail or every lamp post doesn't bring people to unique and special places, nor does placing them every tenth of a mile along a road or hiking trail. When I think of quality locations, I think of unique attractions that I would want cachers and other people to discover and visit. That could be a historic site or a natural landmark or an interesting store, etc.

But if we do have to fill every parking lot with a cache, why place a film canister under a lamppost skirt? Or even a Lock n' Lock in a bush? I can understand wanting to throw out an ammo can under a log or rock pile if placing a cache on a mountain summit. But in town, unique and creative hides, both location and container/cammo will win people over more than just another trope that's been done to death. Sure, these hides might require extra effort to create. I think of all the gadget caches in Germany. I think if we are to focus on the numbers, we ought to be thinking about building caches for favorite points rather than find counts.

 

Two thirds of the caches here are T2 or higher, our lamp posts don't have skirts, parking lot caches are rare and there are no power trails in the region. It's an area with lots of bushland and rugged back-country, intermingled with pockets of low density suburbia. Those who have hidden caches in the past, and the few still hiding them, have tended to go for bushland hides, often in interesting and scenic spots. Yet caching activity is at an all time low, with very few newcomers sticking with it for more than a month or two. Most of the finds I'm getting on even my newest caches are from out-of-area visitors - one, a puzzle published in February, has only had two finders who both came up from Sydney to do it.

[+The Jester]

I should have mentioned, my 25 miles cover Seattle and Tacoma, WA.  There are 4403 active caches that I haven't found in that area.  I've found 4214 in that area, of which 1683 are still active.  It's a pretty dense area for caches.  So a lot of urban area, but it also reaches into the foothills of the Cascade Mountains (some of which are between 2000-3000 feet high) so suburban and rural areas abound plus 'wilderness' areas too.

[+STNolan]

Decided to do this in my area. This is a 55 km radius around my home coordinates which encompasses my entire state capitol region. I calculated the # hidden, and the number from that year which have since been archived. I have excluded event caches. 

 

Year - Total Hidden - % Archived 

 

2018 - 36 Hidden - 05% Archived

2017 - 50 Hidden - 14% Archived

2016 - 37 Hidden - 11% Archived

2015 - 43 Hidden - 09% Archived

2014 - 48 Hidden - 31% Archived 

2013 - 35 Hidden - 31% Archived 

2012 - 12 Hidden - 50% Archived

2011 - 22 Hidden - 32% Archived

2010 - 82 Hidden - 41% Archived

2009 - 19 Hidden - 21% Archived

2008 - 24 Hidden - 54% Archived

2007 - 18 Hidden - 50% Archived

2006 - 13 Hidden - 77% Archived

2005 - 08 Hidden - 63% Archived 

2004 - 12 Hidden - 67% Archived

2003 - 26 Hidden - 58% Archived

2002 - 03 Hidden - 33% Archived

2001 - 04 Hidden - 100% Archived

2000 - None hidden

 

There's some interesting data here to be sure. As expected the farther we go back in years the larger the percentage of caches hidden in that year are archived. Additionally there was an oddly high spike of new caches hidden in 2010; but this year the number is falling squarely in the middle of the average number of hides in the past few years.

[+L0ne.R]

7 hours ago, STNolan said:

 Additionally there was an oddly high spike of new caches hidden in 2010

 

That was the year they dropped the power trail rule. A spike in cache hides resulted. 

[+The Jester]

13 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

 

That was the year they dropped the power trail rule. A spike in cache hides resulted. 

Maybe some places, but not every area has power trails.  My 25 mile region doesn't.  There is one bike trail with a series of caches but they are all different and not all easy - besides they weren't placed 2010.

[+barefootjeff]

22 hours ago, STNolan said:

Decided to do this in my area. This is a 55 km radius around my home coordinates which encompasses my entire state capitol region. I calculated the # hidden, and the number from that year which have since been archived. I have excluded event caches. 

 

Year - Total Hidden - % Archived 

 

Here's the numbers for my region, the New South Wales Central Coast, some 500 square kilometres of coast and hinterland on the northern side of the Hawkesbury River from Sydney.

 

2018    35*     6% archived

2017    61       3% archived

2016    78    26% archived

2015  160   42% archived

2014  171   54% archived

2013  124   61% archived

2012  230   80% archived

2011    59   71% archived

2010    53   72% archived

2009    21   67% archived

2008    51   73% archived

2007    55   69% archived

2006    61   48% archived

2005    50   78% archived

2004    11   55% archived

2003    17   59% archived

2002      9   67% archived

2001    12   67% archived

 

*The 2018 figure doesn't include 40 geoart caches published in February for the mega held at Morisset (just outside the Central Coast region) over Easter.

Between 2012 and 2015, the statistics were dominated by one cacher who hid a total of 235 caches before archiving them all in 2016 when she left the area.

There are currently 589 unarchived caches in this region.

Edited October 15, 2018 by barefootjeff
Exclude events and CITOs

[+STNolan]

14 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

 

That was the year they dropped the power trail rule. A spike in cache hides resulted. 

We have one “powertrail” in our state Capitol. Its 15 caches long; so I don’t think thats it. 

[+barefootjeff]

2 minutes ago, STNolan said:

14 hours ago, L0ne.R said:

That was the year they dropped the power trail rule. A spike in cache hides resulted. 

We have one “powertrail” in our state Capitol. Its 15 caches long; so I don’t think thats it. 

 

To the best of my knowledge, there've never been any power trails on the Central Coast. Even that prolific hider between 2012 and 2015 spread her caches far and wide, mostly in the hinterland, with many different hide styles and container types.

[+Mineral2]

There are a ton of small power trails near me. They get more prevalent in south-central washington and southern idaho. And of course Nevada has the (in)famous E.T. Trail. But we even had a power trail along the river that was accessible only by boat. It was unfortunately archived recently before I had a chance to try for it.

I'm not really a fan of power trails, but to canoe or kayak one is certainly different.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Mineral2

[+Hynz]

On 10/14/2018 at 7:16 AM, STNolan said:

I calculated the # hidden, and the number from that year which have since been archived.

Out of curiosity: How do you (and Jeff) determine the number of hidden caches, especially those from the early years which were archived also rather early?

[+barefootjeff]

7 minutes ago, Hynz said:

Out of curiosity: How do you (and Jeff) determine the number of hidden caches, especially those from the early years which were archived also rather early?

 

I used project-gc, switching between including and excluding archived caches from each year.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Bumping around 6 months since my last post. 

Cache numbers in Florida now at 40,895. This is a decline of 1000+ in the last 6 months -  the high season for finding and placing caches in Florida. 

 

I was surprised to see 208 new caches with 30 miles of my home coords in the last year, but mapping shows the bulk of these as powertrails of golf cart path caches in a large golf/retirement community. 

[+DerDiedler]

1 hour ago, Isonzo Karst said:

Cache numbers in Florida now at 40,895. This is a decline of 1000+ in the last 6 months -  the high season for finding and placing caches in Florida. 

so, about 40 years to go ;)

[+TeamRabbitRun]

2 hours ago, DerDiedler said:

so, about 40 years to go

 

That's a Citizen Kane joke!

[+barefootjeff]

6 hours ago, Isonzo Karst said:

Bumping around 6 months since my last post. 

Cache numbers in Florida now at 40,895. This is a decline of 1000+ in the last 6 months -  the high season for finding and placing caches in Florida. 

 

I was surprised to see 208 new caches with 30 miles of my home coords in the last year, but mapping shows the bulk of these as powertrails of golf cart path caches in a large golf/retirement community. 

 

So far in the first three months of this year, there have been just 4 new caches in my region (the New South Wales Central Coast, Australia), including one of mine. In 2018 we had 78 (40 of them geoart puzzles for the nearby Oz Geomuster mega) and our best year was 230 in 2012.

[+thebruce0]

Some years there may be spiked, where one or a few people place series or powertrails. Other years there may be slumps. Need a wiiiide sample for any kind of reasonable (ymmv) trend analysis.

[+DerDiedler]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

our best year was 230 in 2012

I'm  having a feeling that 2012 in general was the "best" year for geocaching. But it's just a feeling.

Edited March 21, 2019 by DerDiedler

[+Goldenwattle]

The last couple of years in Canberra the number of geocaches in the local area has increased dramatically. My bulk load now only covers a fraction of the area that it used too. As the number of caches increase my enthusiasm to find them goes down and the fewer I find. Same with another site I belong to, which has seen an increase in numbers in some areas. The numbers become overwhelming, but that's just me. The new geocaches are mainly power trails; both for driving and hiking.

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, DerDiedler said:

I'm  having a feeling that 2012 in general was the "best" year for geocaching. But it's not just a feeling.

 

I began in 2013, so that's what caused the rot to set in .
 

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

Some years there may be spiked, where one or a few people place series or powertrails. Other years there may be slumps. Need a wiiiide sample for any kind of reasonable (ymmv) trend analysis.

 

Here's the top ten number of hides (excluding events) by CO in my region since the beginning of 2015.

 

 

The 40 by MV are the mega geoart ones I mentioned earlier, which are all along forest trails in the Watagan Mountains, ALL7 left the region in 2017 and archived all her hides, xPhenoms hasn't done any caching since 2017 and I believe has also left the region although most of his hides are still active, and then there's me. I'm not sure if that's an honour I really want to have.

[+Goldenwattle]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

ALL7 left the region in 2017 and archived all her hides

Placing them around Canberra now. One of the reasons for a massive increase in hides. Up to about 800hides now.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Goldenwattle

[+Tuena]

I had a look at the hide stats in a 50 kilometre radius from home (Shoalhaven City, NSW) & there has been a surge in hides since 2015, from 121 per annum to 263 last year & 84 so far this year. A major reason would be power trails hidden in the Southern Highlands which started to take off in 2017. Wollongong has a few PTs but fairly old & much the same in the Shoalhaven, with one hidden this year. I'm not a financial member of Project GC so no stats on archived caches. Interest in the activity by local geocachers waxes & wains, myself included although I support another listing site as well.

[+lee737]

The number of finds/logs in general is way down here also, not just the new caches. I've had some email folders where my notifications get filed, and they are set on a 7 day purge cycle. Previously I'd note this area would run at around 800-1000 logs/wk, now it is more like 400-500, not long ago we got down to under 300. Sydney similar, runs around 1000 logs, previously much closer to 2000.

 

[+colleda]

2 minutes ago, lee737 said:

The number of finds/logs in general is way down here also, not just the new caches. I've had some email folders where my notifications get filed, and they are set on a 7 day purge cycle. Previously I'd note this area would run at around 800-1000 logs/wk, now it is more like 400-500, not long ago we got down to under 300. Sydney similar, runs around 1000 logs, previously much closer to 2000.

 

Even new caches aren't getting much activity around here.

[+lee737]

We're still placing new ones, maybe if we build it, they will come?
 

Edited March 22, 2019 by lee737

[+Goldenwattle]

In areas that already have lots of caches, naturally there would tend to be less new caches placed, as there are already many in place.

[+barefootjeff]

13 minutes ago, lee737 said:

We're still placing new ones, maybe if we build it, they will come?
 

 

Hmm. My latest hide, a D2/T3 traditional, was published at the end of February but has still only had one find, the FTFer who dashed out early from work in case someone else beat him to it, but he needn't have worried . The one before that, a D1.5/T3 traditional, was published back in October and has only had four finds, two of whom were from outside the region. Both these hides took considerable effort to put together, one requiring permission from National Parks and the other, well, let's just say it has an interesting twist that has earnt it four FPs from its four finds and took about seven months to come to fruition after sussing out the location.

 

So no, I place new ones and most don't come. Perhaps it's because these both require a bit of hiking (about two and three kilometres each way respectively, with the shorter one having a considerable elevation change), as the other three hides published in the region this year have fared a bit better (one of them, a 1.5/1.5 P&G with a hike of all of ten metres has had 15 finds since its publication in mid January). Maybe everyone just wants P&Gs now.

[+lee737]

Everyone's hanging out for the souvenirs next week?

 

[+barefootjeff]

7 minutes ago, lee737 said:

Everyone's hanging out for the souvenirs next week?

 

 

Perhaps, but there's only one cache on the Central Coast with 50+ FPs so anyone after the big scores is going to steer well clear of this region and head for Sydney. I'm not expecting to see any logs on my hides over the souvenir period as they all require a lot of effort for little reward.

[+lee737]

1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

In areas that already have lots of caches, naturally there would tend to be less new caches placed, as there are already many in place.

 

This must be true to some extent in a lot of areas, which then means local cachers run out of local caches to find. Die hards like us will just travel further out, but I think the game loses a bunch of players through simply running out of stuff to do.

[+lee737]

14 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Perhaps, but there's only one cache on the Central Coast with 50+ FPs so anyone after the big scores is going to steer well clear of this region and head for Sydney. I'm not expecting to see any logs on my hides over the souvenir period as they all require a lot of effort for little reward.

The boys and I are going to stay in downtown Sydney one weekend soon for that exact purpose....
 

[+barefootjeff]

4 minutes ago, lee737 said:

The boys and I are going to stay in downtown Sydney one weekend soon for that exact purpose....
 

 

I'm lucky - I can just jump on a train down to Circular Quay and probably knock up enough high FP ones to get all the souvenirs before lunch .

[+lee737]

19 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

I'm lucky - I can just jump on a train down to Circular Quay and probably knock up enough high FP ones to get all the souvenirs before lunch .

 

The kids love a hotel overnighter, so this one gives a perfect excuse for a little trip....

[+Isonzo Karst]

6 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

So no, I place new ones and most don't come.

Yep, I can do that too.  If your cache is not near a road or part of a powertrail  ( or has a valuable date related stat)  it's not going to be found.

 

I recently placed a cache where there was one for many years, a favorite of mine. ( CO moved away and picked up a lot of his hides.)  Anyway, I figured FTF on that, and then nobody, and i was right. A flat walk, less than 3 miles, and possible to bike on firm two tracks to pretty close - possibly some wet places along the way, ankle deep, not wading.

 

The old cache had 42 finds from August 2006 through 2013;   but only 2 finds since -  one in 2014, one in 2016, none in 2015,  2017, or 2018.   Caching as outdoor adventure fell off a cliff around 2012.

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

15 hours ago, DerDiedler said:

I'm  having a feeling that 2012 in general was the "best" year for geocaching. But it's just a feeling.

 

That depends on how you define "best".  If it's based primarily on quantity, 2012 was a couple of years after the "don't place a cache every 600' just because you can" language was removed from the guidelines, opening the flood gates to large power trails.  I don't think I'm alone in the opinion that power trails and an all about the numbers mentality was the best thing to happen in geocaching. 

[+thebruce0]

Yep, it may be important to remember that just because some year had a surge in numbers, that doesn't mean a surge in quality, and and reduction in numbers later may actually still be an increase in quality.

[+L0ne.R]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Yep, it may be important to remember that just because some year had a surge in numbers, that doesn't mean a surge in quality, and and reduction in numbers later may actually still be an increase in quality.

 

I hope so.

What I'm seeing is the power trail culture stuck. Those left playing have adapted to it. 

Edited March 22, 2019 by L0ne.R
sentence structure

[+thebruce0]

Yeah that's why I didn't define "quality".

[+DerDiedler]

@NYPaddleCacher

I agree with you. And thats why I put the word "best" in " "

 

But I also think, that a lot of good quality caches were published in 2012. Or to say it more generally, the caching community was most active in 2012. But still, it´s just a feeling.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

2 hours ago, DerDiedler said:

@NYPaddleCacher

I agree with you. And thats why I put the word "best" in " "

 

But I also think, that a lot of good quality caches were published in 2012. Or to say it more generally, the caching community was most active in 2012. But still, it´s just a feeling.

 

I don't know the answer to this, but in what year was the official geocaching app created?   It's debatable whether or not the availability of the app made the game better but it certainly had a significant impact on the number of players.

 

[+IceColdUK]

25 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I don't know the answer to this, but in what year was the official geocaching app created?

 

Don’t know either, but the friend who introduced me to caching, started (with a phone) in June 2008.

[+Isonzo Karst]

First I saw smartphone caching was in 2008, I don't know if it was Geocaching.com app, or some other app. (I saw someone using an internet connected Blackberry and that was connected wirelessly to a gps to achieve something similar to smartphone caching in 2004! I was dumbfounded at the time).

[+L0ne.R]

2 minutes ago, Isonzo Karst said:

First I saw smartphone caching was in 2008, I don't know if it was Geocaching.com app, or some other app. (I saw someone using an internet connected Blackberry and that was connected wirelessly to a gps to achieve something similar to smartphone caching in 2004! I was dumbfounded at the time).

 

I vaguely remember using that app. It worked with Pocket Queries. I believe it was called Cacheberry.