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How do I create an interesting micro container?


321geocache

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Hi,

I own a geocache in an urban area in a very small park. Recently, it disappeared from its location, and I temporarily disabled the listing. The park has several trees perfect for hiding geocaches in, but I was looking for any suggestions for a micro container that is not the ordinary bison tube attached to a bush. Something that geocachers will remember, unlike the many LPCs that are near my geocache. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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3 hours ago, 321geocache said:

Hi,

I own a geocache in an urban area in a very small park. Recently, it disappeared from its location, and I temporarily disabled the listing. The park has several trees perfect for hiding geocaches in, but I was looking for any suggestions for a micro container that is not the ordinary bison tube attached to a bush. Something that geocachers will remember, unlike the many LPCs that are near my geocache. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

There are pages and pages of ideas here:

You could start at the end and work back, due to photos on older posts disappearing.

Also, I've seen an "apple" in a pine tree (a pineapple!). Or "acorn" in some non-oak.

My first cache was a cloth leaf covered photo canister with googly eyes on the lid and a hook to hang on a branch. It got 28 favorites before the tree was cut down.

A "micro" can require more maintenance than a small box. I have a small lock-n-lock in a small tree in a park. It's been much less work for me than the previous match tube was, yet has the same number of favorites in less than a year.

Edited by kunarion
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3 hours ago, kunarion said:

Also, I've seen an "apple" in a pine tree (a pineapple!). Or "acorn" in some non-oak.

A more subtle version of this is the wrong kind of cone in a conifer tree. For example, a fir cone in a pine tree, or a spruce cone in a redwood tree.

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Thanks everyone for the suggestions!

If you think it won't be messed with by muggles, then maybe a small birdhouse hung from a tree branch with a container inside the house to hold the logsheet.

Unfortunately, the park has many muggles that use it as a short cut  to a factory building across the street. The birdhouse will probably be stolen.



Also, I've seen an "apple" in a pine tree (a pineapple!). Or "acorn" in some non-oak.

My first cache was a cloth leaf covered photo canister with googly eyes on the lid and a hook to hang on a branch. It got 28 favorites before the tree was cut down.

A more subtle version of this is the wrong kind of cone in a conifer tree. For example, a fir cone in a pine tree, or a spruce cone in a redwood tree.

I like this idea. I'll probably attach something to a tree that blends in well. There are no conifers or evergreens in the park, so I'll probably just attach a micro covered with fake leaves to a tree , or I'll attach it to one of the sculptures in the park.

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23 minutes ago, 321geocache said:

I'll probably attach something to a tree that blends in well. There are no conifers or evergreens in the park, so I'll probably just attach a micro covered with fake leaves to a tree , or I'll attach it to one of the sculptures in the park.

 

My first Micro had a wire hook to hang it on a branch.  It would "migrate" all over the tree, so I had to go find it all the time.  Lately I've set up most any cache so that there's a defined spot to return it.  I had some Micros in a popular park, and they all had magnets on the tubes, with magnets velcro strapped to a branch.  Some cachers still couldn't figure that out :rolleyes:, but most of the time, the cache was right where it needed to be (basically, in its best hiding spot).  Now I have some small lock-n-locks set up the same way, or magnetically held to a metal object, and the magnet is inside the container where it stays in place.

Micros are not suited to me as a cache owner.  They are a lot more work to keep clean and dry than slightly bigger lock-n-locks which can hold a real log book, and I may need to replace the O-ring every couple of finds!  Most "Micro" cache owners place the worst container they own, let their caches become a nasty soup, and leave it that way.  I won't inflict that on people.  I have Micros only in special situations, and if they aren't working well, I fix that.

 

 

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Edited by kunarion
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28 minutes ago, 321geocache said:

Unfortunately, the park has many muggles that use it as a short cut  to a factory building across the street. The birdhouse will probably be stolen.

 

Several of my caches are placed in parks where there are sometimes huge crowds, and where nobody could seem to keep a cache.  One was in the middle of a popular picnic area, and as far as I could tell, it was never bothered by muggles (although cachers had to wait til people left).

My challenge is to decide where the muggles do not go, and design a cool cache in a cool spot, where it will endure.

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Thanks kunarion. The reason I'm using a micro is because there is no place in the park to hide a well-hidden cache larger than a micro. (Of course, if you have any suggestions on how to hide a cache larger than a micro in a park like this, that would be great.) The park is small, being less than an acre in size. It is also in the middle of a neighborhood close to downtown.

The park is rather open, with a few trees. Attaching a micro to a tree with low-growing branches seems to me to be the best idea.

Muggles in the park tend to go directly across the park, so I've decided to hide it off the main path and in an area where muggles rarely go. After having the original cache go missing, I've decided that this time it must be extremely well hidden so it will last for years.

In case you would like to see the park on google maps, it's called Fletcher Park, 1429 E Brookside Ave, Indianapolis, IN 46201.

Edited by 321geocache
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5 minutes ago, 321geocache said:

if you have any suggestions on how to hide a cache larger than a micro in a park like this, that would be great.

 

I have a slightly-larger-than-an-average-Small lock-n-lock in a magnolia tree (evergreen, great for hiding stuff year-round).  I employed one trick that can work very well: Place the cache about 6 feet up.  People tend to notice caches less that are above eye level, but otherwise in plain sight.  It's an amazing phenomenon.  It also affects cachers, so expect some DNFs or at least Finds where "I searched for a few minutes".

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The only issue is that this park has no evergreen trees. However, I could probably hide a well-camouflaged lock-n-lock in one of the large maple or sycamore trees in the park. I could easily place one 6 - 8 feet up in the tree. 

 

Thanks for your help! I'll probably be enabling the cache and replacing the container soon, so all of these ideas will come in handy.

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14 hours ago, noncentric said:

If you think it won't be messed with by muggles, then maybe a small birdhouse hung from a tree branch with a container inside the house to hold the logsheet. Be sure to cover the 'door' though, so birds do not try to make a home inside.

Yes.   Sometimes making a creative container to hold the ordinary bison tube can be a really good idea.   Not only will it be unique but a container inside a container will weather much better. 

Let your imagination run wild.  

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On 4/23/2018 at 8:27 PM, 321geocache said:

Hi,

I own a geocache in an urban area in a very small park. Recently, it disappeared from its location, and I temporarily disabled the listing. The park has several trees perfect for hiding geocaches in, but I was looking for any suggestions for a micro container that is not the ordinary bison tube attached to a bush. Something that geocachers will remember, unlike the many LPCs that are near my geocache. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!

I went the camo route.  This is a pill bottle I had, but I recently found one of those metallic shiny tubes painted similarly and it was hard to spot with my whole family trying to find it. 

 

I also found one of those hollow rocks a few days ago, and it was right in plain sight.  The downside there is kids might pick it up or kick it around.  

Geo1.JPG

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I replaced the cache today. I decided to hide the cache in a tree. You can walk around the tree a hundred times without knowing there's a cache there. I won't say exactly how it's hidden, as someone might see the hint in a post and find it immediately. I did use one of the suggestions that was mentioned in this topic by a member.

 

Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully this cache will last for a long time.

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On 4/25/2018 at 7:34 PM, 321geocache said:

I replaced the cache today. I decided to hide the cache in a tree. You can walk around the tree a hundred times without knowing there's a cache there. I won't say exactly how it's hidden, as someone might see the hint in a post and find it immediately. I did use one of the suggestions that was mentioned in this topic by a member.

 

Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully this cache will last for a long time.

I found this shotgun shell pushed into a drilled out hole.  If it was placed with the hole down I would have taken a lot longer to find it, noticed the metallic striker fairly quick though. 

Under a tree, in a field in a huge park.  Plenty of muggles around.  

FB_IMG_1525109557257.jpg

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I found this shotgun shell pushed into a drilled out hole.  If it was placed with the hole down I would have taken a lot longer to find it, noticed the metallic striker fairly quick though. 

Under a tree, in a field in a huge park.  Plenty of muggles around. 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been looking to hide another cache, and I might use this idea. It's a park that has many large trees. If I hide a cache like that there, it'll definitely be tricky. Nice to always have some unique caches.

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I would not worry about the container and worry about the location. Also, I would make the micro really challenging to find!

23101247d5071f52b170ec1f02ec2f18--geocac Also, I think if you live in a rural area, you should worry about the view and location. If you live in an urban area you may want to worry about the difficulty.

Happy Cachin, 

Cmwcwest

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4 hours ago, cmwcwest said:

I would not worry about the container and worry about the location. Also, I would make the micro really challenging to find!

23101247d5071f52b170ec1f02ec2f18--geocac Also, I think if you live in a rural area, you should worry about the view and location. If you live in an urban area you may want to worry about the difficulty.

Happy Cachin, 

Cmwcwest

Urban areas can have interesting views and locations too.  I've cached in a lot of rural areas and found many in spots that highlight an interesting spot in an urban jungle.  Sometimes it's just a plaque nearby that describes some historical event that occurred at the location but often I wouldn't have known about the location if not for a cache placed there.  I agree about the difficulty in urban areas though.  One can get creative with the hide, but the longer it takes for someone to find and/or retrieve the cache the greater chance that someone is going to notice, no matter how stealthy one tries to be.

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In the woods, simply placing a bison in a pine is challenging to find.  Challenging to find in urban areas not only gets you noticed by the extra time you're there, but has people picking, tugging, and often breaking public/private property just to sign a log.  We witnessed an entire memorial destroyed with light panels, elec. sockets, even the flag pole, dismantled by people looking for a micro in a bush... 

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I recently solved a mystery to get the coordinates and, once i was finally in that area, headed to the GZ.

 

I didn't pay enough attention beforehand to realize the container was micro size.

 

Once I got to the GZ, I then noticed the container was listed as micro size. In a spot of uncountable rocks next to a river, with several small but many-branched trees clustered at the GZ.

 

My team (I wasn't alone on this) looked for about 30 minutes but we admittedly didn't scrutinize every twig on every tree, nor did we overturn every single rock in the GZ. At several points, disgusted with this sort of hide, I backed up, figured "surely someone wouldn't create a needle in a haystack hide and think that's fun, there must be something obvious" and tried to think of the obvious spots were someone would put it, not "overthink" it. Well, it didn't work. We left the site disappointed, especially since the puzzle had taken a bit of paperwork/thinking to solve in the first place. Also annoyed because the GZ could have easily accomodated a larger cache, which could then hold a more proper log, swag, etc.

 

I know I'm not the most experienced geocacher yet, but I'm quickly developing a sense of what I do and do not enjoy about the game. As I gain more experience, I will try to be more selective in what caches I go for in the future.

 

Moral of the story, in my opinion: micros can be a needle in a haystack hide. Personally I don't like those. Don't make one of those.

Edited by Korichnovui
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On ‎5‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 9:39 AM, Korichnovui said:

...I backed up, figured "surely someone wouldn't create a needle in a haystack hide and think that's fun, there must be something obvious"...

 

Moral of the story, in my opinion: micros can be a needle in a haystack hide. Personally I don't like those. Don't make one of those.

 

I can't personally understand it myself, but some people love to integrate discomfort and frustration into their caches. I can't stand the evilly-camoed cache that's hidden on the edge of the sidewalk of a busy street, when it could have been hidden 15 feet away in a spot where the seeker could search more comfortably and with less risk of the cache being muggled. Likewise with needle-in-a-haystack caches. Those inevitably lead to the area being damaged, whether it's man-made or natural.

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7 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

I can't personally understand it myself, but some people love to integrate discomfort and frustration into their caches. I can't stand the evilly-camoed cache that's hidden on the edge of the sidewalk of a busy street, when it could have been hidden 15 feet away in a spot where the seeker could search more comfortably and with less risk of the cache being muggled. Likewise with needle-in-a-haystack caches. Those inevitably lead to the area being damaged, whether it's man-made or natural.

On the other hand, I enjoy "evil" camouflage and hidden-in-plain-sight caches. The location needs to be one that can withstand the repeated prolonged searches, but I enjoy caches where I've searched "everywhere it could possibly be" within minutes, and then have to really think to figure out where the cache was actually hidden.

 

The needle-in-a-haystack hides I don't like either. Although I have seen a few that initially looked like needle-in-a-haystack hides, but which were much easier when approached in a more thoughtful manner.

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