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Road Sign Cache Hides


kruzrrr

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Caches placed at highway road signs with no place to park, only the shoulder of the highway.   Are these good hides or would they be considered a little bit dangerous?

To me it doesn't seem like a safe place to stop and search for a cache. 

What does anyone else think?

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5 minutes ago, kruzrrr said:

Caches placed at highway road signs with no place to park, only the shoulder of the highway.   Are these good hides or would they be considered a little bit dangerous?

To me it doesn't seem like a safe place to stop and search for a cache. 

What does anyone else think?

 

Usually those that I Found are in service or resting areas along the highways...

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44 minutes ago, kruzrrr said:

Caches placed at highway road signs with no place to park, only the shoulder of the highway.   Are these good hides or would they be considered a little bit dangerous?

To me it doesn't seem like a safe place to stop and search for a cache. 

What does anyone else think?

I've found roadside caches where the nearest safe parking was a mile away. I parked, walked a mile to the cache, and walked a mile back to my vehicle.

 

Not every roadside cache is a P&G.

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Sounds like maybe there's a story ?     :)

 

We can't place hides on "highways" here.   I don't understand why someone would want to.  Can at some rest areas though.

 I don't care for roadside hides in general though.

We know of one series along a busy route, always wondered how they got permission from the state's DOT to place  on every sign along it...

 

You've been around long enough to know that danger isn't considered by a Reviewer for publishing, I'd guess if the D/T's correct.

We've done a couple...

When the simple act of getting out of your car is risky,  placing a cache there too shows no common sense.

 

 

 

 

Edited by cerberus1
enthusiasticemphasis...
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3 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

Sounds like maybe there's a story ?     :)

Ya think? ;)

 

4 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

You've been around long enough to know that danger isn't considered by a Reviewer for publishing, I'd guess if the D/T's correct.

And quality ("good hides") isn't considered either.

 

If there's a guideline issue (e.g., lack of adequate permission), then that would be different. But quality or safety aren't considered by the volunteer reviewers.

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1 hour ago, kruzrrr said:

Caches placed at highway road signs with no place to park, only the shoulder of the highway.   Are these good hides or would they be considered a little bit dangerous?

To me it doesn't seem like a safe place to stop and search for a cache. 

What does anyone else think?

 

If you are unsure about the safety of geocachers and other traffic participants make contact to the owner and tell him (or her). It is possible that he (or she) hasn't thoguth about that and maybe will archive the cache or move it to a safer place.

If the owner knows a good way to log the cache safely for everyone (!) you might ask him (or her) to write this into the listing. Perhaps adding some trailheads will help.

And if the owner doesn't react at all or says "f.... u I don't care" you might log "needs archived" if you still think that it's a dangerous hide.

 

Most geocaches will take the log (+1 point) and stay quiet. Looking away is no solution so get active! The owner is always the first person to talk to....

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It depends on the highway. This is at a cache I found on the Pacific Highway (route B83) on a rainy day during last year's Streak Week promotion. There's very little traffic on that road now as it's bypassed by the M1 motorway.

 

0ca5506a-e1e0-48d0-b129-d7904a8aee56_l.j

 

Most of the secondary rural highways around here are like this, with little traffic or risk to pedestrians.

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15 minutes ago, frostengel said:

And if the owner doesn't react at all or says "f.... u I don't care" you might log "needs archived" if you still think that it's a dangerous hide.

Do you do this for all dangerous hides, such as those on cliff sides or in really tall trees?

"Dangerous" does not equal "unpublishable".

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1 hour ago, niraD said:

I've found roadside caches where the nearest safe parking was a mile away. I parked, walked a mile to the cache, and walked a mile back to my vehicle.

 

Not every roadside cache is a P&G.

 

I expect that most put on the 4-way flashers and run over for a quick +1. 

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1 hour ago, frostengel said:

If the owner knows a good way to log the cache safely for everyone (!) you might ask him (or her) to write this into the listing. Perhaps adding some trailheads will help.

And if the owner doesn't react at all or says "f.... u I don't care" you might log "needs archived" if you still think that it's a dangerous hide.

Danger for caches in general is DEFINITELY a subjective thing.

 

While I don't have a lot of high T finds to my credit, I own the ones I tackled, and several of them were a whole lot less than 'safe' if incorrectly approached.  That said, I didn't expect the owner to tell me how to go about making the find, either.  Of interest, I have a whole lot less T5 caches than you do.

 

Your current and some previous posts on a different topic lead me to think you are perhaps more 'careful' in your approach to life than some of the rest of us, and wouldn't be comfortable with climbing 40' up into a sketchy, pine beetle ravaged Ponderosa Pine, and probably think the rest of us are a bit mad for doing this or anything similarly 'dangerous'.  I learned repelling techniques as a kid, and wouldn't feel the slightest bit concerned about dealing with a cache on a cliff face that required it providing i had the right gear with me. 

 

I've also had a few where I recognized that I came unprepared for the physical aspect of the find, and passed on them for another day.  There's even a couple out there where at my age, I'm not sure my skills are up to it anymore. 

 

You'll need to adjust to the fact that risk/reward and ability to adapt technique to higher risk scenarios varies dramatically between individuals, and not all of us are as conservative in our outlook.

 

For those reasons and others, most of us don't write N/A logs for 'dangerous' caches.  That's never been how it's done.  It's up to the individual to determine their own ability to manage a find for any particular cache, and 'dangerous' is often a function of how a cache is approached and what the finder brings to the site in the way of experience and/or equipment.

 

Edited by ecanderson
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If you think it's dangerous, move on. No-one is forcing you to do it. I'm getting tired of everyone (not specifically Geocachers) trying to be guardians of the people. Basically, do what you think is good, avoid what you think is bad, and let others think for themselves. Stop trying to stop stuff that you personally don't like.

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6 hours ago, ecanderson said:

Danger for caches in general is DEFINITELY a subjective thing.

 

Sure. I'll give some examples:

 

I have done several terrain 5 caches in my life (and own some, and some terrain 4.5). I trust strong trees climbing up (with or without rope), I trust strong railings going down.

 

- If I found a tree climbing cache and noticed that most of the branches are dead - I can just walk on and forget about it OR I can tell the owner. He may decide to use the better tree 5 metres apart. If I just walk on the owner may not notice, nothing happens to me but sooner or later some one may fall.

Even a hint in the listing "there are dead branches, be careful" is better than nothing.

- If I found a decending cache from a bridge with some stable decending points but the railing that looks promising is rusty and I notice that it may not hold my weight. I do not use it, of course, but I am not sure about other less experience or less careful cachers. I contact the owner and he writes in the hint "don't use the railing, better use ....." and everything is fine.

- I had a normal multi cache (D3, T3) where you had to search onto a brige and the railing was really rusty. Several cachers had used it to lean over and look down and had written this in there log that this was dangerous. You couldn't see that it was so unstable. As owner I would give a red note (plus hint) saying "be careful, don't lean against it". That will not destroy the cache experience but will make it more safe for the next cachers.

- Just a last example: you have a "jungle" cache in a highly vegetated area. Somewhere in between there is a hidden hole and I almost broke my foot as i stumbled across it. You, as the owner, did not know this as your cache is some metres away. What should I do? Shouldn't I tell you about this hole and ask you to decide what's necessary or make a proposal what you could do (add a hint)?

 

Things may change and as an owner I'd like to get reports about things being dangerous - new things, things I haven't noticed, things I haven't thought of.

 

5 hours ago, Lost_not_found said:

If you think it's dangerous, move on. No-one is forcing you to do it. I'm getting tired of everyone (not specifically Geocachers) trying to be guardians of the people. Basically, do what you think is good, avoid what you think is bad, and let others think for themselves. Stop trying to stop stuff that you personally don't like.

 

Take the example with the trust worthy looking but in fact not very stable railing at the descending cache. Some cachers may not notice and if only one drops down from inexperience/his self dumbness using this railing that's bad. You tell me that I should risk that instead of just writing one mail asking the owner to give that hint to be careful and better use .... as descending point? I would like that cache very much - but only using the stable connections.

 

We have German saying "nach mir die Sintflut" - I won't live with this motto.

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I don't off hand know of a cache alongside a highway, a majo travel road- such as I81, I 7O ( eastern US) but ion other less travelled yes. Everyone I have been at so far has plenty of room too get off the road itself. Alongside county/state  roads it can be more a problem.  But saying that there is only area that I saw problems,. Several cachers made log notations stating the danger of those, bu y cache, not a general statement. AlI know of were placed by newbie cachers. I know a few were archived by CO. 

 

A lot of caches that looks on the highway around here have in the description " not accessible from there highway". And as mentioned if you don't feel comfortable at the cache, there are others. I have some I am hesitant about due to nearly 70 year old legs climbing fairly steep hills. 

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20 minutes ago, kruzrrr said:

I should have given a little more info.  Here is one cache in a series along the major highway between Winnipeg, Manitoba and Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

GC44MD1.  

It looks like there's a spot to pull off the divided highway less than 0.5mi/0.8km west of GZ.

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3 hours ago, kruzrrr said:

I should have given a little more info.  Here is one cache in a series along the major highway between Winnipeg, Manitoba and Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

GC44MD1.  

 

Thanks for the code.

 

A bunch of logs describe the cache as broken, wet, frozen (but only one NM in 2014 with no response to the active power trail owner).

 

There were a few that mentioned the parking. Here are some comments: 

 

Found: Parking on the shoulder with one side in the ditch was ok, merging into the traffic was much harder.

 

DNF: Several caches of this series have no parking except or on the shoulder of the T.C. Did not attempt.

 

Found: Didn't like stopping on the busy highway, managed to make the find despite of. SL

 

I'm surprised the reviewer allowed caches along a trans-canada highway. I'm pretty sure it's not allowed in Ontario. 

 

2 hours ago, niraD said:

It looks like there's a spot to pull off the divided highway less than 0.5mi/0.8km west of GZ.

 

It doesn't seem to be illegal to walk along a highway in Manitoba, but the government website says this:

  • Most provincial highways operate at posted speeds between approximately 90 and 110 km/h; at these high speeds, cyclists and pedestrians are very vulnerable in the case of a collision. In such cases, reaction times are reduced and collision impacts are very severe.
  • Highways with higher traffic volumes present a greater risk to cyclists and pedestrians than highways with low traffic volumes. 
Edited by L0ne.R
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In my state, a cache that is close enough to a major highway that even the perception of being able to pull over on the highway is sufficient to get close to it (even if that is not the intent, even if you explicitly state on your cache page NOT to do that) is simply not publishable. Some are close to highways but it's clear that those ones are not accessible by highway so they are allowed. In this case it doesn't seem tenable. I would forget this idea.

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19 hours ago, kruzrrr said:

Caches placed at highway road signs with no place to park, only the shoulder of the highway.   Are these good hides or would they be considered a little bit dangerous?

To me it doesn't seem like a safe place to stop and search for a cache. 

What does anyone else think?

 

I've climbed trees for a caches that were far more "dangerous".

However, looking at the street view, IMHO Its a lousy place for a cache and I would drive by it. 

I could be somewhat safe and pull of the highway in the nearby pull off. Or I could pull of at the prior exit and look for a good place to park and walk there. But why would I? Has this cache brought me to an interesting place worth the trouble to get to?  Have I not found enough 35 mm film can caches? 

I've done my share of crappy caches because urban areas are loaded with them. But I sure don't go out of my way or park along a highway to do them.

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1 hour ago, L0ne.R said:
4 hours ago, niraD said:

It looks like there's a spot to pull off the divided highway less than 0.5mi/0.8km west of GZ.

It doesn't seem to be illegal to walk along a highway in Manitoba, but

You can never be sure from the online satellite photos (in some areas, they are poorly calibrated), but it looked like it was off the highway to me. The obvious approach seemed to be to drive past it, pull off on the side road, park somewhere off the side road, and then walk less than half a mile back to GZ.

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5 hours ago, kruzrrr said:

I should have given a little more info.  Here is one cache in a series along the major highway between Winnipeg, Manitoba and Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

GC44MD1.  

 

Just had a look, and there is a VERY nice pull-out there.  There's even a stop sign for access back to the highway.  Not sure I see an issue with that one.

 

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4 hours ago, niraD said:

You can never be sure from the online satellite photos (in some areas, they are poorly calibrated), but it looked like it was off the highway to me. The obvious approach seemed to be to drive past it, pull off on the side road, park somewhere off the side road, and then walk less than half a mile back to GZ.

 

Another option is to simply not try to find it.  

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5 hours ago, ecanderson said:

Just had a look, and there is a VERY nice pull-out there.  There's even a stop sign for access back to the highway.  Not sure I see an issue with that one.

 

I just picked one of the lower numbered caches in the series of over 65 caches over a span of about 45 miles of highway. The names go from TTP1 to TTP69

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On 4/20/2020 at 2:31 PM, ecanderson said:

Just had a look, and there is a VERY nice pull-out there.  There's even a stop sign for access back to the highway.  Not sure I see an issue with that one.

 

 

There was a comment from one finder about merging back on to the highway:

 

Found: "Parking on the shoulder with one side in the ditch was ok, merging into the traffic was much harder."

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