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Hello all,

I was wondering if there was any way to view archived caches in a certain area? Preferably, seeing all archived hides on a map like the map currently supported on the website would be awesome, but I dont think that is an option on the geocaching website. I know archived cache pages can still be accessed, but theres no real easy way to search for them. You kind of have to already know what cache you are looking for. This is mainly out of just pure curiosity; it would be really interesting to me to see where caches have previously been in different areas. Anyone know of an easy way to view archived caches around me/other places?

Thanks so much!

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11 hours ago, 1962penny said:

Thank you! Man, I wish Groundspeak didnt institute this weird "cache has been locked thing." Ive found some cool old virtuals that have been archived but still can be done! Wish I could log them. 

 

It was because of abuse that locking has happened. Caches that helped with stats would be logged as “found” even after it had gone missing and archived by a reviewer (CO no longer playing for years), or the missing cache with a long-gone owner would mysteriously reappear (throwdown) so people could continue to log finds, or a cache was removed and archived by a CO but people kept logging it as found.  I asked a reviewer to lock one of my letterbox listings because after I removed and archived it, it was still logged as found because it was needed to qualify for a few LB challenges. 

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12 hours ago, 1962penny said:

Thank you! Man, I wish Groundspeak didnt institute this weird "cache has been locked thing." Ive found some cool old virtuals that have been archived but still can be done! Wish I could log them. 

Caches are archived for a variety of reasons.  One is that the land owner/manager has not given permission for the cache to be placed at that location and may be vehemently opposed to having people searching for a cache on their property.  That property may be just a small portion of all the land they manage.  Is getting a +1 in your find count more important than the risk of the ire of a land manager that might decide to ban geocachers from all the under their watch?

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13 hours ago, 1962penny said:

wish Groundspeak didnt institute this weird "cache has been locked thing." Ive found some cool old virtuals that have been archived but still can be done! Wish I could log them. 

 

On the cache page, hit the ...all nearby waymarks on Waymarking.com link... there often is a loggable waymark on the  virtual feature. Not always of course, but often enough to be worth trying the link.

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22 hours ago, 1962penny said:

I wish Groundspeak didnt institute this weird "cache has been locked thing."

I can understand why in some cases they would do this thing, but I was disappointed to go back wanting to add the square brackets to my FTF to an early cache find so the cache could be added to my FTF statistics, to find the cache archived and locked, so that I couldn't add the brackets on this cache.

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Agree with most, that there's a number of reasons that those virtuals had to be locked.  

Similar to Goldenwattle though, we know a lot of families whose kids can't back-date locked caches when they get their own account.

But other than the very-few examples, I don't understand why someone would want to add a new find to a virtual that the CO archived.

Seems (to me) sorta disrespectful to the CO.     It's not like they could take their container away to make it official...

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16 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

I can understand why in some cases they would do this thing, but I was disappointed to go back wanting to add the square brackets to my FTF to an early cache find so the cache could be added to my FTF statistics, to find the cache archived and locked, so that I couldn't add the brackets on this cache.

You can add those locked geocaches to a public bookmark list and configure your PGC profile to reference it for FTF statistics.

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14 minutes ago, Oxford Stone said:

in all cases the archived caches are locked. 

All archived caches I have found have not been locked. But that might depend on the local reviewer. If the physical cache and log is still there, I think it's fair game to log it. If the CO didn't want it logged, they should have removed the container. Which they should have done anyway when they archived it, rather than leave litter.

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On 5/16/2020 at 3:49 AM, 1962penny said:

Thank you! Man, I wish Groundspeak didnt institute this weird "cache has been locked thing." Ive found some cool old virtuals that have been archived but still can be done! Wish I could log them. 

 

I'd be curious as to which ones you were looking at.  Many archived virtuals can be done easily.  Some, very easily - from your own house, even.  If you search the forums for the phrase "armchair virtual," you'll get a sense of the abuse that used to happen, and why an entire generation of geocachers twitches every time they read the phrase "Greetings from Germany."  So, no, many of these are locked for a reason, and are best left alone.

Edited by hzoi
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3 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

All archived caches I have found have not been locked. But that might depend on the local reviewer. If the physical cache and log is still there, I think it's fair game to log it. If the CO didn't want it logged, they should have removed the container. Which they should have done anyway when they archived it, rather than leave litter.

 

Sometimes the owner wants it logged. There have been owners who got around the distance rule by archiving but leaving their cache, then placing another cache nearby, within the .1 mile rule. Then they let others know that the initial cache was still there and could be logged. 

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4 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

All archived caches I have found have not been locked. But that might depend on the local reviewer. If the physical cache and log is still there, I think it's fair game to log it. If the CO didn't want it logged, they should have removed the container. Which they should have done anyway when they archived it, rather than leave litter.

The one I found - I can't remember if the eCO was aware that the old container was still in the same tree, the 2 containers ended up one inside the other, the reviewer became aware and locked the old one.

Of my 2 - one I've recycled geolitter, effectively. CO long gone and I've just reused the same container in what is a great hiding place. The other is also the same container but on the suggestion of the old CO who wants to own less caches. It's now a different cache type, for what it's worth. 

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On 5/15/2020 at 5:56 PM, TmdAndGG said:

Project GC works for that! Set it up like this, and just change the profile names to yours, and edit the state and county (and country if needed) to match where you want to see. To get the disabled and archived check boxes to show up, click "add filter" and select "show disabled/archived on the list.

https://project-gc.com/Tools/MapCompare

 

I used Project GC to map the caches in my town that were archived between 2000 and 2015 and compared that to the active caches that we have now. What a difference. Most of the the older caches were in the city parks located around the four lakes. Most of the newer caches are 0.1 mile apart on the highways leading in and out of town. Also, it looks like we had more local people caching back in the day.

Edited by Ain'tWastin'Time
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59 minutes ago, GeocachingGoku said:

I have also seen archived caches that have shown up

GC number?

 

The only two scenarios I can see where an Archived cache shows on the map are:

(1) you somehow are looking at an old, not updated version of the map contents. In this case, the cache won't show as Archived, but may as Disabled or even active (whatever its last state was before being archived).

(2) you had impeccable timing, and went to the cache listing within a very short time of the cache being archived. This is a special case of scenario #1. ;)

 

Archived caches do not show on the map. If a cache is on the map, but is archived, refresh your map, and the archived cache will disappear.

Edited by TriciaG
closed parenthesis
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54 minutes ago, GeocachingGoku said:

I have also seen archived caches that have shown up

 

Archived caches do not show up in any search on Groundspeaks sites, unless you search for THAT cache, search the Cache Owner, or look at the logs of a cacher that has logged the now Archived cache.

Edited by Bear and Ragged
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7 hours ago, Bear and Ragged said:

 

Archived caches do not show up in any search on Groundspeaks sites, unless you search for THAT cache, search the Cache Owner, or look at the logs of a cacher that has logged the now Archived cache.

 

It's possible to map archived caches that you've found. First, go to Search and select the Found option (you can also select the Disabled option if you want to exclude currently active caches but that will still include disabled as well as archived caches). Add those caches to a list, then make a PQ of the list and finally map the PQ. This is what I get when I search for caches I've found within 5km of home and many of those are now archived:

 

image.png.08a16e5decc4c846bace1dc8973f463e.png

 

For anyone wondering, the owned cache near the beach is one of my events (now long archived).

 

In days gone by, you could just directly map the results of a search or a list and it would show any archived caches on it, but those now go to the new map which doesn't show archived caches. The only way I've found that will show archived caches on a map is via a list and PQ. Creating a PQ directly of caches you've found won't include archived caches, except for the special My Finds PQ which can't be directly mapped.

Edited by barefootjeff
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21 hours ago, GeocachingGoku said:
On 5/18/2020 at 9:14 PM, RuideAlmeida said:

Disabled is not the same than Archived.

I have also seen archived caches that have shown up

While I am glad that you have enjoyed geocaching so far, please consider that your (to date) 33 days of geocaching experience over the 7 caches that you've found does not equate to subject matter expertise.

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12 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

I looked at GSAK once and couldn't figure it out, so have never used it.

 

You should have looked at least twice :lol:

 

GSAK has a steep learning curve but once you get the hang of it you can't go without anymore. It really is a SAK for G.

Put some time in it and read the GSAK forums and you'll be up and running in no time (ok, in little time).

 

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42 minutes ago, on4bam said:

 

You should have looked at least twice :lol:

 

GSAK has a steep learning curve but once you get the hang of it you can't go without anymore. It really is a SAK for G.

Put some time in it and read the GSAK forums and you'll be up and running in no time (ok, in little time).

 

Using GSAK, how many caches can I load onto my GPS? As present I can only do a couple of bulk loads; maybe a third one if lucky, before my Garmin etrex30 freezes. That's only 2,000 to 3,000 caches, which is not enough when travelling though several countries, or even one country often.

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2 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

Using GSAK, how many caches can I load onto my GPS? As present I can only do a couple of bulk loads; maybe a third one if lucky, before my Garmin etrex30 freezes. That's only 2,000 to 3,000 caches, which is not enough when travelling though several countries, or even one country often.

I don't know the Etrex but I load my Oregon (now 700 but also previous 600) from GSAK and Garminexport macro with GGZ files instead of GPX and have loaded about 30000 in 1 GGZ file. The GPS doesn't even blink.

As for during holidays, I do prepare. That means getting all caches for our destination (1000's of caches and more) and first adding a userflag, then I remove the userflag for caches we certainly will not do (to far off our route, T-rating to high or any other reason). I then load only the selection onto the GPS which is still 1000's.

My GSAK database can be used in GDAK on Android so I always have all caches (also those without user flag) so I can always load extra GPX files should we end up somewhere outside the initial areas we selected.

 

Back on topic: A Belgian geocaching site used to have a GPX file with all archived Belgian geocaches (about 15000 at that time). I downloaded that file, imported it in GSAK and have been moving newly archived caches to that database ever since. It holds over 50000 caches now. Archived founds are in my Found database and are not included but I could easily filter Belgian found archived caches and add them to the archived database.

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, on4bam said:

I don't know the Etrex but I load my Oregon (now 700 but also previous 600) from GSAK and Garminexport macro with GGZ files instead of GPX and have loaded about 30000 in 1 GGZ file. The GPS doesn't even blink.

As for during holidays, I do prepare. That means getting all caches for our destination (1000's of caches and more) and first adding a userflag, then I remove the userflag for caches we certainly will not do (to far off our route, T-rating to high or any other reason). I then load only the selection onto the GPS which is still 1000's.

My GSAK database can be used in GDAK on Android so I always have all caches (also those without user flag) so I can always load extra GPX files should we end up somewhere outside the initial areas we selected.

 

Back on topic: A Belgian geocaching site used to have a GPX file with all archived Belgian geocaches (about 15000 at that time). I downloaded that file, imported it in GSAK and have been moving newly archived caches to that database ever since. It holds over 50000 caches now. Archived founds are in my Found database and are not included but I could easily filter Belgian found archived caches and add them to the archived database.

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, on4bam said:

I don't know the Etrex but I load my Oregon (now 700 but also previous 600) from GSAK and Garminexport macro with GGZ files instead of GPX and have loaded about 30000 in 1 GGZ file. The GPS doesn't even blink.

As for during holidays, I do prepare. That means getting all caches for our destination (1000's of caches and more) and first adding a userflag, then I remove the userflag for caches we certainly will not do (to far off our route, T-rating to high or any other reason). I then load only the selection onto the GPS which is still 1000's.

My GSAK database can be used in GDAK on Android so I always have all caches (also those without user flag) so I can always load extra GPX files should we end up somewhere outside the initial areas we selected.

 

Back on topic: A Belgian geocaching site used to have a GPX file with all archived Belgian geocaches (about 15000 at that time). I downloaded that file, imported it in GSAK and have been moving newly archived caches to that database ever since. It holds over 50000 caches now. Archived founds are in my Found database and are not included but I could easily filter Belgian found archived caches and add them to the archived database.

 

 

 

Thanks for the information.

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13 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

I looked at GSAK once and couldn't figure it out, so have never used it.

I've used GSAK since I started to geocache (along with PM). It has an initial learning curve, certainly, but it has many many features which are very useful, some of which which I have not yet explored, unlike Gill & Tony who have, on occasion been kind enough to help me with advice on its use.

I use GSAK to prep my Etrex 20s when caching in targeted areas and I've found very useful when caching in foreign countries.

Give it another try.

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