What constitutes a Power Trail?

[+Deepdiggingmole]

I have already seen this attribute allocated to short trails which do not fit into the description given for 'power trails' - namely
'A geocaching power trail is a large number of caches, often placed at minimum distance (0.1 miles, 161 meters) to each other, hidden along a walking, biking, or driving route. It often promotes a player’s ability to easily increase their find count.'
A series of 22 caches dotted around a park area
12 caches along a stretch of river (a kayak series)
a series of 11 caches randomly placed in an area, no link to each other, so not a series, placed over an 18 month period 

It would seem anyone with a trail may use this attribute (incorrectly IMO) as the guideline is quite vague - especially around the quantity

 

[+thebruce0]

7 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

one could readily get 17 finds in a day cycling around any reasonably cache-dense area so there's no real "power" aspect to that series.

 

So whether the caches are spread out or linear doesn't make a difference for you? Interesting. If I look on the map and see those 17 widely spaced caches all along a very long trail in a linear fashion, I'd still think powertrail. Scatter them around the area and the strategy of attack is very different. But I'll cede, there is a threshold at some point - a know it when you see it threshold - at some point a series of caches in 'a line' on the map I wouldn't think of as a powertrail. Like, place a cache in 17 cities, even though they form a line on the map from a great distance, I'd not call that a power trail, heh. So at some point, for me, the gap between linear caches crosses from powertrail to series.  Maybe for you that's 500m *shrug* Cool. We have that flexibility as COs to decide

 

 

3 hours ago, colleda said:

It's not a Power Trail just a series. It wont be getting the PT attribute.

 

From you, okay. It probably would from me, and likely from many others in my area.

 

 

3 hours ago, niraD said:

But were people like that the ones demanding a power trail attribute? It seems like the demand for the attribute/type came from people who define "power trail" the way Hynz does

 

I don't know everyone who "demanded" a powertrail, I'm only talking about the various ways I've seen people define a powertrail.

 

 

30 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

My only quibble with the definition that keystone posted is with the last statement.  A series of caches which promotes a players ability to *easily* increase their find count is going to be quite a different experience than a series of caches for which facilitating a large increase in find counts is not the primary intent.

 

That word stood out for me too, I'm in agreement here.  But i suppose it's relatively speaking.  A long string of difficult caches found after a whole day could be considered 'easy' considering the difficulty and quantity... I'd guess that type of trail wouldn't be merely about find count but also collecting the D or T star 'count'.

[+thebruce0]

27 minutes ago, Deepdiggingmole said:

It would seem anyone with a trail may use this attribute (incorrectly IMO) as the guideline is quite vague - especially around the quantity

 

heh, they are after all 'guidelines', not strict 'rules'  I think the guideline is just trying to give a somewhat defined concept of what it is. No one's enforcing it, so your variations would be valid if that's what the cache owner thought.

[+dprovan]

Lots of personal opinions, lots of regional variations, so that all takes me back to my original point: COs that want you to think it's a power trail should use the attribute. I don't think it's our place to tell a CO when to use it.

 

On the other hand, we can and should discuss what it will mean to us when we see the PT attribute. To me, it will mean that the cache is intentionally designed to have no redeeming features other than being a log to sign. I shouldn't expect a view or a nice walk or a clever container or a tricky find. I should expect finding the series to be fairly boring, just a repetitious exercise in traveling and signing. I'd also expect some of the caches in the series to be missing, but although some PT series might not have that problem.

 

And I'll appreciate the OP telling me that was the intent and giving me that heads up about what to expect so I can decide whether that's what I feel like doing.

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

21 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Lots of personal opinions, lots of regional variations, so that all takes me back to my original point: COs that want you to think it's a power trail should use the attribute. I don't think it's our place to tell a CO when to use it.

 

Presumably attributes are for our benefit, not the COs.  

 

I doubt that we'll ever come to any consensus on a definition for what constitutes a power trail but an attribute does us no good if there isn't even some general consideration of things the might be considered as characteristics of a PT.  There are always going be to exceptions.   Doesn't mean we can't suggest general guidelines.

[+cerberus1]

Some want the attribute so they can find a good number of caches, easily found, and not too far apart.   

Others want the attribute so they can steer clear of that stuff...  

Seems odd that the very thing both sides have asked to be added for years, (since late '04 here...) is still creating questions about its meaning.    

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by cerberus1
here...

[+dprovan]

43 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Presumably attributes are for our benefit, not the COs.

Attributes are for the CO's benefit: they are an aid to COs so they can better describe their caches to us. The cache description, text, hint, attributes, and all, are the tools a CO uses for our benefit.

 

 I think that's just the obvious way to look at it even before I consider the problems with the opposite point of view: thinking that GS can and should force COs to use attributes in some globally uniform way for the seeker's benefit.

[+dprovan]

52 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I doubt that we'll ever come to any consensus on a definition for what constitutes a power trail but an attribute does us no good if there isn't even some general consideration of things the might be considered as characteristics of a PT.  There are always going be to exceptions.   Doesn't mean we can't suggest general guidelines.

That's exactly why I suggested looking at the problem from how we will interpret the attribute instead of discussing the characteristics that should trigger using it. The problem with trying to define something concretely is that corner cases and exceptions can be used endlessly to muddy the water. But those corner cases and exceptions aren't really very important compared to the central question: what is a CO trying to tell us by using the PT attribute? I think I summed that up pretty well in my previous post, but to make it even simpler: PT means quantity over quality. I honestly don't think that we, as a global community, need to agree on any finer details for the attribute to be wildly useful. Leave the arguments to specific cases.

[+niraD]

On 9/2/2020 at 9:08 AM, niraD said:

I expect two uses for the new power trail attribute. One is people like you are not interested in numbers runs, or in caches placed to facilitate numbers runs. The other is the reverse, people who want to do a numbers run, who are interested in caches placed to facilitate numbers runs.

Actually, there's one more use I can see for this attribute. When there is a numbers trail in an area (e.g., along the ET Highway), the negative version of the attribute with a red slash ("Not a power trail") would be useful for standalone caches that are not part of the nearby numbers trail.

 

Except that the negative version of the attribute doesn't exist.

[+The Jester]

26 minutes ago, niraD said:

Actually, there's one more use I can see for this attribute. When there is a numbers trail in an area (e.g., along the ET Highway), the negative version of the attribute with a red slash ("Not a power trail") would be useful for standalone caches that are not part of the nearby numbers trail.

 

Except that the negative version of the attribute doesn't exist.

Except every cache in the world that's not part of PT "should" have it.  I think it would be better if Search was updated to Exclude attributes - NOT having the PT attribute.  

[+thebruce0]

Nah, there are days I want to do power trails. I may go searching. Better would be the search having the option to include or exclude each attribute.  Well, and having negative versions of some of the new attributes, and including negative attributes in the search parameters. Throw it all in there. There are use cases for every option.

[+mustakorppi]

I believe that so far the one thing everyone has agreed on, and sometimes assumed to be axiomatic, is that a power trail is more than one cache. 

 

I guess I’ll be the clown who just wants to put the attribute on a single obnoxiously long multi following a trail under a power line.

[+thebruce0]

11 minutes ago, mustakorppi said:

I believe that so far the one thing everyone has agreed on, and sometimes assumed to be axiomatic, is that a power trail is more than one cache. 

 

Well that and that it's linear; as in, I haven't seen anyone say they truly believe a powertrail can be a clump of caches to be found in any order. So I'd add consecutive finding to that list of things everyone seems to agree upon (whether in one or more outings).

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Well that and that it's linear; as in, I haven't seen anyone say they truly believe a powertrail can be a clump of caches to be found in any order. So I'd add consecutive finding to that list of things everyone seems to agree upon (whether in one or more outings).

What about an area with roads set on a grid, with caches every tenth of a mile? Something like this:

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It isn't really linear, and there are multiple ways to drive this efficiently. But I would think it could be a numbers trail.

[+Etherlord Clan]

On 9/1/2020 at 8:47 AM, baer2006 said:

I think the usual definition is "You know it's a power trail if you see one" .

Seriously though, there is no "hard" definition of a PT. I guess its up to the cache owners to designate their trails as "power" or not.

We have a number of PTs that are down secondary highways such as "52 on 52" (52 caches along State Highway 52) or "19 on 19".

 

There's also a tongue-in-cheek cache near my city called "1 on 1" (1 cache along SH 1).

Would this be classed as a PT?

[+thebruce0]

heh, I wouldn't call that a clump, but it's not a single linear trail either.

For the sake of the attribute, if they were mine I'd drop the attribute on them. My thinking would be that they're still consecutive finds for the most part linear, just a few junctions to decide which way to go next.  Someone else might thinking differently. *shrug*  In our area I don't think people would complain if they were considered a 'power trail' or roadside series, or numbers run, or whatever...  it is what it is. 

 

road series in Nevada are like that; junctions at least, even if not a grid per se like above. Heck the rural road trails in S Ontario are like Nevada's trails on a smaller scale   twisting and winding massive series of caches just covering a lot of the rural blocks and neighbourhoods. 

Actually I think more locals might refer to those as numbers run, if only because there are no "trails" for that number of roadside caches. But the attribute would still serve the purpose.

[+thebruce0]

11 minutes ago, Etherlord Clan said:

There's also a tongue-in-cheek cache near my city called "1 on 1" (1 cache along SH 1).

Would this be classed as a PT?

 

Like those 1.0D challenge caches requiring finding 1 geocache - that cache itself can count as the 1. =P

[+Hynz]

11 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

11 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

I believe that so far the one thing everyone has agreed on, and sometimes assumed to be axiomatic, is that a power trail is more than one cache. 

 

Well that and that it's linear; as in, I haven't seen anyone say they truly believe a powertrail can be a clump of caches to be found in any order. So I'd add consecutive finding to that list of things everyone seems to agree upon (whether in one or more outings).

Since the attribute has "Trail" in its name I understand the expectation of a linear setup. But I'm with dprovan: I would like to see and encourage any owner of "Quantity over Quality" hiding to use this attribute also for their clumps of caches at random spots.

I guess (but what do I know ) that quite some of the geoart clumps of mysteries do not resolve in linear trails, or do they?

[+thebruce0]

  

2 hours ago, Hynz said:

I guess (but what do I know ) that quite some of the geoart clumps of mysteries do not resolve in linear trails, or do they?

 

Absolutely there are geoart series that don't resolve to linear trails.  Not all powertrails are geoarts, and not all geoarts are powertrails.  

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Hynz said:

I would like to see and encourage any owner of "Quantity over Quality" hiding to use this attribute also for their clumps of caches at random spots.

 

I wouldn't like to see the powertrail attribute used on 'clumps' of caches that aren't in at least some manner part of a linear collection. (I'm sure there are loads of easy/quick cache clumps out there that wouldn't generally be considered 'powertrail') Around here we have loads of forests with webs of criss-crossing trail systems for instance. Very nice hikes, dog walks, beautiful, with not so difficult caches, intended for say family outings, kid friendly and whatnot. By the above definition those would have the power trail attribute. Obviously while we can't tell COs that's "wrong", I'd be greatly surprised to see such caches be given the attribute...  If I were to scroll around a map search and spot a clump of caches like that with the attribute, my first instinct would be to zoom in and see if they're actually on a single winding trail you do in fact need to travel along in one way from beginning to end.  

[+coachstahly]

So the screenshot shows caches placed along country roads.  Each of the sections (upper and lower) contain multiple series of caches, meaning they're not all titled the same way.  They also appear to have the same CO (in most cases) and the same D/T rating (in most cases).  If linear is one of the pre-defined expectations, then this doesn't quite meet those expectations as it's much more of a grid but these, should they have been laid out in a straight line, would qualify immediately.  The only difference here is that they're laid out in grids.  To me, this is a good "I know it when I see it" test that applies to PT caches and they should probably get the PT attribute.

[+thebruce0]

Just to note, "linear" doesn't have to mean in a straight-edge line. Linear could mean along the line of a curve. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if grid-style (whether straight-edge grids or intertwining angular roads) get the attribute added by many COs at least around here; but I'd also understand if they don't, in some cases.  Know-it-when-you-see-it. Generally speaking.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

28 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Just to note, "linear" doesn't have to mean in a straight-edge line. Linear could mean along the line of a curve. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if grid-style (whether straight-edge grids or intertwining angular roads) get the attribute added by many COs at least around here; but I'd also understand if they don't, in some cases.  Know-it-when-you-see-it. Generally speaking.

here's a screenshot for a bunch of caches ( they have since been archived) in France.  Although there are few identifying linear chains it mostly looks like a big glob of caches....over 5000 of them.   One can use the know-it-when-you-see-it rule when viewing caches on a map, but what would really matter to me is what the experience would be like when searching for and finding caches.  

 

[+JL_HSTRE]

IMO a Power Trail must be drivable. A rail trail or hiking trail can be a numbers trail but the physical exertion and extra time required means it's not a true Power Trail. Such trails tend to have more variance in hides than a true Power Trail.

[+Goldenwattle]

39 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

IMO a Power Trail must be drivable. A rail trail or hiking trail can be a numbers trail but the physical exertion and extra time required means it's not a true Power Trail. Such trails tend to have more variance in hides than a true Power Trail.

A power trail is any large set of caches in roughly a line, fairly closely spaced apart, whether on a road, path or going through the bush (that can be accessed fairly easily; ie. I would say no cliffs ). And by the way, many caches on a path can be done at about the same speed as those on a road, by using a bike. Maybe even faster. A power trail is not necessarily about speed, only being able to easily move from one cache to another. I heard here for the first time the term, numbers trail. That sounds like an unimaginative set of similar caches in a line (power trails can vary the hides). Numbers trail sound more suitable for those who are about a bland experience and just racking up the numbers.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

IMO a Power Trail must be drivable. A rail trail or hiking trail can be a numbers trail but the physical exertion and extra time required means it's not a true Power Trail. Such trails tend to have more variance in hides than a true Power Trail.

What's funny is that I would describe them the other way around. A numbers trail is driveable, with fungible containers every 528ft/161m, like the ET Highway trail. A power trail is any saturated trail or road, including hiking and cycling trails.

[+JL_HSTRE]

If one were to apply the Power Trail attribute to rail trails then the attribute becomes useless to me. Rail tails I will do, the ET Highway I will not. Lots of people who would do the ET Highway would not do a rail trail (too much physical exertion).

 

Also, defining a power trail as any kind of trail with a high volume of caches would mean it should be applied to the majority of caches in some parks. That would really seem to render it useless to most cachers.

Edited September 5, 2020 by JL_HSTRE

[+niraD]

15 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

If one were to apply the Power Trail attribute to rail trails then the attribute becomes useless to me. Rail tails I will do, the ET Highway I will not. Lots of people who would do the ET Highway would not do a rail trail (too much physical exertion).

 

Also, defining a power trail as any kind of trail with a high volume of caches would mean it should be applied to the majority of caches in some parks. That would really seem to render it useless to most cachers.

 

I actually agree that the "power trail" attribute will be most useful if it is applied to fungible containers every 528ft/161m along a drivable road. It is unfortunate that the term "power trail" is applied by many to groups of caches that don't fit that description.

[+cerberus1]

8 minutes ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Also, defining a power trail as any kind of trail with a high volume of caches would mean it should be applied to the majority of caches in some parks. That would really seem to render it useless to most cachers.

 

We've found many small parks with caches scattered within it, (but all off "trails" )and called it a numbers run    

If they were all along a trail within or encircling the  park, I would call it a power trail...   

[+Harry Dolphin]

It royally irked me that some cachers considered my Geoart a power trail.  About four miles along a beautiful walkway.  But not all of the hides were the same.  Someone moved the MKH to where the nano was.  Moved that to where the fake bolt was on the bridge.  Moved that to where the bison tube was hanging.  Lots of maintenance!

[+Goldenwattle]

1 hour ago, Harry Dolphin said:

It royally irked me that some cachers considered my Geoart a power trail.  About four miles along a beautiful walkway.  But not all of the hides were the same.  Someone moved the MKH to where the nano was.  Moved that to where the fake bolt was on the bridge.  Moved that to where the bison tube was hanging.  Lots of maintenance!

That is so rude. I have never found or heard of that happening here.

Not all power trails have a series of caches with the same container. As I mentioned elsewhere I have done part of a power trail along a road, where it stretched for about 140km with 300 caches, and for the section I did, there was a huge variety of cache styles, sizes and difficulty. From memory though, the terrain level was all about the same, but it was along a road. Another power trail I have done this year though, did have one cache up a tree.

[+TmdAndGG]

For me what constitutes a power trail is if the sole purpose of the hides is to gain numbers as quickly as possible. I'm leaving it at that.

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

It royally irked me that some cachers considered my Geoart a power trail.  About four miles along a beautiful walkway.  But not all of the hides were the same.  Someone moved the MKH to where the nano was.  Moved that to where the fake bolt was on the bridge.  Moved that to where the bison tube was hanging.  Lots of maintenance!

This forum really needs a "Sad" response.

[+thebruce0]

On 9/4/2020 at 2:27 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

One can use the know-it-when-you-see-it rule when viewing caches on a map, but what would really matter to me is what the experience would be like when searching for and finding caches.  

 

Another reason being able to include and exclude both positive and/or negative attributes where their existence makes sense (such as powertrails or challenges)

 

 

12 hours ago, niraD said:

I actually agree that the "power trail" attribute will be most useful if it is applied to fungible containers every 528ft/161m along a drivable road. It is unfortunate that the term "power trail" is applied by many to groups of caches that don't fit that description.

 

Such is the experience with numerous attributes, and why it's good to pick up on cache owner habits and localized community trends.  Most every attribute has a 'general' concept and understanding, then there are some who push the line, as it were, others who don't make use of the, and others who just don't care about what people think.  For the purposes of this thread, I think the most valuable information is for grasping that generalized understanding (knowing that there can be many dramatic outliers), and accepting that some people will have slightly variant definitions that aren't quite what we might consider the same thing.

 

 

And Harry, wow, that's ridiculous. Especially if they place the container in a manner that is now inconsistent with the listing, intentionally.