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Adventure cache vs other types


Jayeffel

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I have not been reading much about Adventure Lab Caches yet so I may may repeating questions already addressed. I have completed two AL caches, one I need to find the bonus yet.

 

What I  see so far are:

1)They have physical locations with no physical container with a cache log. They may have a separate cache as a bonus, but are not required to do  so.

 

2)They can overlap and be near other caches, (one AL had five places to look, with two caches very near two other of his,) - in other words the 528 foot separation between caches is not a part of AL caches.

 

3) Must be walkable- thought I read that somewhere but one AL I saw noted driving may be required due to distance involved. 

 

4) Limited to five distinct places , with an added bonus if desired. I guess at least 2 places would be involved. 

 

5) Just a note here, I see on the geocaching.com website under user name it shows each AL as a find, in Project PC it shows the AL as one cache with notation of X lab caches.

 

A question resulting from these. If I place what is intended to be an AL with five distinct places and have an actual cache at each place, it would therefore NOT be an AL but a multi or power trail, thus needing to meeting distance simulations etc. , correct?

 

The AL caches I have participated in so far (2) are not hard and interesting. At one I read the caches description wrong and walked by #2, #4, #5 places and the final bonus cache, plus very near #3 going to the wrong place to start! 

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The Help Centre pages on playing and creating ALs might give you a clearer picture.

  1. All AL locations are virtual with an optional physical bonus cache. The AL itself is similar to a multi-stage virtual cache except each stage counts as a find.
  2. Being virtual, there are no distance constraints to either physical caches or other ALs.
  3. Walkable is a recommendation, not a requirement. One I did earlier in the week required about 75km of driving to get from the start to the finish, plus another 6km to get to the bonus.
  4. The standard credit being awarded is for at most 5 locations, but there are a few that have been allowed more (I noticed one in Sydney with 10). I haven't seen any set up with less than 5 but I would imagine an AL with just one location would be possible.

Yes, ALs aren't allowed to have any phyisical elements, so if you want to place physical waypoints it would have to be done as a multi or mystery.

 

I've enjoyed the four I've completed so far and am currently putting together one of my own after receiving a credit yesterday. In keeping with my usual style of hides, it will be a 5km hike through a national park to visit some scenic spots and the remains of a shipwreck and, if it were a regular cache, would be rated as terrain 4.

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59 minutes ago, Jayeffel said:

I have not been reading much about Adventure Lab Caches yet so I may may repeating questions already addressed. I have completed two AL caches, one I need to find the bonus yet.

 

What I  see so far are:

1)They have physical locations with no physical container with a cache log. They may have a separate cache as a bonus, but are not required to do  so.

 

2)They can overlap and be near other caches, (one AL had five places to look, with two caches very near two other of his,) - in other words the 528 foot separation between caches is not a part of AL caches.

 

3) Must be walkable- thought I read that somewhere but one AL I saw noted driving may be required due to distance involved. 

 

4) Limited to five distinct places , with an added bonus if desired. I guess at least 2 places would be involved. 

 

5) Just a note here, I see on the geocaching.com website under user name it shows each AL as a find, in Project PC it shows the AL as one cache with notation of X lab caches.

 

A question resulting from these. If I place what is intended to be an AL with five distinct places and have an actual cache at each place, it would therefore NOT be an AL but a multi or power trail, thus needing to meeting distance simulations etc. , correct?

 

The AL caches I have participated in so far (2) are not hard and interesting. At one I read the caches description wrong and walked by #2, #4, #5 places and the final bonus cache, plus very near #3 going to the wrong place to start! 

 

1) Adventure Labs have locations that you should need to visit, to "Unlock" a prompt that will request you for information that can be found at that location. Successfully entering the required information at the prompt will be considered as completion of that stage/location. Geocachers may opt to hide a Mystery/Unknown cache (eg a physical container) and list it on the Geocaching dot com site -- however, that physical element will be subjected to the guidelines and will need to respect proximity (e.g. the 161m/528ft rule).

2) Adventure Labs themselves currently should not involve physical placements (e.g. containers) - so, they are "virtual" stages - and virtual stages do not need to follow the 161m/528ft proximity approach that applies to "classic" geocaching.

3) Adventure Labs are likely to be enjoyed by more people if they are walkable - as this allows people without transportation methods to play - however, Adventure Labs can also require travel between stages/locations that necessitate a vehicle.

4) The number of stages in an Adventure Lab is set by HQ, based on the award itself (e.g. individual, special arrangement) - however, they are typically 5 stages.

5) Adventure Labs are handled differently from classic geocaching finds; they have no associated log within the confines of Geocaching dot com and may appear to be categorized differently depending on how the data from the "back end" (API) is displayed by a partner site/app.

 

As Adventure Labs are currently not using physical placements, if you wished to hide a cache with multiple physical stages (assuming there is only a log to be signed in the final stage) then it is most likely a Multi-cache; the cache type would also largely depend on whether you needed to visit the posted coords to start the hunt - and whether the information to proceed to the next stage(s) could be found easily at the following stage(s).

 

 

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