Maintaining/Enhancing Caches Instead of Starting New Ones.

[+Chipper3]

We carefully constructed a series of caches (5) that are each part of an ongoing story.  Four can be found independently but information from the four must be found before finding the fifth. The creation was so much fun and so well liked that we were tempted to start a new series.  But we have opted out for the pleasures that are also associated with maintaining/enhancing the exiting series.  We found that keeping 5 caches in good shape was plenty time consuming.  Also enhancing the caches and the cache location environment to add to the backstory was better for us and the finders than adding more caches.  Quality not Quantity was the right tactic for us. 

 

For example, the original caches were housed in a solar-powered yard lights and the light would glow at night indicating the actual location near the coords. Cool idea but a maintenance  nightmare.  The caches leaked and the battery recharge was iffy depending on seasonal shade.  The upgrade evolved to cedar birdhouses housing LocknLock containers.  The new houses have numerous Birds Eye reflectors which light up when a flashlight is  directed along the bearing line included in the description and this technique allowed us to keep the theme used in the Fairy Light series! The caches evolved to more secure and more fun to find with much less maintenance.  Plenty of other enhancements as well including special laser-cut Geocoins for each cache.

 

If we had moved on to creating more caches, I think we would have reached a point of not being able to enjoy and support/enhance the original caches.

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Chipper3

[+TeamRabbitRun]

You must get a lot of satisfaction working on your creative, thoughtful set of five.

 

Thanks for caring about quality over quantity. Admirable; knowing where your comfort point is and not just expanding for the sake of expanding.

[+Wet Pancake Touring Club]

Dang, South Carolina. Well, at least I'm in the same country, just on the other coast. I love night caches, and these look to be fun.

[+SeekTheCache]

I first started geocaching in 2008, but life got in the way and there was a hiatus of about 11 years until I came back. I started again this year and along with rediscovering the thrill of finding them, I found the thrill of the hide as well.

I currently have two active ones and three new ones in the making. But as much fun as it has been coming up with new concepts that will reward the player for coming to visit, I am also quickly coming to the conclusion that I need to rein in that enthusiasm or else I will soon have much more than I can handle on my plate.

[+dprovan]

Well, first of all, thank you very much. I love these kinds of series which clear themes and interdependencies, and I'm always impressed by the effort that goes into creating and maintaining them.

 

My main reaction to your point is that you should choose to do what you consider the most fun for you. If you enjoyed setting this up and you think it would be less fun to have to deal with another series, then that's fine with me! If you stop having fun because you hide a second series, the community would likely lose both series.

 

On the other hand, just in case this kind of thinking encourages you, what you're describing here sounds like development, rejecting things that are hard to maintain and improving security, for example. You might find the time comes when you've perfected this series and it requires very little maintenance, possibly just visiting it once in a while to enjoy it yourself while you check to make sure it's all in good working order. At that time, you might, if it sounds like fun, consider developing a second series using what you learned from the first one, either specific techniques or general approaches, to do an additional series which you could then develop into a second perfect series. And so on. Just a thought!

[+Chipper3]

Thanks to everyone for the encouraging comments.

A link to the first of the Fairy Light caches in the series.  https://coord.info/GC8HG3G

Cihpper and PoppyFlower

[+Max and 99]

On 10/12/2021 at 11:04 AM, Chipper3 said:

If we had moved on to creating more caches, I think we would have reached a point of not being able to enjoy and support/enhance the original caches.

I find it disappointing that people who get their caches archived by a reviewer for not maintaining them and not responding to reviewer disable notes are still able to continually publish new caches. 

Good for you for taking care of your caches! 

[+briansnat]

I've hidden over 360, mostly high quality caches.  Nothing elaborate, just caches hidden in interesting areas,  with many involving longish hikes of a few miles.  I spent much of my time maintaining them, hence my relatively low find count after 20+ years at this game.

Now that I've gotten older and have health issues that preclude long hikes (dadgum knees),  there are some that I can no longer realistically maintain.  Thankfully I have a network of geocaching friends who have helped me maintain some of them and pick up the ones that I chose to archive. 

Kudos to you for choosing to hide a few high quality and consistently maintained caches. 

Edited November 16, 2021 by briansnat

[+CheekyBrit]

I am torn between updating and replacing a cache.
I built GC8CEC7 when my wife and I bought our new house. I absolutely wanted a front yard cache as a dealbreaker of where we bought a house. I had to put down a 'blocker' cache to stop someone inadvertently placing a geocache within 0.1 miles of our house and denying us having one at our home.

 

It was made quickly and crudely - a spray painted camouflaged bucket hanging high in a tree, and lowered by rope. It is a simple large letterbox, and yet it has the most favorite points of any of ours (28 points). 
 

Now here is the catch. I was planning on building a mini free library British telephone box with a geocache inside but I am a little torn between updating the existing letterbox cache or archiving the letterbox once the mini free library is complete and can be published.
I'm leaning toward the latter, but my wife disagrees.

[+kunarion]

10 minutes ago, CheekyBrit said:

I was planning on building a mini free library British telephone box with a geocache inside but I am a little torn between updating the existing letterbox cache or archiving the letterbox once the mini free library is complete and can be published.

 

That seems like it would be such a different cache experience, it should be a new cache (archive the old one).  Build it so there's a clever way to retrieve the container.  I'm already imagining what I might try if I set up a "British telephone box" cache.  

[+dprovan]

On 11/30/2021 at 9:01 AM, CheekyBrit said:

Now here is the catch. I was planning on building a mini free library British telephone box with a geocache inside but I am a little torn between updating the existing letterbox cache or archiving the letterbox once the mini free library is complete and can be published.
I'm leaning toward the latter, but my wife disagrees.

I'm with you, not your wife. It's sad to see the other clever hack go -- that would be the hard part for me -- but if you replace it with a different cache, it's gone, and your wife needs to face facts. To me, basic logic dictates that answer, but I think the key to accepting this is to recognize that all the people that found and enjoyed the first cache will be prevented from finding and enjoying the second cache if you pretend the new and entirely different second cache is a continuation of the first. It's really unfair to deny them that pleasure. To preserve the history of the hack, make sure to point to it in the new cache's description. You could even leave it in place and do something like encourage people to post pictures of the old bucket or continue to use it for swag. Or you could go whole hog: lock the new cache and create a field puzzle that requires them to retrieve the key from the bucket.

[+barefootjeff]

On 12/1/2021 at 4:01 AM, CheekyBrit said:

I had to put down a 'blocker' cache to stop someone inadvertently placing a geocache within 0.1 miles of our house and denying us having one at our home.

 

Just for future reference, you don't have to have a "blocker" cache published to reserve a location, just creating a cache page but not submitting it for publication will do that.

[+Wet Pancake Touring Club]

On 12/1/2021 at 12:29 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

Just for future reference, you don't have to have a "blocker" cache published to reserve a location, just creating a cache page but not submitting it for publication will do that.

Note, found on another post, HQ has a bot that might auto archive unpublished caches with no activity after 10 months.