Guest MaasNeotek Posted January 14, 2001 Share Posted January 14, 2001 As I headed out earlier today in search of GCA6 (Strathcona Wilderness) I 'assumed' a reasonably easy hunt. Whoops. Several things hampered our hunt, and those are the things I would like to share here now. --------------------------------- When seeking a cache, two things are of serious importance. The accuracy of your coordinates, and the resolution of your coordinates. In our case today, it was an issue of understanding the significance of digits in a DD MM.mmm value. we read N 53°32.23' on the page and entered N 53°32.023' BUZZ. Wrong. It would appear that we should have entered N 53°32.230'. In the final analysis, we were off by 300m to the south, and after an hour of bashing bushes, we 're-checked' the printout, and 're-tuned' the coordinates on the GPS. We found (we-think) the cache site, but no cache. It was a great day out, but no treasure to share. ------------------------ Placing the cache. This is where 'CANADIANS' especially need to take note. Winter is a fact of life in Canada for around 8 months of the year. Placing your cache given our winter snow pack will require some planning. To say nothing about potential water damage to the cache contents, the snow cover makes them almost impossible to find. If you are going to place a ground level cache, consider a marker. Suggestions include surveyers tape (red flagging or color combinations?) or tags affixed to a tree branch? Making the cache location as obvious as necessary to ensure a find is the goal. There's no sense placing a cache that requires 2 hours of hiking, only to be baffled in the last ten feet. While standing 0 meters from a cache location today, we saw no signs of the clue. Consider your clues carefully. Suggesting that a cache is at the base of a fallen tree is great, if there are only a few. Saying something like that in a grove of downed poplar is just misleading, or simply too vague. I would suggest that anyone with a GPS should be able to find the cache unless skills are required. These skills should be marked clearly in your cache submissions to geocaching.com so as to ensure that the sport continues with sucessful hunts, and continued interest. Canada is a large country, with large urban forests. Caches should start popping up all over the country. Heres hoping you can continue the momentum in your own way. Cheers and happy caching... Greg Scratchley http://www.building42.com ------------------ MassNeotek @ 55°32'182" N 113°29'49 W Quote Link to comment
Guest scummy-boots Posted January 17, 2001 Share Posted January 17, 2001 Also, It is advisable to find another way to locate the cache (for the cache owner) other than raw co-ordinates. i.e distance and bearing from a landmark. Depending on the terrain, a revisit can be confusing if your cache is 'in the middle of nowhere' and you're not sure if it's still there. Quote Link to comment
Guest DedReer Posted January 26, 2001 Share Posted January 26, 2001 are you saying the strathcona wilderness cache is still unfound? I wanted to hunt for it over xmas but I don't have a GPS :-( I asked everyone i could think of... i want to play so bad maybe soon i wont be a poor student anymore and i can play too but i was curious to know why that strathcona one isnt listed anymore.. anyone know? Quote Link to comment
Guest MaasNeotek Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 t visible, and so to save trekkers the trouble, the cache has been removed. Good news is however, there are 2 other caches in the city, waiting to be found. One virgin cache, and one single visitor cache in the river valley (it's the one with good stuff)... A-Channel in Edmonton is interested in doing a spot, hopefully we'll be visitng the caches then. Regards, Neotek ------------------ http://www.building42.com/geocaching[/url] Building42 is at 55°32'182" N 113°29'49" W Quote Link to comment
Guest scummy-boots Posted February 6, 2001 Share Posted February 6, 2001 I should really read these forums more often. I just saw the inquiry from 'RedDeer' just now. I hope you will consider visiting my updated cache (both you and MaasNeotek). I placed it in the west side of the park this time to show more respect to the skiiers in the Wintertime. Read the cache for more info. As for the previous cache, I am thoroughly baffled. My only explanation is possibly Beaver activity. No debris, no ice cream pail. Nothing ! My newer cache is designed a bit better ( I hope). Cheers. Quote Link to comment
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