How do you find and open a cache in a high traffic area?

[+Daddyfish]

I haven't had to deal with it myself, yet, but how do you handle this? I feel your'e obligated to not to reveal the location to "muggles". So, how do you go about finding and retrieving a cache in an area with other people around? And how do you go about interacting with the cache, you know going through the contents and writing in the logbook, etc.? And what do you do when you're sitting there with the cache open and the contents spread out before you and then along comes a muggle?

 

I've heard some folks say that they'll find the cache, then take it some where more private and secluded away from the hiding spot to open the container. But how far away is too far? And what if someone else comes looking for the cache while you have it off somewhere else?

 

Thanks.

[+flask]

i take it just far enough that the hidng spot isn't obvious.

 

most people are too self absorbed to notice you doing anything, so for instance, a cache near a picnic table? map reading or lunch eating covers up the cache activity pretty well. if you appear to be doing something "normal" you become invisible.

 

conversely, if you look like you're looking for a place to poop, you are also invisible, but this only works in wilderness settings.

 

wandering about and muttering loudly also sometimes works, especially if you are dirty and are carrying a bag of returnable bottles.

 

it doesn't matter if you get to camp at one or at six. dinner is still at six.

[+TEAM 360]

quote:

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Originally posted by flask:

conversely, if you look like you're looking for a place to poop, you are also invisible, but this only works in wilderness settings.

 

---

 

Yea, until you drop trou. I can GUARANTEE that's EXACTLY the moment a Brownie Denmother and her Troop turn the corner and see you...

[+Florafloraflora]

For looking: there's always the "talking on your cellphone" trick although that's getting harder now that everybody's getting flip phones. You can also be working on a science (astronomy/geology/biology) or photography project (light metering!), surveying, or measuring water quality.

 

As for being seen with the cache, you only have to take it far enough away so that you don't give away the immediate location. You could be picknicking or writing in your journal for all the passerby knows. It doesn't matter if somebody sees the cache as long as they don't see you taking it from its location. And sometimes that just calls for waiting until the coast is clear, or else having a lot of people with you for camouflage.

[+Smitherington]

The other day I was doing a cache in a very busy area. I hung around for a while and saw no way to be secretive enough so I waited until nightfall and went back. Then I had to wait for teens to clear the park. It was only 15 miles from home so it was not too bad. Missed a first find by only a few minutes. Someone else left as I walked up.

[+TEAM 360]

This is why you need to provide some sort of natural cover when placing a micro, to allow for retrieval instead of having the cacher blow an hour or two waiting for people to clear out....

[Captain Chaoss]

Has anyone seen the movie " Undercover Blues" with Dennis Quaid & Kathleen Turner?

 

They are a husband and wife CIA duo on "vacation" in New Orleans. Great comedy, rent it if you haven't seen it. Anyways, they need to deal with a local thug who's looking for revenge, but since the local feds are watching, they need a diversion to throw the cops off. KAthleen (against her better judgement) feigns a seizure. The cops are dwarn in to assist, and Quaid moves off into a now abandoned zoo to deal with Marty.

 

I haven't yet convinced my wife to take part in this tactic, but I'm sure a college friend would do this.

 

If anyone else has success with this, please let me know.

 

Two roads diverged in the woods and I,

I took the one less traveled,

and that is how I found the cache.

[+Florafloraflora]

quote:

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Originally posted by Captain Chaoss:

KAthleen (against her better judgement) feigns a seizure.

---

 

Hey, it worked for Heather Graham in Drugstore Cowboy.

[+flask]

the lkight meter thing worked for me last week and i wasn't even carrying a camera.

 

it doesn't matter if you get to camp at one or at six. dinner is still at six.

[+RichardMoore]

If I am trying to find a cache in an area that gets a lot of traffic, like a city street or a small community park, I try to get there at dawn. If you can be somewhere at dawn on a Sunday morning there is usually no one else around. Even geocachers are still asleep!

 

Sometimes insomnia is a good thing, too. I have searched for benchmarks in intersections at 2:00 in the morning.

 

RichardMoore

 

www.geocities.com/richardsrunaway

[+Renegade Knight]

It's not always easy. A cache by a main road it's virtually impossible. In a busy park... It's easier.

 

You have to use your judgment on when to give up and come back later vs. when to go for it.

 

=====================

Wherever you go there you are.

[+hbrx]

I had a hard time retrieving this cache in Prague (.cz) thats hidden right in the middle of

a high-traffic area of the most touristy part of the town on my last trip. No cover, and less than 10 meters from the entrance of an outdoor restaurant. Even if it is cool to hide a cache in such a publick place, its a pain in the *** to those of us that tries to keep the cache a 'secret'

 

The cache in quiestion is GCD11B.

 

So to the original question, I did not find any smart way to open the cache in the high traffic area.

 

 

hbrx.