My cache was found by a non-cacher

[+The Shorts]

I just got done doing some cache maintenance, and when I was reading the log book I came across a log that read.

 

“9/26 Well I found this while walking my dog. Thought somebody left it behind so I took it home. Saw that it was a project & brought it right back! Cool day, little wind about 50º out. Sorry! Scott”

 

I was so happy that he didn’t take it. I have had problems with some of my other caches being plundered and this guy takes my cache home and then brings it back.

 

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?

 

[targetdrone]

Anybody who would bring it back would probably make a good Geocacher. No contact info? Too bad.

 

Was it an easy hide?

 

Don't blame me, I voted for Jeremy.

[+DirtRunner]

Yea! That happened to me also at This One

 

Cool when it happens, but I've already lost one, so I thought for sure that this one would be a goner also.

 

DirtRunner.

 

Your not first...But you could be next.

[+The Shorts]

It was an easy one for the kids and when I found the cache it was out in the open. I was supprised it wasn't plundered before. I do wish there was some contact info so I could thank this guy.

 

[emanuel]

This happened to me as well. This was a cache that I put together at the last minute, and I couldn't find a big enough container. The non-cacher who found it wanted to leave something behind but there wasn't enough room, so he replaced the container with a bigger one!

 

This guy really should be a geocacher. He's almost there, what with carrying around spare tupperware and trade items

 

This cache was on Hornby Island, a small, a friendly island with a population of several hundred between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Not that surprised that the finders were cool.

[+yrium]

I have a cache that has been adopted by an upscale homeless person. He took the cache from its hiding spot and put it on his front porch so to speak. After he did that about half the visitors since have mentioned meeting and talking to "Danny the cache guardian". Danny made an entry in the log and even added an Item to the cache.

 

--- yrium ---

[+briansnat]

This cache of mine was found by a non geocacher. It was brought home and once they discovered what it was (it was an ammo box with a lot of good stuff in it) they replaced it. On a maint trip I ran into to this guy (his son-in-law was the original finder). He lives a few hundred yards from the cache site.

 

He was pretty protective of the cache and said if "anybody tries to steal it, they'll have to deal with me". Subsequent finders have encountered him. He's an older, but quite tough, gentleman. Retired I guess and he seems to spend a lot of time in the area. What more can you ask for than a guardian for your cache?

 

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs, but by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" -Max Beerbohm

[+PI Joe]

quote:

---

Originally posted by The Shorts:

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?

 

---

 

Last year I was out doing maintenance and discovered that a cache has been taken. #$@%$#! Boo. Hiss.

 

A couple months later I'm exploring the same area for new (better?) cache locations and low and behold, I find my old cache sitting next to a boulder about fifty yards from it's old hiding spot! Curious, I start reading the log book and the last entry was something like this:

 

"I found this box and read the instructions and thought I'd join the fun. I hope you all had fun searching for this box here." I guess he thought the thing to do when you find the cache is to rehide it nearby!

 

Lou AKA TxHiPowr

[+longball]

emanuel, that's the coolest statement I've read in a while. Do you really know anybody that carries around spare tupperware and trade items? I'm just trying to picture it! OK, I'm sure there are people like that still around, just haven't been around any for a while!!!!lb:^)*****

[+Navdog]

Two of my caches seem to be quite well known by nearby local non-cachers. At the Willamette Falls cache the seasonal Lock Keeper at the falls is quite familiar with the cache, although he does not know the actual location, he evidently has been very helpful to the folks looking for the clues. At the cache location there seems to be some locals that are aware of the cache as evident by this log.

 

Then at the Quarry View cache a local fisherman seems quite familiar with the cache from this log.

 

Also at our Moondog3 cache, The Birdhouse, a cougar hunter evidently tracked footprints in the snow and found the cache, signed the logbook, registered and eventually found several more.

 

The adventures of Navdog, Justdog, and Otterpup

[+seneca]

I had a cache found by a City parks worker. The employee left a log in the notebook - said he initially took the cache to the works yard and then figured out what it was - he put it back and left a package of Smarties with it! (it was one instance when I didn't mind someone leaving food in a cache).

 

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.

[Mr502go]

What wonderful stories!!! For those that have "guardians", especially the one with the homeless gentleman, those that can get to it should leave trinkets for them. A trinket tailored to that person would be great.

 

It must be such an inspiration to own a cache that brings sooo much joy to the life of another, especially when life hasn't been particularly kind to that person. Stories like that really give me a renewed faith in the inherent goodness of people. That somebody could look out for another in such a state speaks loads for him.

[+Ramness]

We had one around here go missing. A guy claimed he found it in a park, saw that it was marked “Geocaching.com” and thought it was a net biz that had gone under. Said he drive around for a month with it in his van before he opened it up. When he realized what it was he registered an account and posted to the cache page what had happened, and that he would return it. The cache was on my todo list and after a couple months I sent him an email asking if he I put the cache back yet.

 

He replied back with a nasty email saying he was going to put somewhere else and give the owner real orienteering directions to find it with no GPS …? Or something to that effect.

 

I emailed him back and told him the geocaching was about using the GPS to find cache and that if he wanted to do orienteering he should check out letterboxing. He had nasty things to say about that if I recall correctly and needless to say the cache never reappered!

[Broncoholics]

quote:

---

I just got done doing some cache maintenance, and when I was reading the log book I came across a log that read.

---

 

quote:

---

Has anyone else had something like this happen to them?

---

 

Yes, this happened to us and here are the three logs they wrote.

 

8/6/02

Kinda chilly day. This is wierd! Jeff and I were riding around on our go-kart looking for rocks for our campfire! He found this wierd orange box and here we are looking through it. We're going to leave a rock in memory of our visit! Be back soon! Always, Michelle and Jeff

 

8/12/02

Me n Jeff back again. Riding go-kart. Took fabric, we're gonna make something. Cya later!

 

3rd one, no date...

Hey, me and Sarah just riding the go-kart. Some crazy day, hot and dusty outside. Jeff

 

So, after the last log we went to check on the cache and add some stuff and a new log book. We thought everything was ok, but Duane decided to try and move the travel bug along and went to the cache and found that there was no travel bug and only pencils. They wiped us out! We refuse to retire this cache, so we will be moving it some and changing the coordinates.

 

We weren't as lucky as you, Shorts, at least they brought yours back!

 

Candie

Upinyachit

 

Our feet go where the caches are!

[Dinoprophet]

The first log on this one is amusing. The cache isn't mine, but the hider appears to be inactive and thus unlikely to post it here. Unfortunately, the finder's attitude toward it appears to have turned for the worse. It's hard to blame him; it sounds like he's been pretty tolerant of some problems realted to it (though I wouldn't call 20 cars in 1.5 years a "large amount of traffic").

 

Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann, und ich hab' auch im Blut.

[Cape Cod Cacher]

The 'Big W' http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=2831

Has been found plenty of times, quite honestly it's hidden in an area prone to kids climbing around. A local kid brought it home and his DAD made him bring it back and e-mailed me. The volunteers at the Big W it's self watched people looking all summer. Some other locals know about it and leave the area until they see the leaving cachers and ask if they found it in good shape. Best was when a fellow cacher saw it (out of place) recognized what it was and brought it over to his wife, and his GPS was left at home many miles away.

[+Team Tecmage]

Our Gunder Woods Projectcache went missing for a few days. We got an email from the finder- the new owner of the property, who replaced it. we emailed back to see of we needed to move it (and try to find out where the park property ended). We got no response, but the cache is still there.

[+Egnix]

I was just recently at a cache which had a log that said something like:

"Two potheads found this by accident! This is really cool! We left and took ..." It went on mentioned what a great time they were having being high...

[+dlynch]

Well I had something strange happen to one of my Caches. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=16200

It "walked off" and I thought it was gone forever. Last month I got an e-mail from a non GeoCacher and he said that he found my cache inside a bail of hay. We think someone found the cache and threw it into a field and it got bailed up with the hay. I asked him to mail me the log book and camera (it was still inside) I am still waiting. The bail of hay showed up over 200 miles away. I thought this was pretty strange.

Dlynch

[+MrGigabyte]

Cache With a View, had 10 logs by non cachers in the last 10 months! Although, the cache itself now only contained some change and a wet log book, it was still there. Perhaps the climb up to the viewpoint was enough for them and they didn't have enough energy to take it away with them. :-)

[+Web-ling]

I have an urban micro-cache near a popular tourist attraction and night spot that has been logged by a couple of tourists as well as a groundskeeper and a local parking lot attendant.

 

[+GeoForse]

Yes, I had one of my caches found by non-cachers. Check out the March 25 log by Squeamish on http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=4486 . The cache was found by two guys who went to smoke a joint. Check out the photos on the cache page and see if you can guess who they were. They left a nice note in the log book besides taking a swell picture!

 

GeoForse

[+barondriver]

I visited mine a while back to find a log from a park ranger..he said that he didn't know that it was there but wasn't going to remove it and left some brochures on the park..

 

[+ZachMJ2345]

At one of my first caches some guy came (with an apparent grudge against a girl). Well, yeah, he found it on accident and decided to play a little joke. He left this girl's address and what amounted to "for a good time, go to....." Just in not such nice words. I laughed about it and then removed it. At that same cache some little girl was picking flowers with her friend and they came across the cache. They left a hair clip and went on their way. I was very pleased that neither of them plundered the cache, though... the first one was a little inappropriate.

 

-Zach

-Team TSA-

[+Jennifer&Dean]

At the Astronomy Through The Ages Event in September in Lolo, MT, we met a really nice family that had found a not-so-local cache. It was really neat to talk to them about their reactions to finding it and what they left in it. Their boys had found it while playing in the brush at a lake. We talked for quite a while and the were really excited to know there were local caches to find. It really is neat to meet folks whose introduction to caching is by accident.

[+Mopar]

Clayton Park had several logs in it from a "Mr.Regnar Krap". After I read a few of them, I figured out it was "park ranger" spelled backwards. From reading some of the other logs looks like the rangers had alot of fun with this cache. (So did I, see the Feb 9 logs) Too bad it seems to be missing now

 

Tae-Kwon-Leap is not a path to a door, but a road leading forever towards the horizon.

[+Ramness]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramness570:

We had one around here go missing. A guy claimed he found it in a park, saw that it was marked “Geocaching.com” and thought it was a net biz that had gone under. Said he drive around for a month with it in his van before he opened it up. When he realized what it was he registered an account and posted to the cache page what had happened, and that he would return it. The cache was on my todo list and after a couple months I sent him an email asking if he I put the cache back yet.

 

He replied back with a nasty email saying he was going to put somewhere else and give the owner real orienteering directions to find it with no GPS …? Or something to that effect.

 

I emailed him back and told him the geocaching was about using the GPS to find cache and that if he wanted to do orienteering he should check out letterboxing. He had nasty things to say about that if I recall correctly and needless to say the cache never reappered!

---

 

Found the emails

 

Here is the log on the cache page.

 

"Never heard of this geocaching business. I still managed to find the thing. Soggy cacoon video tape. Well the label says cacoon maybe something better inside...

 

It's been in the back of my van all week. Finally got around to checking out what this 'geocaching.com' on the cooler was. I had thought, yet another failed dot com building datacaching products for the www.

 

Now I see it's a game. I do not own a GPS. Do not know when I'll be back at the park. If someone else wants to hide, they are welcome to come pick it up. tongaloa@atl.org or I can hide some time next week. Will make it easy if I use use lat lon off a sectional."

 

Original email i sent him 2 months later

 

"do you still have the chastains cooler cache?"

 

a month later I get...

 

"It's been back for many months.

I hid in the woods and left instructions.

I emailed a couple of guys who responded to me initially

with these instructions as well.

 

They require being able to follow a REAL MAP as

I've no GPS toys."

 

My reply

 

"Where are the instructions? Geocaching is a GPS hunt, maps are not required. That is how the game works. If you want to use maps to find

caches try letterboxing. If you don't have a GPS why not just put the game piece back where you found it?"

 

His reply 1 month later (slightly edited)

 

"You're welcome, @$$hole!"