Dangerous Caching

[Guest echo2000]

Yikes!

 

Here in more-or-less suburbia hell, the worst are teens getting high or boozed up in the localized scrub brush!

 

E2

[Guest Hounddog]

QUOTE]I got out my cell phone, called emergency services, when asked for my location I told them my GPS coordinates she laughed at me me and said she'd have search & rescue to me a.s.a.p. next thing I know I'm being airlifted out with the local "NEIGHBORS" looking on trying to figure out what was going on.

 

That's a great story but a very scary experience. I guess you have to thank Mobile Phone technology for helping there. We have good Phone coverage in and around the major cities (Yes we do have a couple more beside Sydney) and along the main highways in Australia but there is still an enormous amount of area that doesn't have coverage. I am one of these idiots that go walkabout alone and while it's nice to know the mobile can help in some situations, I can't rely on it most of the time. An EPRIRB is the next best thing. Of course, for the safety of other Geocachers and the need for some strong bushcraft skills, I don't place Geocaches in extremely remote areas all the same.

 

One of my scariest experiences while caching was falling of a rock ledge, I fell 10 metres but luckily didn't break a limb. Still sprained a knee and had some cuts and bleeding. The problem was that the fall put me on another ledge that was normally un- accessible. I had to nervously climb back up and then hobble the half hour walk back to the car, and that was in the middle of Sydney. Luckily my GPS survived the fall.

 

Hounddog

[Guest Hounddog]

QUOTE]I got out my cell phone, called emergency services, when asked for my location I told them my GPS coordinates she laughed at me me and said she'd have search & rescue to me a.s.a.p. next thing I know I'm being airlifted out with the local "NEIGHBORS" looking on trying to figure out what was going on.

 

That's a great story but a very scary experience. I guess you have to thank Mobile Phone technology for helping there. We have good Phone coverage in and around the major cities (Yes we do have a couple more beside Sydney) and along the main highways in Australia but there is still an enormous amount of area that doesn't have coverage. I am one of these idiots that go walkabout alone and while it's nice to know the mobile can help in some situations, I can't rely on it most of the time. An EPRIRB is the next best thing. Of course, for the safety of other Geocachers and the need for some strong bushcraft skills, I don't place Geocaches in extremely remote areas all the same.

 

One of my scariest experiences while caching was falling of a rock ledge, I fell 10 metres but luckily didn't break a limb. Still sprained a knee and had some cuts and bleeding. The problem was that the fall put me on another ledge that was normally un- accessible. I had to nervously climb back up and then hobble the half hour walk back to the car, and that was in the middle of Sydney. Luckily my GPS survived the fall.

 

Hounddog

[Guest Clay]

What'da mean your gps, lucky you survived the fall!!

[Guest CYjo]

I don't know about you but I'll need my GPS to get to heaven. Here in south Florida we got brown recluse spiders, four or five kinds of poisonous snakes, gators, wild boar, heard of bears and panthers, and oh of course don't forget mr. Bobby Ray Robert E. Lee, redneck. Although they are easy to avoid, just slip away when an oversized over rusted pickup with no muffler approaches. They also tend to leave a trail of cheap beer cans and pork rind wrappers. Be afraid, very afraid!!

[Guest VentureForth]

quote:

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Originally posted by Hounddog:

Down here we're hoping that one of those big man eating crocs can do us all a favour and snack out on Steve Irwin (alias the Crocodile Hunter) Fingers are crossed.

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Awww, don't be too hard the boy. He's great entertainment. Much more enjoyable than 1/2 the fishing infomercials on from Friday night through Monday morning.

 

It could be worse. Here in North Texas, we could have a show featuring Billy Bob & How To Catch A Ferrel Hawg.

 

Give Irwin a GPS and then follow him around with a camera crew. THAT would be funny. "Blimey, mate? It's a very daaangerus soign wen the screen goes blank on you herea wayee in the Bush. No worries, tho. I got me satellite phone. If that doesn't woook, I speak Kangaroo..."

 

Paul Hogan is respectable. Wouldn't you say?

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

[Guest AprilSharkey]

quote:

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I don't know about you but I'll need my GPS to get to heaven. Here in south Florida we got brown recluse spiders, four or five kinds of poisonous snakes, gators, wild boar, heard of bears and panthers, and oh of

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You forgot the worst and most dangerous of all the animals in Florida.... O.J. Simpson

[Guest apersson850]

Since I'm neither in the US nor down under, but in Sweden, I don't have any animals to care to much about. While there are bear, moose and so on, and they can be agressive when they have their kids, they are usually out of your way long before you see them.

 

Being run over by a car while you are looking at the GPS could very well be the worst danger!

 

Anders

[Guest rpecot]

Seems most of the responses relate to dangers of the critters we might encounter while outside. What about cache placement? There's one in my area which looks to be placed on an interstate right-of-way. I thought the shoulder of the road was for emergency use only. I'm sure as h#ll not stopping on the side of the road with cars and trucks whizzing by at 70+ mph to look for a cache. Is it just me?

[Guest broek]

It's not you. We had a cache here (The Netherlands) that was placed on an enbankment between a highway and a railway. The cache was easily and without danger reached when approached via a walkway over the highway and railway. But some journalist went crying berserk when she tried to find it for her artical.

quote:

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Way too dangerous!!! GPS accuracy could get people astray on the highway!!! DANGER!!!

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Like HOMO-SAPIENS means anything else than 'thinking human' .

Result: the cache was removed from the site, and we got a bad rapsheet with some walking-organisation. Then there was an idea not to place caches whithin 250 meter of railroads and highways. That blew away almost half the caches placed over here. Later on this was reduced to 25m and a note in the cachepage of the possible danger.

 

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Gerard

 

N53 12.609 E5 46.797

#922 #16FF #305C

 

[This message has been edited by broek (edited 30 January 2002).]

[Guest Hounddog]

quote:

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Originally posted by VentureForth:

Give Irwin a GPS and then follow him around with a camera crew. THAT would be funny. "Blimey, mate? It's a very daaangerus soign wen the screen goes blank on you herea wayee in the Bush. No worries, tho. I got me satellite phone. If that doesn't woook, I speak Kangaroo..."

---

 

He speaks with an accent called "Strine" which I suppose could be compared to your deepest south Hillbilly type accent. We try to keep it locked away as a kind of embarrassment, because truly not many us speak that way anymore. We also don't encourage jumping onto a crocodile's back and joining him in a death roll. This sort of thing can be encouraging foolhardy behaviour because the crocs are a very real danger in Northern Australia. They are known to have eaten several American Tourists BTW. One water hole I went swimming at recently has a croc spotter sitting on a tower above the swimmers, rather like a shark spotter. If we see one coming we don't hang around, because even though they might be big bastards they can move like lightening.

 

Hounddog

[Guest rusty]

quote:

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Originally posted by Don&Betty:

Deer hunters are a real concern in Michigan. I read once where a deer hunter shot a big yellow school bus--said he thought it was a deer.

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That would be funny if I didn't believe it. I don't go near the woods during firearm deer season. I have nothing against hunting and love venison but I've heard and seen too many stories of idiots whose IQ is lower than the caliber of their rifles.

 

Rusty...

 

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Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

[Guest SNIFTER]

Not so much dangerous but yukky... The leach. I know they are found all over the place and just a drop of rain brings them out. We have posted warnings on some sites as to their prolification.

[Guest Waterboy]

A picture may be worth a thousand words. Please see the Guardian on:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=8742

[Guest Gliderguy]

I am surprised someone from Kansas or Oklahoma didnt counter the funnel web spider with the Feral Funnel CLOUD!!!

 

Not that they are particularly dangerous, but I did encounter a Tarantula once on a cache.

 

In reality, My two biggest fears in my current mountainous terrain are lightning and flash flooding. I would be pretty tense if confronted with a pack of coyotes, which I have seen in packs of a dozen or so in Arkansas. Here in New Mexico, last year we had a few human fatalities due to black bears. The mast crop failed and they were ranging into the city starving hungery looking for food.

[Guest Harrkev]

"The cache is in the middle of the bear pit at the zoo. Running shoes may be helpful."

[Guest infosponge]

Is Alby "Adventure Bound" Mangels still roaming around out there? That's one mate who should get a GPS and start caching!

 

quote:

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Originally posted by Hounddog:

Down here we're hoping that one of those big man eating crocs can do us all a favour and snack out on Steve Irwin (alias the Crocodile Hunter) Fingers are crossed.

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[Guest VentureForth]

I just had to post this... Though not really 'dangerous' per se, it is rather funny reading. My buddy and I placed this cache a week ago. One real hard thing about this sport is making it safe, legal, challenging, and not too dang easy all at the same time.

 

I was getting frustrated that in a week, the first two people couldn't find it. Well, some guys finally did. Here, I'll let you see for yourself: Brockway Branch

 

That, my friends, almost captures the true essense of this sport!!

 

[NOTE: The neighbor knew we were putting the cache there. Honest.]

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

 

[This message has been edited by VentureForth (edited 11 February 2002).]

 

[This message has been edited by VentureForth (edited 11 February 2002).]

[Guest glenn95630]

quote:

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Originally posted by VentureForth:

That, my friends, almost captures the true essense of this sport!!

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I don't know about most geocachers, but I don't think the true essence of this sport can be almost captured by a cache in a subdivision.

 

None of the logs are saying, 'I never knew this place existed, thanks for showing me this spot.'

 

Maybe the true essence of the hunt aspect of the activity is shown by these logs, but I would even go so far as saying these logs would be a poor example use to introduce a person to this sport.

[Guest VentureForth]

quote:

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None of the logs are saying, 'I never knew this place existed, thanks for showing me this spot.'

 

Maybe the true essence of the hunt aspect of the activity is shown by these logs, but I would even go so far as saying these logs would be a poor example use to introduce a person to this sport.[/b]

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Ahh, but you see, that's the pure beauty of this sport. True, suburban caches are not the same as glorious views from Catalina Island or a breathtaking sweep of the Golden Gate bridge. What the true essence of this sport is excitement, the hunt, and the successful completion of a goal. In the same way that a virtual cache can be as fulfilling in a completely different way than a traditional cache, one with a little excitement in the suburbs can be fulfilling in a very different way than State Park Cache #1258 - A Beautiful Lake.

 

To each his own. That's a theme often repeated in this very eclectic sport.

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

[Guest Peanuthead]

Okay, I have a new nomination for Most Dangerous Cache!

 

It is here:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=9386&decrypt=y

 

"Is that a bullet whizzing my my head, or are you just happy to see me?"

[Guest Peanuthead]

p://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=9386&decrypt=y" TARGET=_blank>http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=9386&decrypt=y

 

"Is that a bullet whizzing my my head, or are you just happy to see me?"

[Guest VentureForth]

bothers me is that the last guy that went out there posted it as a find (which we ARE going to remvoe) and he didn't find it. Then he posted the comment that he didn't want to venture around a trigger happy neighbor. First, the officer never EVER pulled his weapon. He was in uniform getting home from work and found some guys in his backyard and talked to them. Incidently, those guys had a good time and they apologized and had a good time filling the log.

 

Maybe if we put the difficulty level to about a 4 and put a big flashing .gif on the site we can keep it.

 

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

[Guest VentureForth]

Jeremy has asked that we remove Brockway Branch. We are sending him our case, but I wanted some opinions. First, I want someone to tell me if this really is a dangerous cache? I think that there were a couple problems in the beginning, but corrective action was taken immediately to prevent future 'misconceptions'.

 

As was pointed out earlier, suburban caches are difficult to make challenging, exciting, and worth the hunt. But sometimes there is also a need(?) for them. For instance, this is the only cache in this entire suburbia county. Sure, there are other places to put it, but this one presents its own unique challenge and adventure.

 

And if people read the description and follow the guidelines (That dern word again!) it would be very difficult to get into any kind of trouble or danger.

 

I guess the part that bothers me is that the last guy that went out there posted it as a find (which we ARE going to remvoe) and he didn't find it. Then he posted the comment that he didn't want to venture around a trigger happy neighbor. First, the officer never EVER pulled his weapon. He was in uniform getting home from work and found some guys in his backyard and talked to them. Incidently, those guys had a good time and they apologized and had a good time filling the log.

 

Maybe if we put the difficulty level to about a 4 and put a big flashing .gif on the site we can keep it.

 

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

[Guest glenn95630]

quote:

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Originally posted by VentureForth:

First, I want someone to tell me if this really is a dangerous cache?

 

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I know everyone has different views, here's mine.

 

Do I think somebody will get hurt searching for this cache? ...No

 

Do I think the activity of geocaching will get hurt by this cache? ...Yes

 

Perception is more important than reality.

 

There are property owners that think their property extends further than it really does and someone could be walking on public land but the property owner thinks that person is on their land. Perception not reality.

 

There are residents who feel unsafe when people walk around near their backyard at night even when the people walking around are law-abiding geocachers. Perception not reality.

 

There are people who will take an isolated incident, publisize it in a manner that will make people perceive the entire activity in the same manner. Perception not reality.

 

I think the potential downside for the entire geocaching activity is greater than the need for this one cache. I think caches that make it easy for searchers to end up in someone's backyard should be removed.

[Guest VentureForth]

Ok - anyone else? Just kidding. I appreciate your thoughts, Glenn, but I do want to point out a couple things:

 

quote:

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Do I think the activity of geocaching will get hurt by this cache? ...Yes

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Why?

 

quote:

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There are residents who feel unsafe when people walk around near their backyard at night even when the people walking around are law-abiding geocachers. Perception not reality.

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There are express prohibitions on caching there at night.

 

quote:

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There are people who will take an isolated incident, publisize it in a manner that will make people perceive the entire activity in the same manner. Perception not reality.

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Damage Control. Taken care of.

 

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

[Guest VentureForth]

Ok - anyone else? Just kidding. I appreciate your thoughts, Glenn, but I do want to point out a couple things:

 

quote:

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Do I think the activity of geocaching will get hurt by this cache? ...Yes

---

 

Why?

 

quote:

---

There are residents who feel unsafe when people walk around near their backyard at night even when the people walking around are law-abiding geocachers. Perception not reality.

---

 

There are express prohibitions on caching there at night.

 

quote:

---

There are people who will take an isolated incident, publisize it in a manner that will make people perceive the entire activity in the same manner. Perception not reality.

---

 

Damage Control. Taken care of.

 

 

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VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest...

[Guest apersson850]

quote:

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Originally posted by Don&Betty:

I read once where a deer hunter shot a big yellow school bus--said he thought it was a deer.

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Wow. That means that my favorite Swedish hunter, who put three rounds in a red Wolkswagen, assuming it was a small moose, was fairly right. Comparatively.

 

Anders

[Guest george71]

I don't know how many people know this, but the squirrels in Yosemite Valley carry the plague. Actually, the fleas on the squirrels carry the plague.

 

Imagine calling in sick with the plague.

[Guest YaesuMan]

quote:

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Originally posted by MattandLaura:

I would have to agree with Navdog and the slugs. You also have to watch for paintballers

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=4448

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My Goal is this cache, but I'm kinda scared of the yelling life guard.

 

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I do radio.

Anything that is radio.

Yes, GPS is radio.

GO HAM RADIO!

[Guest BLEdwardsJ]

paranoia the dreaded HANTA VIRUS which is an deadly airborn virus often found in rodent droppings. When poking around in rocky areas I often find rats nests and the likes. I always point them out to my kids and tell them to keep a distance. It just seems that rodent nests and good hiding places might go hand in hand.

[Guest BLEdwardsJ]

Back to the caching dangers.

In Southern Utah we might face rattlesnakes (I think you more likely to get struck by lightning than get bit), cougers (if you are luck to see one), ticks (nasty little duggers, a friend had two on him at once), and if in some of the mountains you might see a bear (again if you are lucky).

Something that no body has mentioned so far is my personal paranoia the dreaded HANTA VIRUS which is an deadly airborn virus often found in rodent droppings. When poking around in rocky areas I often find rats nests and the likes. I always point them out to my kids and tell them to keep a distance. It just seems that rodent nests and good hiding places might go hand in hand.

[Guest prv8eye]

quote:

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Originally posted by george71:

I don't know how many people know this, but the squirrels in Yosemite Valley carry the plague. Actually, the fleas on the squirrels carry the plague.

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Same with the rats in New York City.

I'll take the "dangers" of the woods, any day, over the dangers of urban areas inhabited by the most dangerous species on the planet, man.

Given the opportunity, almost any animal native to North America will run, slither or fly away from man.

It is extremely rare, in this part of the world, for people to be attacked by wild animals. It's the domestic animals that we've got to keep an eye on.

Dogs kill, maim or injure FAR more U.S. citizens, every year, than all the wild critters combined.

That's why an American who lives in an area heavily inhabited by wild animals still has a much easier time getting home owner's insurance than one who lives in town but owns a pit bull, Rottweiller or Mastiff.

[Guest prv8eye]

itizens, every year, than all the wild critters combined.

That's why an American who lives in an area heavily inhabited by wild animals still has a much easier time getting home owner's insurance than one who lives in town but owns a pit bull, Rottweiller or Mastiff.

[Guest SirRalanN]

the most dangerous thing i have come across while caching was a mountain lion that was stalking me, the second most dangerous creatue i have seen was a VERY angry badger.