+PekkaR Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 Geocaching is very versatile and positive hobby. Are there any drawbacks? Have there been accidents? Has anybody hurt her/himself while geocaching? Has there been damage to nature or buildings by geocachers? Are there cheats among geocachers, people who log caches they haven’t found? Or something else? PekkaR Quote Link to comment
+Captain Morgan Posted November 21, 2003 Share Posted November 21, 2003 1. Have there been accidents? Has anybody hurt her/himself while geocaching? In Finland yes, but fortunately nothing that bad, as in in the link above. Epeli or Eltsu hurt his shoulder, if i remember right. I've hurt my head, just a small wound, when i was hiding a cache in cave. 2. Has there been damage to nature or buildings by geocachers? I've seen some small damage when cache has been hidden in place where is moss i.e. the moss has been uprooted. 3. Are there cheats among geocachers, people who log caches they haven’t found? Yes, i've noticed some "Found it"s, even though it's clear that the seeker has not really found the cache, but just a place where the cache had or should have been. Quote Link to comment
+hedberg Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 Injurys: Yes, I know of one serious injury, Industrial Evilness by Erst, where the cacher Clyys hurt his (I think it was) ancle. Check out the pics... I know also there are som pics of CyberJunkie getting a little bit hurt (some blood), but he has found nearly 500 caches and I don't want to spend the rest of my life reading thru all his logs Damaging: There was a cache here in Göteborg, Sweden, that (THANK GOD) didn't last more than 2 days. It was 3 of a kind by Buda that was an attempt to a mailbox cache. It started okay, first we had to find a filmcanister hidden in a park, then go into a library and look for a certain book. We found the book and looked for page 50 as the note in the filmcanister said. There he had written on the page in the book, in fact ALL copies of that certain book, the next clue. We had to run around three different libraries in central Göteborg, and look in a couple of different books. All had been destroyed by his writtings like "CACHE 3-OF-A-KIND. Now go to N.../E... and look for a book named X by the author Y." He had also written on the front and backside of a registercard over maps, with a higtlighting pen (bright orange colour). Also on the inside of some more things... We were three persons who took this cache, we actually ran into each other at the first cache. I was first, then Jasy and CyberJunkie arrived with 1 minute between. We got more annoyed for each step. There were 3 travelbugs in the cache, and the final cache was hidden behind some books inside a studentlibrary (!). So we decided to resque the TBs before the cache was destroyed by a non-cacher. The cache are not any longer active. The geocaching.com admins were not pleased to hear how the cache and clues were placed. The dialogue can be found in the logs between us, geocaching.com and the cacheowner Buda. Quote Link to comment
+epeli Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 Accidents - yes. When I first time studied the Ruuhijärvi area (over 5 months ago)for cache location I got my right shoulder dislocated - it's pretty good now, but I'm still having physiotherapy for it. Damage - yes. But fortunately minor. Mainly I have seen moss suffering due to intensive walking in the close vicinity of cache sites. Due to this I have re-located two caches. Cheating - no. Actually I have met couple of log books with signatures which have never appeared to the web site. Even though I'd like these people log into the Net, too, I can not tell this to be cheating. Quote Link to comment
+hedberg Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 Cheating - no. Actually I have met couple of log books with signatures which have never appeared to the web site. Even though I'd like these people log into the Net, too, I can not tell this to be cheating. Yeah, but that can also be non-cachers that found the cache. CyberJunkie have a cache that was destroyed recently, but the cache was found by more non-cachers than cachers. And it was a really rough terrain and hidingplace. The last two loggers in the logbook wrote that they were looking for drugs in the cache! Quote Link to comment
+Divine Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 I've seen some logs made by geomuggles who have accidentally discovered the cache, but more often those 'logbook yes - webpage no' -loggers have clearly been people who check coordinates and hints from the web and then search the caches. Apparently they haven't even created an account here in gc.com. While I have to say this is perfectly acceptable way to play the game, I still think it would be polite and useful for the cache hider and the future seekers that everyone just logged their finds in the web too. Quote Link to comment
+Divine Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 I haven't had any bad accidents. At my first non-Finnish cache I found I almost broke my ankle, but all I got was some bleeding scratches on it. Unfortunately there can be seen some wearing and tearing of nature near certain cache locations. I know at least two cases where the hider exemplarily relocated his cache to a better place in order to prevent more wearing. I wish all the hiders would think about the surroundings when placing caches. And of course hunters too. Quote Link to comment
+Kettu Posted November 27, 2003 Share Posted November 27, 2003 (edited) Grr... just a while ago I returned from a maintenance visit to one of my nearby caches to notice that some nasty geomuggle had stolen the whole box! Quite a drawback then... Of course, could be also argued that I've hidden the box badly, but it doesn't give the people the right to spoil the fun for others when they could well read what it is about! Well, plastic boxes come and go, but I had attached to it a relatively expensive small object (for which I was yet hunting all over the town when grounding the cache) and it was an integral part of the story behind the cache... Another smallish drawback I've met are people, who happen to know the cache area well and then guess the final point of a multi-cache without participating fully. Edited November 27, 2003 by Kettu Quote Link to comment
+Divine Posted November 27, 2003 Share Posted November 27, 2003 Another smallish drawback I've met are people, who happen to know the cache area well and then guess the final point of a multi-cache without participating fully. I know cachers whose main goal has been to figure out all the multicache parts at home and just go straight to the cache and sign the log. While I've taken couple of short cuts at multis during my geocaching career, I see couple of drawbacks in this, and I nowadays I usually try to avoid cutting corners: First of all, it's kind of disrespectful for the hider, who may have worked really hard for figuring all the legs and puzzles for the multicache. OTOH, IMO the hider should try to calculate his/her puzzles so that one must visit all the cache parts in order to get all the pieces. Secondly, as a hunter I'm usually interested why did the hider want me to visit this or that spot. Multicache is an entity, and only by visiting all the spots hunter has the possibility to form a similar picture of the wholeness. That of course puts some responsibility on the hider too: (s)he better not make me visit some empty yard or dull roadside just to make me walk some more. Quote Link to comment
+Kettu Posted November 27, 2003 Share Posted November 27, 2003 I really think that a multicache is an entity, and that it would be nicer if the visitor proceeds as the cache owner has planned. I think one then gets much more of the hobby and it's not just hunting points for the User Stats. Such I consider for example if a searcher cracks the hint of a multi cache and then finds the cache directly with that, some luck and earlier knowledge of the surroundings. Everybody has their style, but I prefer taking some time with the caches and looking properly at what the cache owner wants me to see. Quote Link to comment
+PekkaR Posted November 27, 2003 Author Share Posted November 27, 2003 (edited) I take geocaching as solving problems. It's good that everybody can solve the problem her/his own way. Somebody likes to do homeworks well: do calculations, examine maps, books and internet. then find the solution and go straight to the cache. Another geocacher follows the instructions of cache description step by step to the cache. Third one tries to guess the final point without participating fully. It's impossible to know beforehand, which way is best: quickiest, easiest, funniest, etc. I don't consider any of these methods as cheating. PekkaR Edited November 28, 2003 by PekkaR Quote Link to comment
+Captain Morgan Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 Kettu (i.e. Fox in english) wrote: Grr... just a while ago I returned from a maintenance visit to one of my nearby caches to notice that some nasty geomuggle had stolen the whole box! Quite a drawback then... ------------ Remember that your geomuggle may as well be a fox Well, or raccoon dog, magpie or any other geoanimal Quote Link to comment
+Captain Morgan Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 I like PekkaR's attitude and i must agree with him. I have done multicaches in several ways. Sometimes i do it as owner has planned, but in some cases, i have done my homeworks well and solved the final or almost final coordinates at home. In those few cases i have usually known the place before, and been there perhaps several times, and i can't find anything new from there. In a case like that, it's much more rewarding to solve the mystery with your little grey cells, even though it may take several hours more compared to finding the multicache as it was originally planned. Quote Link to comment
+Harjus Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 (edited) I hurted my head quite badly during searching Captain's Special 1. Kirsi almost slewed down from the cliff in Kovaskallio. In some places moss is easily damaged even by slightest walking. Edited November 28, 2003 by Harjus Quote Link to comment
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