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When You Hide Caches, Do You Primarily Hide Them


Bloencustoms

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I guess the title says it all. Just wondering what most people have in mind when they go to hide a cache. It is easy enough to hide something from someone who isn't looking for it. But it takes a bit of creativity to keep experienced searchers guessing. Which type of caches do you hide, ones that are good enough to escape accidental notice from the general public, or caches that are concealed so as to present a challenge to people who are actually looking for them? (This is not meant to be an endorsement of any particular style of hiding.)

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I have some in each of your categories. The funny thing is that the one that has been most difficult to find was intended to be in plain view in a public place. It even is called 'Insight #2," and is part of a series of caches that are right out there, once you know what you are looking for, but are never seen by muggles. Well this one is a small metal breath mint container, painted flat black, and partially tucked behind the plastic black straps that they use to hold up new palm trees (in a grocery store parking lot). Some of the best local geocachers have had to make three visits to find it. I love it!

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My goal is to make them invisible to muggles and obvious to cachers. It's silly to make them hard simply for the sake of making it hard.

I have to disagree. I think it's fun to create a challenge for players. I know I love it when someone comes up with a unique hide idea that stumps me. I've also gotten great feedback from those I have stumped. Nothing silly about that as long as everybody is having fun.

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For me the best hides are those that are invisible to muggles and obvious to cachers when they put their mind to it. Anybody can make it difficult to find something by lack of care or bad luck in getting coordinates, or by hiding the cache in an obscure place. Under a random bush when there are hundreds of bushes is obscure as is hiding something under a rock in a field of rocks.

 

One can transform an obscure hide into an elegant one if perhaps there is one bush that is unique, or the rock is in the exact center of the field, or it is the middle of three stones that line up to give a perfect view of a distant waterfall. When it is possible to discern the thinking behind the hide as opposed to simply trampling every bush or turning over every stone, one is beginning to get to the elegance of the geocaching sport. Obscure hides also tend to be difficult for the hider to re-find the cache.

 

Most of our hides focus on keeping them out of a muggle's view. All are obvious when you know where to look even if getting into a position to be able to look might require special effort.

 

Team Geo-Jedi

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I have the good fortune to have done alot of caching with 3 of Chicago's premiere cachers. Each of them have over 1500 finds. So when I hide, I'm thinking of ways to make it fun for them (i.e stump them) since they have seen their share of creative hides.

 

I guess my longwinded answers is....for other cachers.

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I generally try to hide my cache from muggles, hence the camo jobs I do on my caches. I also try to make sure they are far enough off the beaten path where muggles won't find them.

 

But I want to make sure geocachers find them (since that's the point of this sport), so I hide in a manner where someone who is looking for it will find it fairly easily, but someone passing by won't notice it.

 

I'm not a big fan of the "stump the hunter" game, but I have made one or two a challenge just to mix things up a bit. Most of the time I'd rather make the cache hunt a nice hike to an interesting place and a fairly easy find once the person gets there.

Edited by briansnat
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Always from muggles.

 

Sometimes from cachers--that's what the higher ratings are for!

 

These will obviously be found/logged less frequently--but the logs are more interesting and appreciative than the generic.

 

(My shorter hikes are generally tougher hides. IE, the more effort to get there, the less to find it, and vise-versa.)

 

Enjoy,

 

Randy

 

PS: My wheelchair accessible cache is sneaky purposely as I'd imagine they'd be sick of magnetic hide-a-key cases in parking lots.

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It's silly to make them hard simply for the sake of making it hard.

 

I disagree also. If every cache I looked for was really easy for me to find, I would probably get bored much faster. If all I did was follow my GPS to the cache, and I could find it in 30 seconds where would be the fun in that? I like not being able to find it, and being forced to come back for 3 days in a row (this has happened to me) cursing the hider the whole time, and then when I finally find it, it's the greatest feeling in the world!

 

When I hide my own caches, the ones that I put some thought into are definitely a challenge. They are by no means impossible, but you definitely have to think about them. I make them that way, because those are the ones I like looking for. One of mine is a standard simple hide. 2 others are a little more challenging. One of my offsets requires a bit of obscure numeral decoding, and my multi is quite challenging. It's extremely vague, and each leg is hidden VERY well. It's only been found by a group of 2 cachers, and they had a blast. No one else has braved The Plague of Vague yet. :unsure:

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If all I did was follow my GPS to the cache, and I could find it in 30 seconds where would be the fun in that?

 

To me the fun is in the hike, so if I do a 3, or 4 mile RT hike to the cache site, I want to find it when I get there and don't care spend an hour there searching, or to come back 3 or 4 times. Now if its a drive and dump, then a clever hide does add to the hunt and make it more interesting.

Edited by briansnat
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If all I did was follow my GPS to the cache, and I could find it in 30 seconds where would be the fun in that?

 

To me the fun is in the hike, so if I do a 3, or 4 mile RT hike to the cache site, I want to find it when I get there and don't care spend an hour there searching, or to come back 3 or 4 times. Now if its a drive and dump, then a clever hide does add to the hunt and make it more interesting.

I think this is a geography thing. Where I cache, there aren't many places to put a cache where you'd find yourself at the end of a 4 mile hike, so we're forced to either have short hike/easy find or short hike/challenging hide.

 

I like the challenging/creative hides. There's a few cachers in our area who are extremely inventive in their hiding spots. (I'm sure Geogeek is familiar with one of them. His are the most creative of all...)

 

I have a cache hidden for Leap Day which will fall under the category of "look right at it and still not see it". It's my first urban micro and I'm interested to see how well it goes over as it's really the first one in my area.

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You really dont have to worry about muggles in the mountains.

 

The difficulty & terrain of 3 or better and made as a multi is what I find the most useful for hides. Only two of my hides are actually the coordinates but one of them is about 5 miles up the mountain and the other one is a semi urban cache that has about 15 hidding places within a 50 ft. radius.

 

Difficulty & Terrain Averages

  • Multis (9): D= 3.5 T= 3.6
  • Trads (5): D= 2.1 T= 2.9
  • Surprise (3): D= 1.6 T= 3.0
  • Virtuals (21): D= 2.0 T= 1.73

Edited by Tahosa and Sons
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My goal is to make them invisible to muggles and obvious to cachers.  It's silly to make them hard simply for the sake of making it hard.

I have to disagree. I think it's fun to create a challenge for players. I know I love it when someone comes up with a unique hide idea that stumps me. I've also gotten great feedback from those I have stumped. Nothing silly about that as long as everybody is having fun.

I'd have to agree with JMBella I enjoy tough hides and hide mine tough as well.

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So you'd find it amusing to hunt for a film canister in a boulder field with little or no clues? I mean, I can hide even an ammo can so well it would take some people hours to find it, if any would bother to spend that much time on a cache.

 

I like to hide (for cachers) in such a way that it’s obvious unless they cannot think outside the box. For example, one of my caches is in the crotch of a tree that has partly fallen. (It is somewhat diagonal to the ground) You have to walk up the tree to see it. Most people look on the ground.

 

I like creativity, not tedium.

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I hunted a micro that was hidden inside a drilled out tree branch that was stuck in a HUGE bush. There was no hint at all, so I had no idea what I was looking for. Also, the place it was located had high muggle traffic. I searched for an hour one day, came back the next, and searched for 2 more hours, finally on the last day, I found it in about 30 minutes. When I found it, I couldnt believe thats how it was hidden. It inspired me to make my first cache, and make some cool difficult hides. I had a great time with it, even though it was frustrating as hell.

 

I don't want something tiny, hidden in a forest, but hidden cleverly and very difficult is okay in my book.

Edited by SBPhishy
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Lyme infected ticks abound were I cache. So I like to get in and get out and hate hides that cause me to tromp around the bushes where the buggers wait to hitch a ride. So I try to keep my hides easy for cachers but not muggles to find and always give a dead giveaway hint.

 

Alan

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As soon as I can get my hands on an engraver, I'm going to use some pennies in my next cache that will be extremely difficult to find. Yeah yeah....I know. Federal crime to deface money...yadda yadda yadda.

Only if your intent is to defraud (according to my understanding). Those folks who take jeweler's knives to coins and create works of art are not breaking the law.

 

But if you're worried feel free to send any defaced money (especially those Where's George-style paper money) to me...

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My first cache was to stump geocachers and take them to a place with a nice view. The second was to hide away from muggles easy for cachers to find. The third was to first confuse (no nice view) the cacher and keep out of sight of muggles, but once the cacher lcoates cache they can easily spot it from afar!

 

John Doe

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<snip> To me the fun is in the hike, so if I do a 3, or 4 mile RT hike to the cache site, I want to find it when I get there and don't care spend an hour there searching, or to come back 3 or 4 times. Now if its a drive and dump, then a clever hide does add to the hunt and make it more interesting. <snip>

<Replysnip>

I think this is a geography thing. Where I cache, there aren't many places to put a cache where you'd find yourself at the end of a 4 mile hike, so we're forced to either have short hike/easy find or short hike/challenging hide.<replysnip>

 

Wow, this has got to be a first America! :huh: The wide open pastures of America's Dairyland acknowledging that NJ (the most unfairly maligned state in the union) has more green spaces for long scenic hikes suitable for cache hiding! Shocking news! :oB):D:lol:

Maybe less KOC and more outdoors activity might alter this attitude. :(:D

Back O/T:

I enjoy a good hike and a good hide. The ones I really hate are a long hike for a needle/haystack micro in the woods.

I have different style and difficulty hides in all my caches, but the one common thread is hidden from muggles. After all this is our secret society! :huh:

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agree with criminal and briansnat. i've seen too many caches where they were so well hidden that frustration on the part of cachers is obvious in the rooted up, torn up area around the cache site. the best cache (imho) is one where the challenge is in navigation and terrain leading up to the cache. that being said, to quote a friend of mine, "good thing not everybody likes what i like". see you out there. -harry

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agree with criminal and briansnat. i've seen too many caches where they were so well hidden that frustration on the part of cachers is obvious in the rooted up, torn up area around the cache site. the best cache (imho) is one where the challenge is in navigation and terrain leading up to the cache. that being said, to quote a friend of mine, "good thing not everybody likes what i like". see you out there. -harry

Me too. Caches that cannot be found without trampling the vegetation or destroying old logs, etc. give geocaching a bad name. Unfortunately this is very common, in particular in forests, where the GPSr reception is worse, and resultingly the damage even larger. A muggle should never be able to find a well-hidden cache, but a cachers who arrives at the site should know where it is without causing damage. There are plenty of other ways to make a hide challenging, or worthwhile, or otherwise special.

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I generally hide my caches with the Geocacher and the non-caching folk mind. If hidden properly and in a good location muggles shouldn't be an issue. However, I always try to take into consideration whether or not a non-cacher might accidentally stumble on the hiding spot. I think that if I find an area interesting enough to hide a cache in then a muggle might also find it an interesting spot to explore.

 

That is my opinion . . . such as it is.

 

Happy caching and stuff! :)

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