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Hides-to-finds Ratio


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I've always had as much fun hiding caches as finding them. I love to read the new logs of those who have found some of mine, especially if it's a tricky hide or a particularly obscure area I've shown fellow cachers.

 

I've been involved in the sport for a little more than three months. In that period I've hidden 60 and found 300. That makes my "Hides-to-Finds" Ratio 1:5. So for every five cache hunts that I've enjoyed, I've given a new cache back to the community.

 

Who else looks at things this way?

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I've been involved in the sport for a little more than three months. In that period I've hidden 60 and found 300. That makes my "Hides-to-Finds" Ratio 1:5. So for every five cache hunts that I've enjoyed, I've given a new cache back to the community.

 

Who else looks at things this way?

The thought is good. Placing caches is fun and is an important part of the sport. I have given some local cachers with 300-500 finds and no hides a bad time. I don't feel ratio is a good indicator, though. There's an upper limit to how many caches a person can maintain, no matter how many finds.

 

There is also the quality versus quantity question. There are some prolific hiders whose caches tend to be, how shall I say, sloppy. Not particularly enjoyable unless I really need a cache fix. I can deal with that locally but when I travel it is frustrating to do a query and get many hundreds of caches to choose from. Just finding the time to sift out the good ones is difficult. I'd say place as many quality caches as you feel comfortable maintaining and ignore the find-hide ratio.

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Quality over quantity!

 

Let's see, my ratio's about 1:10. Almost all are puzzle's or otherwise extraordinary.

 

Here in CT, one of the most cache-dense states, newbies to the sport next year won't be able to hide any!

 

I don't want to hide too many more as I'd feel selfish denying newcomers opportunity...

 

Enjoy,

 

Randy

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Yesterday  found my 200th cache and I hid my 50th cache! 4 to 1 ratio!

 

Meet Me Halfway! - 50th hide

 

E.V.A.D. #1 - my 200th find!

 

A kindred spirit! Your hides look like some pretty good ones. I'm in Texas now, but I used to race at the old Riverside BMX track. It's considered the Mecca of BMX, as the sport's pioneers Like Stu Thompson and Harry Leary raced there in the 1970s. Not sure if it still exists.

 

My Hides-to-Finds Ratio now hovers around 1:4.6. I'll have to slow down soon so as not to run into excessive maintenance demands.

 

Keep up the good work!

Edited by Chance Encounter
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I guess it depends where you are. I'm in a very cache dense area where there are many caches that seem like they are just placed because people wanted to put another one out and not because the area was worth going to. So I'd much rather people take the time to place nice caches when they find an area deserving of one and not place one because they feel like it's time to do so.

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Like the OP, I enjoy hiding caches as much, if not more than hunting them. I like seeking out new and interesting places and using caches to bring others there. I also enjoy reading about the experiences of the people who find them through the logs.

 

In the beginning, I usually had close to a 1:1 hide/find ratio. Once I got past 50 finds, that was no longer practical. Now I have 73 hides and 219 finds (around 1:3 if my math is correct), which is a pretty good ratio. I only have 57 active though, because it would be hard to maintain many more. I'm now archiving some of my less interesting caches whenever I place a new one.

Edited by briansnat
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I had never really thought about my find-to-hide ratio until reading this thread. At this point I have 501 finds, 22 hides and 4 events.

 

My ratios are:

find:hide (regular cache) 22.75:1

find:hide (event) 125.25:1

 

I don't have any plans to try to maintain any particular ratio.

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I guess it depends where you are. I'm in a very cache dense area where there are many caches that seem like they are just placed because people wanted to put another one out and not because the area was worth going to. So I'd much rather people take the time to place nice caches when they find an area deserving of one and not place one because they feel like it's time to do so.

I don't like the idea of a ratio at all. I've found that the cachers with a lot of hides often don't even maintain the caches that are within a couple miles of their homes, much less the ones they place a hundred miles away. I have 50 or so hides, and I'm probably one of the most guilty. When I hid my first cache, I was visiting it four times a week. Now, it seems that I'm lucky if I can get to a problem cache within two weeks. But, I think it's lame to see a DNF followed by a hider who just archives the cache rather than checks on it...and that seems to be happening a lot in my area. It was bad enough to see the notes from the owners who say things like "Would the next person to visit please leave a new logbook?".

 

It is a lot of fun to hide a cache, but if you're not going to maintain the cache after the initial flurry of activity from people finding and logging a new cache, maybe you shouldn't be hiding a cache in the first place. I know we have local cachers with 500+ finds who have never hidden a cache, but I don't think they should be encouraged to hide caches if it's not something they're prepared to do correctly.

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I don't like the idea of a ratio at all. I've found that the cachers with a lot of hides often don't even maintain the caches that are within a couple miles of their homes, much less the ones they place a hundred miles away.

I don't like the idea of a ratio either. If you're holding yourself back from finding caches just because you haven't hidden enough caches yet to meet your own criteria, you will inevitably start hiding lame caches.

 

Finding caches is something between you and yourself. Do it any way you like, quantity, quality, etc. You can subject yourself to any silly rule you like, in that respect, BUT:

 

Hiding, while it can certainly be as much fun, is something you do for others, and if it's not going to be the highest quality, don't bother.

 

Someone else said in another thread recently that a hide isn't worth it if you wouldn't be able to proudly show it to a non-geocacher in order to explain to him what it is you're spending so much time on.

 

Find as whatever you feel like, but Hide with (your own understanding ofwhat is) supreme quality in mind.

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I think it's lame to see a DNF followed by a hider who just archives the cache rather than checks on it...and that seems to be happening a lot in my area. It was bad enough to see the notes from the owners who say things like "Would the next person to visit please leave a new logbook?".

I don't have a problem with such requests by owners at all.

But I agree: just archiving a cache because of a DNF is lame. Worse than that: archiving a cache without going there to remove it first just creates geolitter. It's one of those things that gives geocaching a bad name.

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I think I'll probably end up with a 1 hide/100 finds ratio. I envy those people who can go to a park and hide a cache. I have to learn everything there is about an area, make a ton of waypoints, build a storyline around it, and then create a multi using the best of what I've gotten. I do way too much planning.

 

Right now I'm down to 2 caches in the planning stage, one of which involves 9 different cache containers, each of different sizes, from the incredibly small to the perfectly normal, titled "From Here to Maternity". It'll be placed as soon as my wife gets pregnant. :D

 

The second one has a secret agent storyline, complete with clues, dead drops, etc. ;) I think it'll be another month before that one is ready to go.

Edited by bons
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Bons, don't sound so apologetic. I'd rather do a well thought out cache then a whole bunch of lame micros. I have just placed a cache that took two years to set-up (part of that was an injury that limited my mobility). I have a couple of others that took several months - I always get good comments about them. I've had a couple of caches 'knocked out' because someone dropped a micro in the area, often missing the best hide site.

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I created my 2nd and 3rd cache yesterday. I drove 100 miles to walnut grove Minnesota to place On The Banks Of Plum Creek. I thought this would be a real quality cache. Not just for the find, but for viewing a historical area. With that said, I can see if there is a problem with the cache, I need to make a special trip to fix it. I thought that was quite a distance. I have seen caches 250 miles apart with the same hider. I could not imagine keeping track of 50+ caches. I will probably get to 10 hides and leave it at that. I say that now...

 

I have been to a couple of "quick stash" caches and was inimpressed. There is a nice little park in my town that I would love to place a cache in but decided against it. For a rural township there was grafitti on some trees, rusting 55 gallon drums from 30 years ago, and a 75 ft tunnel that gets really dark walking thru it and grafitti on it. I was thinking, would I want cachers from out of town to come here and see this? NO WAY. So I passed.

 

Look up King Boreas he has 452 hides and 274 finds 2:1.

Edited by TwentySeven
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Here in CT, one of the most cache-dense states, newbies to the sport next year won't be able to hide any!

Why is this? Just curious as to what's going on or happened in CT.

Locust swarms...

locus_swarm.gif

Edited by bons
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Right now I'm down to 2 caches in the planning stage, one of which involves 9 different cache containers, each of different sizes, from the incredibly small to the perfectly normal, titled "From Here to Maternity". It'll be placed as soon as my wife gets pregnant. B)

Good luck on that bons! But I hope you know what you're getting in to. Raising a cache can be hard work. B)

 

--RuffRidr

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I wanted to make my first hide in my city (the first one in the city, too), since we're kind of redneck-ish and most people don't even know what a GPS is around here, and also since the nearest cache in a ways away in another city. So I made a nice cache and placed it near a park, but I purposely didn't make it too hard. I hope people won't think it's one of the lame "drive-by" caches, but I was hoping that by making it somewhat easy, I could bring more cachers into the city and spark some interest in my area.

I'm working on a couple more caches to hide in this area, and I'm going to make those harder ones. I just wanted to start out easy, then work up the difficulty as I get used to what it takes to keep a cache running. So far so good! And it feels great to be the link in the cache chain surrounding, but excluding, my city.

I would encourage people to place and keep up with at least one cache, no matter how many caches they find or what their cache hide to find ratio is, because it's fun to hear from all the people who get as much fun out of finding your cache as you get from finding other caches. :lol:

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