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Geocache Etiquette


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I'm very new to geocaching, but I already have a question on etiquette. Is it appropriate for non-working and/or retired g-cachers (those with much time) to, on ocassion, allow the working folks (those with less time) an opportunity to be first-finders of new caches published each week? Has this ever been a problem where you are? Being a first-finder would be uniquely rewarding. No real issue here. Just something to think about.

Edited by Tesoro Perdido
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I'm very new to geocaching, but I already have a question on etiquette. Is it appropriate for non-working and/or retired g-cachers (those with much time) to, on ocassion, allow the working folks (those with less time) an opportunity to be first-finders of new caches published each week? Has this ever been a problem where you are? Being a first-finder would be uniquely rewarding. No real issue here. Just something to think about.

First finders come frome all walks of life and are not limited to retired persons. Many times the first finder is the person who gets up early, stays up late, runs that last mile or, like me, is just in the right place at the right time. The current FTF leader in our area works 40+ hours a week and logs most of his finds early in the morning.

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By us, there are 2 cachers that always seem to be #1 and #2 in most log books. They are StayFloopy and BassoonPilot. They have thousands of combined finds. To me, being FTF is fun, but it's more of a challenge to just beat them to any cache. It also makes being a FTF, which I have 2 or 3 of I think, even extra special.

 

It's just a game, and if they are first, well, then they are first. It doesn't make me mad nor do I feel they shouldn't give it their all to find any cache that becomes available.

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I've noticed that on theose days that the local first finders don't make a run for it, no one else steps up to take their place. Just because they stay home in bed doesn't mean someone else will choose that day to be up to the challenge.

 

On the other hand, A willingness to go without sleep for an entire night and a desire to night cache may produce some good results. Pure luck doesn't hurt either. And some multi- / mystery caches even the odds by being too difficult to easily do in a single trip.

 

Edit: I realized I needed to add something here.

 

Being a first finder is sometimes uniquely rewarding. What's particularly rewarding about it is that it is a competition against others. When the others step aside and try it a week later, it's no where near as fun as the realization that you beat them there by an hour. Sure your pants are torn, you're covered in mud, and you have geocuts from things you would have easily avoided had it been daylight, but you beat them by an hour. <_<

 

Winning in a race against no one else doesn't really give you the same rush.

Edited by bons
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I geneally don't after the easy ones to be FTF. I don't really care about running out to grab a drive-by just to be MEFF. There is no challenge in it. Not saying we haven't been FTF on a some easy local caches, it's just not a priority. Besides, I'd rather let the newer cachers get their share of FTF.

 

The thrill comes from the harder ones. Being MEFF on ones that a segment of cachers won't even be able to complete AND beating some of the highly intelligent rabid cachers in the area--there's the thrill.

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Howdy,

 

I am fortunate enough enjoy 5 day weekends, but seldom score a FTF in my area (I think I only have 2 thus far). Geocachers in the Greater DC Metro area are a voracious lot, many cache on the way to work, during lunch, or on the way home in the evening. I think it depends more on the time of day you are lucky enough to receive notification of a new cache in your area. I wouldn't worry too much about "sharing FTF's"...if you get what other cachers feel is "too many"...they'll do their best to take the wind our of your sails by beating you to the cache if they can.

Regards,

Bill

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If you feel like going for a cache, go for it. Don't worry whether or not you're the FTF. If you are, then great...but in some regions unless you're up and out by 4 am, you probably won't be the FTF. In others, few people care about FTFs and caches can sit there for many days and sometimes weeks before someone gets to it.

 

Either way, just go and have fun and don't let whether the cache has been found yet or not keep you from going after it. If someone has a problem with you getting all the FTF's, they'll just have to wake up earlier.

Edited by briansnat
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Like Bons said, what fun is it to win a race if all the people you are trying to beat let you win?

If FTF means that much to you (and really, it's only a big deal to a small subset of cachers), then you need to be willing to go to extremes. You are not likely to get a FTF (around here, anyway) if you wait until Sunday, after breakfast to go for the cache. Check out This log and this one (part 1 part 2) by our local FTF champ.

DEMP also mentioned Stayfloopy. He's not a champ, he's more of a legend. Many of his logs note that he did the cache on the way to work in the am. What he doesn't mention is the fact that he works 1.5 miles from home, and these caches are often 50-100 miles out of his way!

 

Also don't forget, FTF means you get to be the one out in the middle of the night wasting 3hrs looking in the wrong place because the hider made a typo posting the coordinates.

Edited by Mopar
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Also don't forget, FTF means you get to be the one out in the middle of the night wasting 3hrs looking in the wrong place because the hider made a typo posting the coordinates.

 

Or standing at the first stage of a multi staring at a piece of paper with the coordinates for the spot where you are standing (happened to me recently).

 

As Mopar said, FTF hounds are only a small subset of geocachers. In some areas its a real competetion, while other areas don't have many, or any. I placed a cache last week that went 3 days before the FTF and I found one last weekend where I was the FTF after it had been out for 2 weeks.

Edited by briansnat
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i don't think it is a matter of ettiquette. i also don't think there's an ettiquette involved in throwing games, either.

 

if i got a call from a representative of a local cache organization to tell me that i've been chosen for the FF, i'd probably put it off until sometime next month. it means very little if they hand it to you.

 

you can't build a house if you won't pick up the hammer.

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I'm very new to geocaching, but I already have a question on etiquette. Is it appropriate for non-working and/or retired g-cachers (those with much time) to, on ocassion, allow the working folks (those with less time) an opportunity to be first-finders of new caches published each week?

 

Like Bons said, what fun is it to win a race if all the people you are trying to beat let you win?  If FTF means that much to you (and really, it's only a big deal to a small subset of cachers), then you need to be willing to go to extremes.
QUOTE (briansnat @ May 25 2004, 03:57 AM)

If someone has a problem with you getting all the FTF's, they'll just have to wake up earlier. 

 

Very well said!

 

I work 5 days a week for money and 1.5 days at home!

 

I love to be FTF!

 

So I work at being FTF!

 

I once got up around 3am to load my canoe on the truck, drive ~70 miles to paddle 2 miles into an aligator inhabited swamp just to be first to find! <_<

 

Addicted!

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Hey, thanks everyone! Your replies did more than answer this one question, it helped me to better understand the mindset of other geocachers. I'm the only geocacher I know...besides my kids who go with me. I didn't realize that there was that much competition in being the FTF. If that's the case, then hey, let the games begin! I'm learning everyday...

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I'm very new to geocaching, but I already have a question on etiquette. Is it appropriate for non-working and/or retired g-cachers (those with much time) to, on ocassion, allow the working folks (those with less time) an opportunity to be first-finders of new caches published each week? Has this ever been a problem where you are? Being a first-finder would be uniquely rewarding. No real issue here. Just something to think about.

Slow down so those with a job can get there first??????

 

Surrrrrrrrre <_<

 

I haven't been chasing first finders ever since the gas went zooming past 2 bucks a gallon.

 

When appearing on the scene the same time as another cacher I have slowed way down and allowed them to find it first as it isn't that important to me but, I sure won't wait til beer thirty so a working stiff can find it first.

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it's been speculated that i don't have a job since i'm pretty snappy to a FF when the mood strikes.

 

for the record, i have a job. i also have a training schedule. i race mountain bikes in the summer.

 

uh, and something like a social life, although admittedly it seems to revolve around bicycles, geocaching and assorted other outdoor activities.

 

oh, and swimming. i have to spend a lot of time in the water because although i am not a good triathlete, i'm trying not to suck on the swim leg this season, so that sucks up some time.

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The urban caches in my area are usually first found in a few hours. One popped up Friday night at about 10 PM.

I was going caching in that area anyway on Saturday, so i downloaded the coords. I didn't rush over to it, but got several others on my way first. I figured I may be second or third. I found it at 12:30 PM Saturday and to my suprise, I was FTF!

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There are cachers in my area that will go out before work to get a FTF. I am not one of them...I prefer to stay in bed until the last possible moment. :tongue:

 

As for me, I have only been FTF on one cache. I'm not a die-hard FTF freak by any means. I will get to all caches eventually....and that's all right with me.

 

Everyone plays the game differently and that's what makes the game fun!

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Oh Yay. THAT should be a rule just as soon as NASCAR tells all the other drivers to let Mark Martin win one last race so he can retire a winner....... NOT. :tongue:

 

Maybe Tiger Woods should step aside so someone else can get a green jacket. :blink:

 

Personally, I think all the other drivers should let Sarah Fisher win the Indy 500 if she could ONLY keep the car off the wall for 200 laps. Yeah, like that's gonna happen..... ;)

 

Like someone else said, "Want an FTF? Get up earlier." Heck, I just go at night.

 

Sn :P:lol: gans

Edited by Snoogans
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A lot of caches just happen to be approved later in the evening and I work second shift. Of course I happen to like caching at night so It works out to a lot of FTF's for me. I've had 2 cachers in my area mention in thier logs when they were 2nd to find that they want to get me on first shift to give everyone else a shot. :tongue:

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if i can't be FF, i like to wait until people go who leave things i might like to trade for. i don't care about a FF prize. well, that's not entirely true. if you make a little cardboard badge that says the name of the cache an "first finder" on it, i will drive all night to get it.

and when i put out a cache, i often leave several good things in there just so the FF doesn't feel pressuresd to take one in particular.

 

i have one cache where nobody has traded anything yet. some people have left things. nobody takes the good cache swag (and i'm not telling what...)

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We've got weird FTF things going on here...

 

There are some folks the next town up that started complaining that a friend and I were getting the FTF's in the area. We were driving 60+ miles one-way to get those FTF and WE were the problem in the equation?

 

I stopped purposely going after them because it wasn't worth listening to their whining.

 

Locally there are a handful of us who try to be FTF, although I have stepped back from the race a bit because it's more important to some of the 'newer' cachers to have those bragging rights and hey, if it floats their boat, I'm all for letting them have the cache first.

 

They also leave me sweet notes in their logs if they get there before I do. A girl really feels the love in those, let me tell you...

 

I do particularly like it when one of the 'newer' guys places a cache and I get a chance to run for the FTF. One of my caching buddies just moved so the rules have changed a bit, but I knew he wasn't free until he dropped his kids off at school at 8:30 a.m. so as long as I was up and out of the house by 7, I was good to go. Oft times, even with a bit of a hike, I could be in and out before he hit the trail.

 

Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha.

 

At a recent FTF my buddy didn't have ANY clue I'd already been there/gone and was SURE he was getting the FTF... until he happened upon a cell phone about 40 feet away from the cache. Thinking it was dropped by the cache owner he grabbed it and was going to return it... and then he started looking through the phone book. Realizing the hider probably didn't have his (my buddy's) cell phone number, and that what-ho, a lot of the contacts looked like cacher-friends of mine... the jig was up.

 

He called me from 40 feet away from the cache and asked for a hint... using my phone.

 

Also by stepping out of the FTF race, I'm not doing as much finding of caches that are 50, 75, 100 feet up to .2 miles off. I must admit that was getting pretty frustrating. Why, oh why, is it so hard to get the coordinates RIGHT? I can understand a mistake here and there on say, one in ten... or one in five... but almost every bloody cache in the area?

 

Dude. I've got better things to do with my time than becoming totally frustrated as I try to find an uncoordinated cache and then do the work to get better coordinates and make sure everyone has a copy of them.

 

-=-

michelle

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I've gone out at midnight to be FTF and I've gotten up at 5:30 AM to be FTF on several occasions. Sometimes even then someone will beat me to it. The fun of being FTF is knowing you made that extra effort to do it. Not that you you got it because someone let you. Go buy yourself a good flashlight and head lamp and have fun.

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I can appreciate the motivation to be FTF...I myself have done this several time, most recently last Friday. I didn't try for the cache until almost a week after it was first placed, and my trek to the cache involved packing my mountain bike up 4 miles of virtually unclimbable trail so I could experience my version of nirvana on the return trip. For me, being FTF is only meaningful when getting there is actually a challenge. To each their own. I almost prefer to wait a while on most caches, just so I have more to read while I scarf jerky and trail mix once I find it.

 

In Utah we are very fortunate to have our beloved "Cach-u-nuts." This wonderful couple takes time every month or so to orchestrate games that create excitement in our state, often using the caches that are already there. Prizes range from valuable to sentimental, but always are treasured by those who have earned them, because of the experience they represent.

 

Presently we are engaged in a game called "In Search of the Hermit's Coins" in which coins travel around the state between the oldest 48 caches in our state. They can only be placed in these venerable caches, which has created a sort of "homage" to the caches which have been around the longest. Once a coin is placed in a cache, it is logged on cachunuts.com and everyone knows it is there. I need not illucidate further on the melee that commonly ensues. My own story - I found myself on May 25 tromping through a wetland at 3:30 am, lamp on head, GPS in hand, searching for a cache I first located nearly three years ago in order to retrieve a coin that was placed there at 10:30 PM the night before. As the game is still in its early stages, I anticipate many such escapades will are in the making. We can only hope!

 

bd

Edited by bunkerdave
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