How Do I Find Member Only Caches?

[+Gritstone]

How do I find 'geocacher member only caches'?

Having only been to a few caches so far I've been a little disappointed at the contents. I guess member only caches may be better.

 

Not that I'm looking for specific 'treasure' - it's just that I feel the effort put into what to leave behind is not very high, from what I've seen so far.

 

A quality item need not actually cost anything - but a broken old seashell, or grubby damaged toy ain't very exiting.

 

Now, there's a cache on Dinas Head, Cornwall (waypoint: GCJ47E) that seems to have got it right - I'll be checking it out soon.

[+kone]

To find member-only caches, become a paid member.

 

Not sure you'll find anything much better though. If you want good loot, be the "first to find" (FTF) as there is the owner normally places a better item for the first person to find. Caching is not really about what kind of stuff we can find in them anyway... it is the thrill of the hunt.

[+Gritstone]

I do agree with you that there's more to it than the finds.

But a little more imagination wouldn't hurt...

 

BTW, I'm a paid up member.

[Keystone]

Two ways to locate Members Only Caches (MOC's):

 

1. In regular search results for caches here on the website, MOC's show up with a special little icon that looks like the silohuette of a head.

 

2. You can run a pocket query and ask it to return ONLY those caches that "are for members only" as one of the search parameters.

 

It is quite possible that there are just none in your area. Apart from one joke cache, the nearest MOC's to where I'm sitting are a series of three caches 80 miles away. After that, the next ones are 108 miles away from home. Three MOC's in a 100 mile circle that has 1,100 caches ain't very many.

[+flask]

i make it a policy to avoid MOC's. i just won't go hunt them.

[+Gritstone]

Two ways to locate Members Only Caches (MOC's):

 

1. <snip>

2.  You can run a pocket query and ask it to return ONLY those caches that "are for members only" as one of the search parameters.

<snip>

Worked a treat, thanks.

[+Gritstone]

i make it a policy to avoid MOC's. i just won't go hunt them.

Why?

[LEAD DOG]

There's only one MOC within 40 miles of us....They must be rare around here.

[+Crouching Hiker, Hidden Cache]

The one thing I remember about the few MOCs I've found is that they weren't much different than most other caches I've found. Thats not a bad thing unless you're really expecting MOCs to be somehow better. In my experience, some folks place them for the sake of placing them.

[+Imajika]

ALL CACHE contents degrade over time. It doesn't matter if it is a MOC or a regular one. I own several caches and about once a month I will go do maintenence (sooner if I am alerted to a potential problem). Part of my maintenence is taking out all the 'trash' items and restocking the cache.

 

I will also restock caches that are not my own. I found one last week that was filled with scraps of paper, expired coupons, broken toys, etc. I took all those items out and replaced them with new items from my own stash (an even 1 for 1 trade). On the way back to the car, I threw all those 'trashed' items in the closest trash can.

 

I explained what I did in my 'found it' log. The cache owner emailed me and thanked me for doing it. He said he had been sick for a while and was having trouble finding someone to maintain his caches.

 

But keep in mind that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure'. When I restock a cache, I make a point to ONLY take truly broken items, destroyed paper and expired coupons. You might not think a seashell is a good trade item but someone out there will trade for it eventually.

 

There are very few MOCs in Colorado. I don't think I have ever found one.

[+briansnat]

There's only one MOC within 40 miles of us....They must be rare around here.

They're rare everywhere.

[Phoenix2001]

There are very few MOCs in Colorado. I don't think I have ever found one.

I guess you're not in the Colorado Springs area. I count more than 40 MOC's within about 22 miles of 80904. A few of those who place many caches around here make them MO. (This isn't a complaint.)

[+Imajika]

There are very few MOCs in Colorado. I don't think I have ever found one.

I guess you're not in the Colorado Springs area. I count more than 40 MOC's within about 22 miles of 80904. A few of those who place many caches around here make them MO. (This isn't a complaint.)

Nope, I'm in the Denver metro area (Aurora to be exact). The ZIP codes I use for my pocket queries show very few MOCs.

[+Renegade Knight]

There are several around my area.

[+flask]

i make it a policy to avoid MOC's. i just won't go hunt them.

Why?

my personal feeling is that geocaching should be free and available to everyone. while i recommend membeership to ALL who can afford it, i don't like MOCs. some people like them. i don't so i don't hunt them.

 

i want all of my caches to be available to ALL of my local cachers, especially our newest cachers who usually aren't paying members until they really get going. many of us here want the best and finest to be available to those people, who usually do end up paying.

 

i'm so proud of our local folks; we had a few MOCs and nobody went to find them until they were opened up. even the FF runners held off.

[+CompuCash]

How do I find 'geocacher member only caches'?

 

My suggestions are listed below -

- put the coordinates into your gps

- go to the general location

- folow the gps until you get to the area indicated (GZ)

- start hunting for the little bugger

.

================

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In short - the same why you find any other cache <big gufaw>

 

[BCR]

Premium MOCs are rare in my area and the few that do exist aren't very good. Nonetheless, there are some non-Premium-member cachers that take it as a challenge to find Premium MOCs. Basically, they seek the cache with only the waypoint name and coordinates (sometimes approximate). Laerning how to get the coordinates is a puzzle. No description, no hints, no known container size, etc. Caches that are not at the specified coordinates (puzzle caches and offset caches) are problematic when hunted this way.

[+Night Stalker]

Members only caches are going to become more and more prevelant in my area because we a have dedicated plunderer out there. The only way to make sure that a cache is not plundered is to restrict access. Of course that is assuming that this individual is not a member also.

[+welch]

Members only caches are going to become more and more prevelant in my area because we a have dedicated plunderer out there. The only way to make sure that a cache is not plundered is to restrict access. Of course that is assuming that this individual is not a member also.

If they really 'dedicated' they probably are

 

There are bound to be ways (though clunky and low tech?) to restrict access that isn't based upon wether you've send Groundspeak a check (which is all you really know about paid members).