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Geocaching without a GPS?


crios2

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I found my first one without a GPS.

 

Could have probably found a couple others in my area without one as well.

 

Just check the hints and photos to get you in the neighborhood.

 

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I have never been lost. Been awful confused for a few days, but never lost!

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We did our first few caches without a GPS, compass or map then came across one that stumped us. We were on holiday so thought we'd buy a compass - ended up with a map, compass and GPS!! We've never looked back!

 

The thing was though that if we hadn't managed to find those first few we would probably never have got hooked!

 

Sallies

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quote:
Originally posted by Haggaeus:

You just can't do the virtuals which require a photo of the cacher holding a GPS as a confirmation.


 

Hold up the map and compass in the pic? icon_wink.gif

 

Oh yeah, and I've found two caches without the GPSr as well.

 

Team Kender - "The Sun is coming up!" "No, the horizon is going down."

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I did one recently just to see if I could. It was a 1/1.5 (or should have been if it wasn't). I just looked at the topo map online once, saw it was on the NE side of the only hill in the area, and I went pretty much right to it. That didn't really exercise any map and compass skills, except rudimentary topo map reading.

 

Flat_MiGeo_B88.gif

Well the mountain was so beautiful that this guy built a mall and a pizza shack

Yeah he built an ugly city because he wanted the mountain to love him back -- Dar Williams

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You should be able to do it with a topo map and map reading protractor. We learned it in High School ROTC (Army) and then when I went into the Air Force as a Security Policeman and was training for Air Base Ground Defense, the Army taught it to us, which was real easy for me there. Just remember, you read a topo map to the right and up.

 

Brian Wood

Woodsters Outdoors

http://www.woodsters.com

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You may even find that it is more enjoyable not to use a GPS. I find that when using a GPS you walk looking down all the time. Get a level of comfort with the map & compass and you will find yourelf looking at all the things around you. You can always use the GPS if you get stumped. The best type of map to use would be a current USGS 1:24k topo map. Keep in mind that these maps may not be up to date (revised in the 70's around here). A decent compass will run you about $35. In addition you will want to invest about $5 in a UTM grid reader. It is personal pref but I think that UTM is the easiest system to work with and learn. If you invest in a program like TOPO or MapTech it will convert Lat/Long to UTM and convert WGS84 datum to NAD27 automatically and then print a USGS 1:24k topo.

Good Luck

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There is a guy in Virginia who does not use a GPSr to find caches. I believe he has around 100 finds. His handle is QOC Mike look up his profile. If you are intersted maybe you can pump him for his secret via e-mail

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I am new to this sport and as of the time of this posting my GPS has not arrived yet.

I have already found 4 caches and from the hints believe I could find most without using a unit.

My first find was 10:00PM and very dark, and today I found two.

However in order to hide a cache properly I feel like I will need to us a unit, so as soon as my unit arrives I plan to start hiding some of my own caches.

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