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They Can't Find My Cache!


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Hi everyone,

 

I just love reading the threads here about clever new ways to disguise a cache box or leg of a multi-cache. I find myself thinking of things in the middle of work when I suddenly get an idea I must try out there!

 

Here is my dilemma. We have a new cache out, and I found the most AWESOME way to hide it (which I can't mention here in case local's find this post). I even had a hard time finding it again myself when I returned the next day to put a shortened pencil in the container.

 

However, I am having mixed feelings. I've had 3 well-seasoned cachers (one with almost 2,000 finds so far) come to it this week, and not be able to locate it. At first they had trouble figuring out one of the hints (it's a Puzzle Cache), but now they're beyond that and they can't find the actual cache now that they have the coordinates.

 

At first I was excited and thought --- YES! <_< This is going to be a challenge! But I also don't want it to become the never-found cache, either. I increased the difficulty rating, I added more clues, I included a picture of the cache box....but I am hesitant to say something that really divulges its location. People seem to be getting to within 50-100 feet of it, but never find it.

 

What's your feeling on this? Have I over-done it? Is this a negative? Do you think this will be too frustrating for cachers, or is this considered a healthy challenge? I am getting the feeling this might be looked down upon if my clues don't give enough hints for people to find it, but don't know if that is just their temporary frustration speaking?

 

What would you suggest? Keep it as is? Give them a give-away hint? :lol: How do you feel when you can't find a cache? I know I feel frustrated, but I get obsessed, email for tips, and keep going back out (and I am very open to giving them tips that aren't in public logbooks).

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With only 3 'misses' so far, I wouldn't worry.

 

Also, from reading post here in the forum, it would appear that just because a player has 2000 finds, it doesn't necessarily mean that he/she is experienced in finding well-hidden caches - just has a high number.

 

A friend of mine had a similar experience, but he was urged to wait. Sure enough a few weekends later his cache was found. Since then he has slightly more hits than misses - a tribute to a well-hidden cache.

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Sounds to me like you have a challenging cache! How many have tried to find it? How long since you have placed the cache? It appears to me that you have done everything correctly. I placed what I thought was a fairly easy cache; had five DNFs in the first month. I have since changed the placement slightly, and it still took weeks before a find as it is in a remote location. Don't worry, just sit back and smile a Cheshire cat smile (as in I know where the cache is and you don't). Have patience! If you hide it, they will come!

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A friend of mine had a similar experience, but he was urged to wait. Sure enough a few weekends later his cache was found. Since then he has slightly more hits than misses - a tribute to a well-hidden cache.

 

Thanks so much for your reply. I definitely don't want to be the kind of cache hider where, when they see my name, they want to avoid it because it won't be found.

 

I appreciate your help!

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How many have tried to find it? How long since you have placed the cache?

 

It was just approved this weekend so it is new, and 4 hard-core cachers came out looking for it (one emailed me but didn't post his DNF). I'm going to take your advice and let them see if they can locate it. I think I may be jumping the gun and assuming no one will find it because they are having some early troubles with it.

 

I placed what I thought was a fairly easy cache; had five DNFs in the first month.

 

I think my experience is much like yours.... I never expected this particular one to be so difficult. I gave it a one-star difficulty rating when it first went out! Funny how when you know the answer to something it seems SOOOO obvious...but when you're the figurer-outer, it isn't so blatent!

 

I'd be real disappointed if I had to move the cache site. It is really protected and not impacted by weather...and oh-so well-hidden!

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Use clayjar's rating system. He's usually not off by more than half a star.

(someone else can link for you. I'm much too tired.)

 

 

As for the DNFs... Heck, I'd *love* a cache that was trickey to people. I just got foiled by a cache in Cacheville about a week ago that the owner said a lot of people can't find the first time they look for it.

 

What's the fun of the sport if it's easy all the time?

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Give yourself a pat on the back! When you can stump so called "experienced" cachers its a good thing.

I read the posts to your cache no one seems negative. When you start getting post like" I think the owner should check his cords" or "I’m not going to look for this cache again until someone else finds it." or the famous " I know I was in the right spot so I will post it as found" <_<

When you start getting posts like that, take one local cacher to the cache so He/She can confirm that it is there.

Stop giving out more hints! :lol: Let them look for a while.

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Just a quick two cents...

 

I( think it is awesome to hide a cache that stumps the experienced guys, that being said. Make sure you r coords are good. We had a new difficulty 4 cache come out in Nashville 6-8 months ago that had no finds for the first six hiders, so we decided to tackle it. After 5 hours on site we still had not found it, a couple of other more experienced cachers called us and we invited them out 2 hours later still no cache find. We logged no finds and asked the hider to please check the cache and the coords, they did and told us everything was OK. We went back 3 hours later still no find. We logged no finds and the cache owner offered to meet us at the cache site the next weekend. We arrived and waited, but no cache owner, a half hour later we started back out of the woods toward the parking area, when we got there the cache owners were leaving too. They wanted to know why we had not been at the coords, we told them we were. Long story short their coordinates were 450 feet off. We had spiral searched out from the original coords 300 feet and come up empty-handed. They took us back to where the coords were supposed to be and we found the cache in under twenty minutes. We then shot fresh coordinates for them and all was good in the world.

 

The cache hiders had been very proud of themselves for stumping the experienced folks, to the point of gloating. It was a good cache, but with decent coords we found it fairly easily. The moral of the story is, be sure you are stumping them for the right reasons.

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We did one cache over several months that we found particularly difficult to find as it was extremely well hidden. We kept going back and searching. In the meantime others had been but not found it either - but with pure persistence and a bit of lateral thinking we eventually found it after over 10 attempts.

 

Yes it was frustrating, but the achievement of that particular cache came with finding it ourselves without too much help. If the owner had told us where it was it wouldn't have been half as fun.

 

Sounds like you've given as much info as you need to - it's all part of the puzzle isn't it!?

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Also, from reading post here in the forum, it would appear that just because a player has 2000 finds, it doesn't necessarily mean that he/she is experienced in finding well-hidden caches - just has a high number.

I'll personally attest to this! I have almost 1600 Finds in 2+ years, and I have a 14% No Find rate!

 

A high number just means we cache frequently...it doesn't mean we're any good at it!! <_<

 

-Dave R.

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Just a quick two cents...

 

I( think it is awesome to hide a cache that stumps the experienced guys, that being said.  Make sure you r coords are good.  We had a new difficulty 4 cache come out in Nashville 6-8 months ago that had no finds for the first six hiders, so we decided to tackle it.  After 5 hours on site we still had not found it, a couple of other more experienced cachers called us and we invited them out 2 hours later still no cache find.  We logged no finds and asked the hider to please check the cache and the coords, they did and told us everything was OK.  We went back 3 hours later still no find.  We logged no finds and the cache owner offered to meet us at the cache site the next weekend.  We arrived and waited, but no cache owner, a half hour later we started back out of the woods toward the parking area, when we got there the cache owners were leaving too.  They wanted to know why we had not been at the coords, we told them we were.  Long story short their coordinates were 450 feet off.  We had spiral searched out from the original coords 300 feet and come up empty-handed.  They took us back to where the coords were supposed to be and we found the cache in under twenty minutes.  We then shot fresh coordinates for them and all was good in the world.

 

The cache hiders had been very proud of themselves for stumping the experienced folks, to the point of gloating.  It was a good cache, but with decent coords we found it fairly easily.  The moral of the story is, be sure you are stumping them for the right reasons.

I'll echo and amplify Brad's post.

 

Double- and triple-check both your derivation puzzle as well as your final cache coords at the hide site(s). Use your GPS's Average Location function and let it "ping" the sats at least 300 or more times to get a good average (especially important if tree canopy or other factors that affect sat signal are an issue). If you don't have an Average Location function on your GPS, take at least 15 or 20 sample waypoints with the best signal strength you can get at the cache hide site, and derive a good manual average that way.

 

If you've done all that, then yes, you should feel GREAT about hiding a real "stumper". Way to go!

 

-Dave R.

Edited by drat19
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I wouldn't worry about your reputation B&B-you have already ben seen exchanging emails with me on a camo container. It's too late to remain clean and pristine :unsure: I saw this thread and thought it was what we talked about, but it seems you have already crossed over to the dark side all on your own. ;)

 

That said-not all hides are for all cachers to find. Go hide some easy ones, and hide some tough ones. If your puzzle answers are true and solvable (and it seems they are), and the cache is properly rated, I would be happy and proud to stump a few finders, especially the FTF hounds. Like drat19 said-just 'cause we find a lot doesn't make us any better, just more experienced and we cache more often. ;) ' In fact if you surveyed cachers with 500+ finds I'll bet a major percentage would prefer a challenge like this to an ammo can under a pile of stick you can spot from 100' any day. :huh:

Good Job!

 

PS:

4 hard-core cachers came out looking for it (one emailed me but didn't post his DNF).
B&B please out this individual so we can have a burning at the stake! WE haven't had one of this in at least 24 hours around here! :unsure::lol::lol:

 

just kidding-sort of.......

Edited by wimseyguy
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Rating cache difficulty is hard. You know where you hid it, and so you are estimating how hard it is.

 

If you have skunks, it's not a 1. It's sounding like it's a 3.5 or better. The thing about a hard hide is that even though you may be the source of much swearing, when they do find it, the feeling of accomplishment grows. They remember the afterglow and not the pain and mysery.

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You need to learn Patience.

 

LOL! Oh, yes! I think you know me too well already! Very true, very true! I was VERY VERY relieved to find it had been found twice today. I was going to head out tonight after work to stick a $10 bill in it and a lottery ticket for luck, but now I've missed the FTF'rs to give them their prize. I was quite proud of them! I was beginning to get very worried about my coordinates, which I'd checked on 3 visits over 2 days.

 

Thanks for the Rupert's Cache Difficulty Rating. I had actually originally used it to rate it, but being the hider I had subjectively thought it would be an easier find. :unsure: Sooooo....I just redid the rating scale and it recommended a 3-star rating, which I just happened to change it to yesterday (coincidence!) . I guess I was just boggled that anyone would have *that* much trouble finding it given some of the mind-blowing camouflaged mini-containers developed here. (poop and pinecones...who'da thought?). Mine just had a sneaky spot, not any camo or anything creative in that way.

 

Wimseyguy had a really clever idea. We may have to put one out in the spring dedicated to him, with his permission. I guess I do have a dark side I didn't know about, mwah ha ha.

 

I do have some itty-bitty micro caches on the way, so the area cachers are in for some challenging finds <wide-mouthed grin>.

 

Beware this innocent smile, lol. :unsure:

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There is nothing wrong with a hard cache that leads to DNFs. Just be sure to adjust the difficulty as needed so people know what they are in for. I have a difficult puzzle cache that has only been found a few times. I am OK with that. I started it at 4 difficulty and raised it to 5 accordingly. Amazingly, while the puzzle was supposed to be the hard part, the actual hide turned out to be a little tough too! But the few people who figured out the coords found it. Anyway, the thing with a harder cache is that less people will find it and some/many won't even try because that isn't their cup of tea. No worries there! I have never felt bad that few have found my hard puzzle cache. I figure that is the nature of the game. There are plenty of easy caches out there too. So all have caches to find at their prefered level of difficulty. So enjoy your cache and be happy! :P

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In my opinion it seems as though these really hard caches lead to ALOT of information sharing. Initially you'll have quite a few DNFs, but after the first 2-3 people find it almost EVERYONE finds it. That's no coincidence!

 

I know what you mean...and in the online log they started discussing one of the hints they discovered and that makes it easier for future geocachers. I had actually had a fleeting momemt when I considered deleting the logs and asking them to rephrase them, but then I thought -- no, my fault -- I should have been more explicit in the directions not to discuss such things in the log. Next time I'll know better.

 

Anyway, somehow I feel more relief that it isn't an impossible find. It isn't a microcache, but a small one that looks like thisSo I hope I'm not being *too* evil.

Edited by Birdsong-n-Bud
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A high number just means we cache frequently...it doesn't mean we're any good at it!!

 

You couldn't have been more right about this. The FTF's were cachers with 65 and 75 finds. The gentleman with the record-breaking number of finds went back and tried again and still didn't find it (I feel bad!). I guess everyone has a different "finding" style.

 

Still, I have a very healthy respect for anyone with 1,900 finds. That is some caching history! No doubt they know things about caching I haven't even considered yet! I'm still a newbie as far as numbers go. I haven't even hit 50 finds yet. I'll get there, though!

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Can you post a link to the cache? I'm just curious to see it. I'm in Iowa, so I won't be hunting for it. I just wanted to see people are posting about it.

 

Absolutely. Here it is:

Grizzly Grave

 

The funny thing is...this is practically a drive-by cache, but it is the puzzle part that is keeping people there hours. Good thing it is a pretty cemetery, I guess. :P

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Can you post a link to the cache? I'm just curious to see it. I'm in Iowa, so I won't be hunting for it. I just wanted to see people are posting about it.

 

Absolutely. Here it is:

Grizzly Grave

 

The funny thing is...this is practically a drive-by cache, but it is the puzzle part that is keeping people there hours. Good thing it is a pretty cemetery, I guess. :P

Thanks. I never knew there was a real Grizzly Adams!

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As you know, Katydid was one of the initial FNTFs. I know she had a blast looking for it especially since she met other cachers on the trail; it had me doing searches for alternate meanings or possible symbology associated with "penny". Some like a challenge and some like an easy find at times. If in doubt, I will rate a cache on the hard side - anyone going after a 4 or 5 expects some unique twists and will plan thier time accordingly. It is more frustrating for me if it is rated a 1 or 2 and should be a 4 or 5. Most will give feedback if they believe the rating is to hard.

 

I personally am most grateful to all cachers taking time out to place caches to help guide me to all of those special places out there. It is usually those new to the sport that bring many revolutionary insights to cache hiding. In general, I believe most cachers feel the same way.

 

Revenge is sweet - we'll see what you say after you get to our neck of the woods and attempt our cache Shades of the Rainbow....

 

As always, enjoy the adventure - we will find your cache and look forward to your next!

 

Miles Stone

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Revenge is sweet - we'll see what you say after you get to our neck of the woods and attempt our cache Shades of the Rainbow....

 

ROFL! :blink: Oh, I am sure you are right about that!!! I have to put that on our "to do" list now! (Note to self: also add one of their easy ones for back-up!).

 

I'm relieved to hear Katydid had fun looking for it despite the DNF....She was part of the reason I was feeling guilt! I wanted you to FIND it! I was personally surprised that it was so tough to find....but then, when you *know* where something is hidden, you don't have the experience of trying to find it to see how difficult it might be. I've since adjusted that darned difficulty rating...lesson learned! :blink:

 

P.S. Thanks for trying our cache!

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