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Leave Them A Neon Sign Next Time...


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Did they also leave their family pet inside the ammo box?

I don't think Leprechans(sp?) would mark a cache. :lol:

 

Though, OT, most cachers mark the find if they know it or not. On many of my finds I've been able to put the gpsr away and track people back to the box. It sure is nice to know that all of my skills aren't getting rusty. :lol:

 

Which brings up one of the ways that caches are muggled: poor camouflage. Belive it or not, mot all cache coverings are the same, and cover that's out of the ordinary will cause interest, ie: the inner bark of a tree facing out, a pyrimid of sticks, an upside down rock, etc. So, take care how you rehide the cache. Either that, or I won't need a gps within 150 feet. :(

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Did they also leave their family pet inside the ammo box?

I don't think Leprechans(sp?) would mark a cache. :rolleyes:

No, Leprechauns would *never* mark a cache. Instead, we do our best to re-hide it to match the rating. If the difficulty rating seemed accurate, we will put the cache back *exactly* as we found it, give or take a piece of bark or a stick. If the cache is rated difficulty 3, and I spotted it in plain sight, you can bet that it won't be visible when we leave. If the cache is difficulty 1, I'll be sure that at least a corner of the container is poking out so you can view it in plain sight, if you are looking the right way. {EDIT: I follow these same rules regardless of whether I'm finding one cache that day after a 6 mile hike, or I'm finding 35 caches on a cache and dash numbers run.}

 

Besides disclosing the location to muggles, another reason why this is important is land managers. Some enlightened land managers permit geocaching so long as the container is out of sight and not discoverable by muggles. Great policy, but they'd be upset if a cache were in plain sight and was reported to the police.

 

People who don't rehide caches properly, or who mark cache locations, need to be pointed at the new draft Geocachers Code of Ethics. See Coyote Red's pinned thread.

Edited by The Leprechauns
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I once found a cache were someone had made a large (3ft) arrow on the ground out of stones, pointing right to the cache. After 30 minutes of getting to the cache, it was a HUGE disappointment to get to the area and practically have someone hand me the log to sign for an otherwise fairly well hidden cache. I'm sure someone thought they were doing other cachers a favor by saving them the trouble of searching for a difficult hide, and I'm equally sure there is a certain segment of cachers who were happy to find it that way (Probably the same ones who like finding a line of people waiting to sign a cache near an event. Blech!). No matter what you personally prefer, like the irish hamster says, leave the cache hidden the way the owner intended!

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I've seen stone and stick arrows pointing to the cache. I've heard of a few cases where a trail of flagging tape was added by a finder. I also had a cache of mine where a finder mentioned in his log that he left a trail of reflective tape leading to the cache. He removed it after I asked him to. And of course there are those who leave the well hidden container exposed.

 

I guess some people feel like they're being nice and helping the rest of us. Maybe they think that we're too stupid to find it on our own.

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My husband and I were taking a cache trip an hour away. I had four caches lined up to accomplish, one being a multi. The first part of this multi dealt with numbers of a certain item on the trail, that was okay. When I got to the second part, I found the container with the final coordinates, and hid it as well as I found it. When I returned to the front of the tree, I noticed that someone had spray painted a face high up on the tree as if to mark it. Being only 5'5", I hadn't noticed it at first but was disappointed when I saw that the location had been marked.

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On the other hand, I have found far too many caches where a 70-foot radius surrounding the container has been completely tossed or turned over by previous seekers. The entire area looks as if it had been raked by the Yankees infield ground crew. This phenomenon could easily create a huge problem (if it hasn’t already) for the game of geocaching from irritated land managers or various local “tree-hugger” establishments.

 

From my experience the reason is because the hider has posted bad clues, inaccurate coordinates or in many cases, both. It has been debated in the forums before, but for my money, the easiest solution would be to require quality/revealing encrypted hints. The players that like to “rummage” could carefully do so and the ones that don’t like to (which I suspect is the silent majority) could decrypt and go right to the box.

 

Hiders should at least be aware that cache areas can be “damaged” due to their negligence.

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Some people make me sick.

I totally agree with bluehook here. I liken it to why hunters sit up high in tree stands. That's because the deer NEVER look up. Over the course of time, no natural predator of deer ever lived in trees. That's why they don't look up. Many people who hide caches do something very similar. They hide their cache and for a clue they say "It's under the "big" rock next to the "double tree." Well if they looked around, there may be many rocks next to many, many double trees. I have seen this on more than one occasion, and it is rediculous. Trust me, I am not one of these elitist types who go around and re-hide a cache in a different spot because they think their spot is better. I hate that. Nor am I one of these people who set up a bunch of decoy spots where they make cairns in a strange place or unusual configuration. All that does is encourage cachers to tear up the landscape, and that is so totally NOT what this whole game is about. I have seen cachers to that deliberate skew the coordinates so as to be misleading. How absurd.

There arer so many little common sense things that people could and should do when hiding a cache, and it wouldn't add significantly to the amount of time it would take them to finish the job. Far be it for me to impose my ideals and standards on others, but I will say this, on more than one occasion I have had people write in my cache logs that the cache was well hidden and the coordinates were right on the money. If you care to indulge me, read on.

First, I spray paint my cache containers in camo colors, typically in green, black and brown. This way even if part of the cache container is exposed, it isn't so obvious to the untrained eye. When I find a spot to hide a cache, I "walk" the cache from at least 4 different directions, and then I average the waypoint readings, provided that one set isn't way off. I then enter the averaged coordinates into my GPS and see how close it gets me. More often than not, it is right on the money. Now for something that is really important. DON'T DESCRIBE YOUR CACHE LOCATION IN SUBJECTIVE TERMS. What does it mean when you say "it's next to a big rock?" Look around, there may be a lot of "big rocks" in the area. If you are afraid that the elitists won't like it because your description is too revealing, then put in the description, "DO NOT DECRYPT" and then you can accurately describe the area. Like "if you approach the area on the trail and are heading in a Northerly direction, then turn to a heading of 260 degrees after you pass the rock that is about 3 feet in diameter. " That is of course if that is the only rock that size in the area. If it is in a really tough spot, take pictures and post a warning stating "SPOILER" on it so people won't look unless they are having trouble finding it.

The bottom line, is that this is only a game. What I find really annoying is when people start messing with other people's caches, because they found a "better" hiding spot. For my money, your GPS should bring you right to the spot where the cache is hidden, or certainly within a few feet. I'm not above emailing the owner of a cache to make a suggestion. And I preface the email, stating that I am only trying to help. But I certainly WOULD NOT MOVE someone else's cache. It's wrong and it tantamount to pirating the cache. :(

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Out in the deserts around Las Vegas there seems to be quite the rash of people marking caches. For some reason they pile a cairn of rocks on them to mark the spot.

 

Oops, my bad. Thats just the way they were hid :(

 

BTW, I'm just having fun, not making fun of the caches hiden like this. I have one under a pile of rocks out in the desert, as finding the cache once you are at the right spot was never meant to be the hard part.

 

Shannon

VegasCacheHounds

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I agree that most of the time that you find the whole area torn up, either the coordinates are off and everyone is looking for it or it has gone up missing. In that case the searchers are just trying to not look stupid for not finding it and after four people look everywhere, the area does get torn up or at least have lots of muddy trails around the area. So far I have not found arrows leading to a cache.

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I remember a post by a newbie that stated he had placed flagging tape on a tree at his cache he had just hid.

 

He also stated it would be a "good" idea if everyone did this.

If an owner does that for his own cache, that's fine. Its when others take it upon themselves to do it that it is an issue.

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So far I have not found arrows leading to a cache.

We found one with an arrow pointing (almost) directly to the cache. It was made by the placer and it still took a while to find it.

 

Why? Because it was back before we had walking sticks to probe with, the cache was in a depression, under a thin bush, and the whole area was covered with pine straw.

 

We've hunted caches buried in thick blankets of pine straw and while a cache isn't exactly a needle, it certainly can be hard to find!

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I remember finding a cache, then discovering the pointer a finder before me had placed with some construction sticks. Knowing who the hiders were, I promptly destroyed the blatant spoiler and tossed it all away. I didn't make mention of it in the log, but the owners did receive e-mail on it for information and action as deemed appropriate by them.

Edited by TotemLake
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We found a big "X - Cache Here" Scratched onto a trailhead sign.

 

Would that be a spoiler?

 

We have also found : Flagging, stick arrows, rock arrows, cache sitting out in the open, stencil "Geoching.com" spray painted on a couple rocks - a Forest fire got them so no problem now, half acre of torn up ground, monster sized rock / stick pile's, caches "spray painted Red so it will show up better then the camo color it was".

 

Another way to find a cache is to look in/ under the only shrub NOT broken all to pieces.

 

There are all kinds out there.

 

logscaler.

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We found a big "X - Cache Here" Scratched onto a trailhead sign. [...and] "Geoching.com" spray painted on a couple rocks -

Argh... my head is spinning. I guess I found the answer to "How do I graffitti the great outdoors, piss of landmanagers, and help ruin the game for others?"

 

This is worse than cache pirates. ;)

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I don’t recall ever seeing a cache that was actually marked. Often times they were “marked” by the method of hiding (pile of freshly handled bark, or stick tee-pee). Many times they have social sign, too.

 

Have you considered the possibility that the rose was left as a gesture or a “monument” by an old hippie? ;)

;)

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We found a big "X - Cache Here" Scratched onto a trailhead sign. [...and] "Geoching.com" spray painted on a couple rocks -

Now, whoever did that is a 'booger-eating moron' ... ;)

 

Have you considered the possibility that the rose was left as a gesture or a “monument” by an old hippie?

Sept1c_tank, is that a confession ... know something about ol' hippies? ;)

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