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Micro Vs. Traditional


Kyul_and_Carbon

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I am finding that a good majority of the caches in our area are micro. I'm not personally opposed to a micro - but when you cache with your kids, a regular one makes the hunt more enjoyable for them. A micro hunt holds their attention about like CNN so - was just curious if you are seeing this trend in your area?

 

More Micros

Less Traditionals

 

I understand it's a LOT easier to hide a micro and a micro has less of a chance at being taken/destroyed - but - the treasure fun for the kids is eliminated.

 

just... curious.

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Yes the number of Micro's seem to be increasing.

 

Could be because most of the really good available woodland already has a Cache placement. Also it would seem Micro Caches requires less time / effort to maintain.

 

Have not tried PQ's or GSAK yet. Might not ever.

 

I would really like Micro's to have a different Icon than "Regular" Traditionals, so I wouldn't even have to bother opening the Cache page.

 

But I'm not holding my breath.

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Generally, you will find traditional caches in rural areas, and micro caches in urban ones.

Yes, there are a lot more microcaches than ever being placed, but I think it is more of a current fad than sustaining trend. I'm suspecting that most of the micro placements are places where people wanted to place a full-size cache, but were unable to do so because of the visability.

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One more reason to go Premium. You can easily create pocket queries to exclude micros. My son also was disappointed when we were new cachers and came across these little scraps of paper in film containers. He's in it for the goodies, and now we only go after what he calls "real" caches.

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I was back in Chicagoland for my brother's wedding and was appalled at the density of micros in the suburban parks! Geez, there are more traditional tupperware containers in the City of Philadelphia than within 20 km of my mom's house in Arlington Hts IL, which is 25 km OUTSIDE Shytown.

 

Now, I understand urban micros. But suburban micros in places where a tupperware container would do just fine? What gives?

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A lot of people like micros because they're more challenging, can be hidden up in trees, and the thrill of the hunt is more important that trading McToys. There is room in the sport for all types--If you WANT more tupperware out there, then go HIDE some tupperware out there, folks! :ph34r:

 

To illustrate a point: of the people in this post complaining about caches, 2 have zero hides, 1 has 2 hides and 1 has 5 hides. I only give credence to the cacher who has 51 hides. :D

Edited by SixDogTeam
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Now, I understand urban micros. But suburban micros in places where a tupperware container would do just fine? What gives?

There are many, in fact it appears most, who are in it for the hunt. Even on the larger containered caches I see more TNLNSL than anything else.

 

I'm in the Chicagonland area as well and the more popular caches for the seekers tend tp be the micros.

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A lot of people like micros because they're more challenging, can be hidden up in trees, and the thrill of the hunt is more important that trading McToys. There is room in the sport for all types--If you WANT more tupperware out there, then go HIDE some tupperware out there, folks! :ph34r:

 

To illustrate a point: of the people in this post complaining about caches, 2 have zero hides, 1 has 2 hides and 1 has 5 hides. I only give credence to the cacher who has 51 hides. :D

Excatally what LeadDog said ... I can only add to that this little thought ....

 

Most places to place traditionals are becoming regulated to the point that it is almost next to impossible to place a cache in them . Like DNR areas.

 

Some you just need get a permit , free of charge other places are charging outragous fees for them. On top of that they ask that you enable and disable caches per hunting seasons making them unavailable for 6 months or more out of the year.

 

If you are able to find a good spot for a traditional size cache yer doing good.

 

Star

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The bottom line is that there are locations that are appropiate for regular caches and others that are not. Where I find micros hidden, it is normaly not appropiate for a regular sized cache to be hidden. Just another example of the right tool for the right job. If we exclude hiding/finding micros, the we are in effect cutting out many of the available locations to geocache.

 

Micros can be great if done right. They can be more challenging to find and may times they are located in places of significance.

 

Bring on the micros!

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I would really like Micro's to have a different Icon than "Regular" Traditionals, so I wouldn't even have to bother opening the Cache page.

 

But I'm not holding my breath.

So don't open the cache pages, then. The size is indicated on the search results index page. When you see the tiniest size box filled in, skip down a row to the next cache.

 

I agree that you shouldn't hold your breath, because the feature you're asking for is already available, and breathing is very, very good for your find count.

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To illustrate a point: of the people in this post complaining about caches, 2 have zero hides, 1 has 2 hides and 1 has 5 hides. I only give credence to the cacher who has 51 hides.

 

I am not sure I follow the reasoning above. While it is hard to give credence to a person with zero hides just because a person has only a handful of hides does not make that person less valuable to listen to. After all it is quite easy to rack up a lot of hides simply by going to WalMart, getting for a bunch of used (and free) film canisters, stuffing a strip of paper into them, tossing the canisters out of the car window, writing up a one-line description that includes "bring your own pencil", and then never making a trip back to cache to check up on it. Compare this to someone who buys a ammo can, does a camoflauge paint job on it, goes to the dollar store to purchase a bunch of cache goodies, makes multiple treks to the hiding location in order to find just the right spot, writes a long description on the reason why the cache was placed, and then makes periodic trips back to the cache to check up and restock it. Due to time and cost considerations the latter person simply can not have the number of hides as the former. It does not make them any "less" of a cacher. Ditto for someone who spends the time and energy to make clever micros.

 

It is probably obvious which camp I am in. :ph34r:

 

[Note, just to ward off possible misunderstanding: I am not accusing of TTI of being the former type of cacher. While TTI does hide a lot of easy-on-the-pocketbook micros they also do a very good job of hiding, maintaining, and writing up good descriptions of the micros.]

 

Micros do have their place. As someone mentioned hiding the right size cache for the location is the best idea. A micro in the midst of a 10 acre woods is irritating. An ammo can in the middle of a 0.1 acre urban park is silly.

 

As for the number of people who do TNLNSL, it is my belief that most adults are only into caching for the hunt. Dollar store items won't appeal to most adults -- we spend more on gas than that just to get to cache. Thus most adults do TNLN (with the exception of trading sig items or TBs.) Kids and families, on the other hand, love trading. Regular size caches are for them. I can see why people with kids would like to see more regular caches placed.

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As for the number of people who do TNLNSL, it is my belief that most adults are only into caching for the hunt. Dollar store items won't appeal to most adults -- we spend more on gas than that just to get to cache. Thus most adults do TNLN (with the exception of trading sig items or TBs.) Kids and families, on the other hand, love trading. Regular size caches are for them. I can see why people with kids would like to see more regular caches placed.

There's not a lot of room for sig items in micros :ph34r:

 

And for your other comment on number of hides, a cacher that does not hide caches is not contributing to the game anywhere near the same level as those of us that hide caches. I'd rather listen to someone with both finds and hides, not just finds.

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Note to Lep and Team GPSaxophone. It's bad enough that NOW the icons are painfully obvious to me. If I would have just once bothered to hover over that area, an actual descriptive "tip" would have appeared. In any case, Thanks. This just became one of my favorite Site Features and I can breathe again.

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To illustrate a point: of the people in this post complaining about caches, 2 have zero hides, 1 has 2 hides and 1 has 5 hides. I only give credence to the cacher who has 51 hides.

 

I am not sure I follow the reasoning above. While it is hard to give credence to a person with zero hides just because a person has only a handful of hides does not make that person less valuable to listen to.

To defend my "credibility" I'd say the issue is not the total number of hides but rather the ratio of number of hides to number of finds and the time involved in caching. I've hidden 5, found 100, and been doing this 5 months. Not bad compared to most. But certainly not in SixDogTeam's league... :anibad:

 

My remarks were lighthearted and pitched more to poke gentle fun at the micro in 10 acres of woods crowd rather than micros in general.

Edited by mccambjd
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I'll get right to the point - I don't like micros.

Are there exceptions to this rule? - yes.

Do I find them anyway? - yes.

 

They do seem to be getting more prevalent, probably for the reasons already elaborated upon. I'm not sure it's a fad/trend though. As the proportion continues to slide towards micros and the sport continues to expand, new cachers will naturally emulate what they see and find themselves. One probable future scenario is a slow death spiral into more and more micros - hopefully this is not the case.

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[Note, just to ward off possible misunderstanding: I am not accusing of TTI of being the former type of cacher. While TTI does hide a lot of easy-on-the-pocketbook micros they also do a very good job of hiding, maintaining, and writing up good descriptions of the micros.]

 

I think you are a little confused there RPW but that is ok , TTI has caches of all kinds from Micros with pages full of information, to traditionals in the woods . Including a few that we have adopted to keep them from being poorly kept.

 

for the record : 12 of our hides are traditionals , 1 event cache, 2 small, 1 Earthcache virtual and 4 micros.

 

Star

Edited by Team Tigger International
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I think you are a little confused there RPW ...

Oh yes. Sorry about that. For some reason I got TTI confused with SixDogTeam when I was writing my post. Perhaps because TTI was quoting SixDogTeam. But I am not sure why I did not catch that during my proofreading. SixDog has a bunch of ISQ hides ... Indiana Spirit Quest for those who have not found them -- a wonderfully detailed look at old cemeteries but almost universally micros. Oh well, again, sorry about that.

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I don't mind finding Micros. I have seen micors in places I thought a traditional would have done just fine(Remote rest areas, for one. And how do those get maintained?!). I do have a harder time finding them, though, especially if I'm going for caches along a travel route, because I can't always spend an hour looking. So I'm more likely to feel bummed out, and sometimes downright stupid, when I can't find a micro.

 

I think I would like to see a better system of rating the difficulty of micros, though. A few we tried to do a couple weekends ago were labeled as 1s, when they seemed much harder to find that the 1s in a standard size.

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I'm not looking at caching as a means to get my kids stuff - but their attention spans are not that of an adult.... that, cannot be argued. Hunting for a micro - a single micro - they are fine. But when the only thing you can really fill your day with is "bring your own pencil" micros - they do lose interest and now I am hunting micros and children to keep all in check. They whine and it makes it more frustrating than fun.

 

I really wanted to use caching as a means to get "out" with my kids and not to a store. I want them to experience trails and bikes and wildlife and water - the whole "outdoorsy" experience.

 

So - I'm sorry I didn't have any hides. I didn't realize that would "destroy" my credibility in stating there is a trend of more micros than regulars. I wanted to get some finding experience under my belt - at least finding caches that are more of the size I want to hide as a majority of hides.... not micros. It took a few visits to my mom's house in Indiana (where regular means you can fit a shoe in the darn cache) and a few finds over here in Illinois to work up the nerve to hide my own.

 

It was activated today - and as my first hide, I hope I did a good job with it. I'm looking forward to the feedback and also looking forward to maintaining it WITH my kids.

 

Carbon

Springfield IL

Edited by Kyul-and-Carbon
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