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hints & description - how detailed?


Guest johnny

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Guest johnny

This is similar to a topic discussed on one of the mailing lists recently, but my question is how detailed should cache descriptions be? I've placed a couple of caches recently that the direct route to the cache is not the best route. Should this be noted in the description, the hints, or left for the hunter to figure out?

 

When placing a cache, I always take the easiest route to the cache location, forgetting that newcomers to the area won't have the luxury of knowing the best route. My first cache placement was easy, there are two routes to the cache and I was able indicate those routes without giving away the cache location.

 

Travelling directly to my second cache leaves the hunter with about 300' of bushwhacking. Taking the "best route" will get you within 5' on a trail. Since reading the first bushwhacking log, I went back and added clues to guide the cacher along the "appropriate route."

 

I discovered that my third cache placement was incredibly misleading. The direction of the cache is directly down a trail that dead ends (the best way is to travel in the opposite direction of the cache for a while. I placed the cache on Sunday and hunted it today (to "see what a cache hunter sees", but didn't get the new hints online before the first official hunters abandoned the hunt. They got within .21 miles before the trail ended and would have had to do some serious bushwhacking and climbing from there. In this scenario, should I name the trail that the cache is near in the description, or is that giving too much information? Should I indicate this information in the hint? Personally, I don't read the hints until I'm within 50' or so of a cache.

 

John

 

[This message has been edited by johnny (edited 04 July 2001).]

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Guest Olar

I had the same dilemma when I placed my first cache. I ended up deciding that since I was a newcomer to the sport I would like to make it a little easier for other beginners. I posted the coords for the main trail entrance and also for the side trail location. Without doing this there is the possibility of some serious bush-wacking and/or river crossing unless you know the area. We all took up the sport to have some fun not get all frustrated and discouraged. Happy cache-hunting, Bill

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Guest Markwell

spot. That way, I can gauge whether I can take my toddler along on the trek. If I know the cache is only 0.25 miles from the parking spot, I can - but if it's 1.2 miles, I can't.

 

That being said, sometimes the unexpected results offer the best stories for the cachers. Two examples:

 

I went hiking for a cache in central Illinois, and ended up taking a direct path and sliding down a hillside for about 50 feet, with at least a 60% grade, clutching vines and saplings the whole way down, finally landing a the bottom of the gully. I never did find the cache, although others who found it indicated that I was literally standing on top of it. I had to scramble back up the hillside to get to the playground where my wife and two boys were playing, patiently waiting for my return. At the playground was an area map showing the trails, including a nice gentle sloping gravel path leading from the playground to the bottom of the gully, probably 20 yards from the cache (I couldn't see the gravel path while looking for the cache).

 

Story two: I placed a cache in a park that has an east entrance and a west entrance. I used the east entrance and walked until I came to a stream. A cache visitor just came yesterday, but came from the west entrance, and had to use a fallen tree to scramble from the other side of the stream to find the cache. He must have thought I was nuts!

 

Moral: unless you want someone to follow exactly in your footsteps, leave out some details. It will make your cache owning experience more fun, and more of a challenge to the hunter.

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Guest Artful Dodger

I agree entirely with the previous post. A parking spot, or a side road or the trailhead description or coordinates would be helpful (encrypt it if you wish).

 

Many times I have driven around in vain trying to find the suitable start point to the actual search. This is too true in an area which one is unfamiliar with.

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Guest zilla

I like to do a thorough research of the cache area and routes available.. This usually elimates most surprises.. just studying a topo map yields tons of info. But if you are one the geocachers who just follows the GPS arrow, well you're gonna run into dead ends and wrong turns.. I leave a good hint on my caches, but still there is nothing like being navigationally prepared. { Is that a word??}

 

zilla icon_smile.gif

 

[This message has been edited by zilla (edited 05 July 2001).]

 

[This message has been edited by zilla (edited 05 July 2001).]

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Guest zilla

I like to do a thorough research of the cache area and routes available.. This usually elimates most surprises.. just studying a topo map yields tons of info. But if you are one the geocachers who just follows the GPS arrow, well you're gonna run into dead ends and wrong turns.. I leave a good hint on my caches, but still there is nothing like being navigationally prepared. { Is that a word??}

 

zilla icon_smile.gif

 

[This message has been edited by zilla (edited 05 July 2001).]

 

[This message has been edited by zilla (edited 05 July 2001).]

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Guest Artful Dodger

I should have been clearer by stating that some of those cachers have many roads, trails leading to it but only one of them is the correct one. I always research my cache seeks by studying the Garmin Mapsource CDs for the best approach. But some of them are surrounded my main 'supposedly easy accesses' but when you reach it, you find that you have taken a wrong, or longer route to the cache itself.

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Guest ClayJar

Actually, I had already thought of something I'd like to do, if I can make a hard enough cache, that is. I'll pre-ROT13 "headings" for the various parts of the clue; so, the hint I'll type in will look like this:

 

quote:
CNEXVAT UVAG: You can park at the end of the gravel driveway, but unless you have a truck or SUV, you want to park on the road. GENVY UVAG: If you take the left branch at the fork, you'll weave around, but you'll get a lot closer. PNPUR UVAG: It's in a PVC pipe stuffed in the underside of a B'harnii doll.

 

The neat thing about this is that when it's ROT13'd by the site, it'll show up as the following encoded hint:

 

quote:
PARKING HINT: Lbh pna cnex ng gur raq bs gur teniry qevirjnl, ohg hayrff lbh unir n gehpx be FHI, lbh jnag gb cnex ba gur ebnq. TRAIL HINT: Vs lbh gnxr gur yrsg oenapu ng gur sbex, lbh'yy jrnir nebhaq, ohg lbh'yy trg n ybg pybfre. CACHE HINT: Vg'f va n CIP cvcr fghssrq va gur haqrefvqr bs n O'uneavv qbyy.

 

Pretty sweet, eh? (I made a little two-text-box ROT13 program in Visual Basic in about 5 minutes, and it works wonderfully for this.)

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Guest Rocky

I do not give much more info than the coordinates. On tough I mention not suitable for more mature or young cachers. Give it 3 or 4 stars and leave the rest to the cacher. If all caches were along trails why would one need a GPS to get in and out? On one of my very tough ones 2 mature cachers took it on and were delighted with their achievement when they logged it

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Guest Silver

quote:
Originally posted by ClayJar:

Pretty sweet, eh? (I made a little two-text-box ROT13 program in Visual Basic in about 5 minutes, and it works wonderfully for this.)


 

LOL. I did too. I'll bet there are 20 different cachers that programmed it 20 different ways too! icon_smile.gif

 

Silver

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Guest Silver

quote:
Originally posted by ClayJar:

Pretty sweet, eh? (I made a little two-text-box ROT13 program in Visual Basic in about 5 minutes, and it works wonderfully for this.)


 

LOL. I did too. I'll bet there are 20 different cachers that programmed it 20 different ways too! icon_smile.gif

 

Silver

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Guest Nemesis

quote:
Originally posted by ClayJar:

Pretty sweet, eh? (I made a little two-text-box ROT13 program in Visual Basic in about 5 minutes, and it works wonderfully for this.)


 

What a cool idea! I was toying with some other form of encryption in addition to ROT13 for my hints, this would slow down those seekers who casually decode the hints with a click (simply because they can).

 

I like to include a good parking spot in my stash reports, but include most of the in between detal in the hints. One exception is where the seeker must keep to a particular route for saftey and/or environmental reasons.

 

Cheers,

Donovan Govan.

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Guest ClayJar

quote:
Originally posted by Nemesis:

What a cool idea!


 

Somebody likes the idea? I guess next time I'm in New Zealand, I'll have to take a try at your caches... On the other hand, if I ever make it around the world to New Zealand, it probably won't be for geocaching... On the third hand, what better way of seeing the countryside than geocaching, and if I were in New Zealand, it would definitely be because we'd want to see the scenery... On the fourth hand, I probably won't remember a word I've just said, but if I do, I'll probably ask about good caches before I leave.

 

(Please excuse any moderate insanity; I've just had a wonderful evening. At least I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs -- that would probably make me certifiable.)

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Guest Nemesis

quote:
Originally posted by ClayJar:

...next time I'm in New Zealand, I'll have to take a try at your caches...


 

Cool! I hope you make it one day. icon_smile.gif

 

Cheers,

Donovan.

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Guest Nemesis

quote:
Originally posted by ClayJar:

...next time I'm in New Zealand, I'll have to take a try at your caches...


 

Cool! I hope you make it one day. icon_smile.gif

 

Cheers,

Donovan.

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Guest ClayJar

Here's an idea (Jeremy would have to implement it, but I'm just trying to see if anyone thinks it might be useful -- I certainly do):

 

When typing in hints, put anything that you want to be "unencrypted" in the "encrypted" version of the hint (the one seen on the site if you don't cheat) inside [square brackets]. This way if you have multiple hints (i.e. a very hard cache with a parking hint, a trail hint, a cache hint, and perhaps a blatant giveaway hint), people with the cache page printout in the middle of nowhere would know what to decipher.

 

For example, I might want to know the parking hint, but not the rest, or I might not use the hints at all until I'm at the coords, at which point it is frustrating to decode a paragraph that is 90% parking and trail hints. This would make it easy to setup a cache to enable this type of thing without the cache poster having to do it all by hand.

 

It should be easy enough to implement, by the way. All the site would have to do is take the hint and ROT13 anything inside [square brackets] before inserting it into the database, since with ROT13, f(f(x))=x.

 

The "unencrypted" stuff would show up "encrypted" if you click the cheater link, but that shouldn't be a problem, I'd think, and implementing it this way means the only extra processing required is a quick parse and ROT13 only once (when adding/changing hints). It might be doable in one regular expression, even, but I don't know what language the stuff is in, so I'm not going to post a code snippet.

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Guest glcanon

John, 300' of bushwacking? Are you a masochist? There's usually only one thing which turns me off, it's excessive bushwacking. I've had bad experience with poison ivy, poison oak, and copperhead snakes, so I like to know what I'm getting into, and I like to be able to see the path is clear. I've read many caches where previous seekers complain about the poison ivy. When I read that, I move on. It's hot and humid where i live. Who's going to wear multi-layers of protective clothing in 100+ deg heat and humidity just so they can bushwack. I'll pass.

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Guest Everest

Considering that the 300' of bushwhacking is through a lot of poison ivy, but a trail will take you within 40' of the cache and no poison ivy, maybe I am a masochist icon_smile.gif

 

That's why I was asking the question - do you prefer hints that lead you to the cache, or do you not want it made that easy?

 

Another question - when do most people decipher the hints (if not before heading out for the cache)? Do you wait until you've trampled a 100' diameter around the cache coordinates, or do you decipher along the way if you're within 500' with no trail in sight, but the cache description indicates that a trail takes you within 50'?

 

John

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Guest Everest

Considering that the 300' of bushwhacking is through a lot of poison ivy, but a trail will take you within 40' of the cache and no poison ivy, maybe I am a masochist icon_smile.gif

 

That's why I was asking the question - do you prefer hints that lead you to the cache, or do you not want it made that easy?

 

Another question - when do most people decipher the hints (if not before heading out for the cache)? Do you wait until you've trampled a 100' diameter around the cache coordinates, or do you decipher along the way if you're within 500' with no trail in sight, but the cache description indicates that a trail takes you within 50'?

 

John

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Guest brokenwing

In this case, I think I'd just put in a non encrypted hint that said something like "there may be trails to lead you closer" but no other hints about where the trail is, etc. Part of the fun for me is trying to find a good way to approach a cache.

 

brokenwing

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Guest Havasu Desert Rat

I am using one method of a secondary encryption in my hints. At the start of the hint, I state:

A=1, J=0 UTM NAD twenty seven

 

So, a=1, b=2, etc. UTM coordinates can then be part of the hint, but still be encrypted. If they use the button to decrypt the hint, the coordinates must still be done longhand. You can then add parking spots, trailheads, trail intersections, landmarks, etc, and they need only decrypt the ones they need. All that is necessary is to specify the datum, and if it could be a problem, the zone.

 

------------------

Larry Sallee

aka The Havasu Desert Rat

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Guest poppyseed

at part for any other parents who might be in the same situation. There is probably more detail than a solitary grownup would like, and it's not a particularly challenging cache, but since it's for the kids, and kids hopefully won't be going without their 'rents, I opted to err on the side of too much information. That said, on more adult-oriented caches, out in a wilderness area, for instance, I would probably use less detail. On this particular one, though, even though there are terrain hints, I encrypted the hints about the cache site itself, except to give general instructions about the container the cache is in and how it's hidden (not suspended from the trees, for example).

 

One problem I ran into: yesterday when I re-scouted the area, I marked the parking spot as a waypoint. I also marked the future cache site. No problems. Tonight when filling out my little cache form, I decided to check the coordinates for the parking lot on two different map sites. Both sites showed those coordinates as being in the middle of some water in eastern Europe. There is no parking (for this cache) in Serbia! So I ran back out to the spot late tonight to recheck the coordinates. They came back slightly different, of course, and I'd have stipulated in my cache description that the coordinates were unaveraged and therefore rough, but the two sets weren't so different that one would be, say, here, and the other would be in Europe. And I can't figure out what's going on. I'd like to post parking coordinates, but from my end (parking waypoint to cache), everything looks fine, and it's the map sites (Mapblast and Mapquest) that seem to be having trouble with my coordinates. Any help with understanding what's happened? I checked and rechecked the numbers I'd punched in on both map sites.

 

As to when I decipher a hint, I usually decrypt it at home and paste it into notepad. I've grown very adept at not looking at a decrypted clue whilst pasting and printing. Then I staple it to my other cache papers, but folded, so I have to deliberately look at it in order to see it. I usually don't look at it at all, but if I do, it's when I've wandered around a good while, utterly stymied.

 

Yow - sorry this is so long. Verbose, me. Maybe that's why my cache description is so detailed... I can't shut up! Night all -

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Guest bob_renner

IIRC the map programs on the web want the coordinates with + - signs as follows:

North and east are +

West and south are -

You need to put a - before the longitude.

 

Bob

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Guest poppyseed

Thanks, Bob! When I get home this evening, I'll give it a shot. (Stupidly left my GPS thingie at home, so don't have the coordinates right with me here.)

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Guest WaylandersMA

Dropping the minus from the long coord. would not drop you in Serbia but China.

Or more precisely, Lorton, VA losing the minus would land you outside Shache, China on the Yarkant river. A city of Turkish speaking muslims, it was visited by Marco Polo in 1271.

My wife always complains I park at the far end of the parking lot but this would be ridiculous. icon_smile.gif

(Can you tell I have 4 more hours before vacation?)

 

Paul

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Guest WaylandersMA

Dropping the minus from the long coord. would not drop you in Serbia but China.

Or more precisely, Lorton, VA losing the minus would land you outside Shache, China on the Yarkant river. A city of Turkish speaking muslims, it was visited by Marco Polo in 1271.

My wife always complains I park at the far end of the parking lot but this would be ridiculous. icon_smile.gif

(Can you tell I have 4 more hours before vacation?)

 

Paul

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Guest poppyseed

Hmmm. I found adding the + to the lat. and the - to the long. placed me in waters well off the coast of Spain. I'm gonna go out in a few minutes and mark several waypoints at the parking site, average them and post them on the cache description with a caveat. Unless I figure this thing out before then. Which I'm not sure is gonna happen at this point, given my massive dose of confusion. icon_smile.gif

 

Thanks much, and have a great vacation, Paul!

 

[This message has been edited by poppyseed (edited 19 July 2001).]

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Guest poppyseed

Hmmm. I found adding the + to the lat. and the - to the long. placed me in waters well off the coast of Spain. I'm gonna go out in a few minutes and mark several waypoints at the parking site, average them and post them on the cache description with a caveat. Unless I figure this thing out before then. Which I'm not sure is gonna happen at this point, given my massive dose of confusion. icon_smile.gif

 

Thanks much, and have a great vacation, Paul!

 

[This message has been edited by poppyseed (edited 19 July 2001).]

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Guest bob_renner

It's a little hard to determine what your problem is without knowing what coordinates you are using. I checked with a mapping program I have and the coordinates of the intersection of 642 and I95 in Lorton, VA are

 

N38.70517 W77.22390 (HDDD.ddddd format)

N38° 42.310' W77° 13.434' (HDDD MM.mmm format)

 

If your coordinates aren't close to this, you have a problem with the numbers.

 

Bob

 

[This message has been edited by bob_renner (edited 19 July 2001).]

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Guest poppyseed

Hi Bob -

 

I appreciate your helping me with this! The coordinates I come up with (I averaged eight waypoints at the parking spot a minute ago) are N38° 44.219' W077° 15.145' (the site isn't in Lorton proper). The coordinates for the cache are N38° 44.154' W077° 15.266'. Guess what? When I plug the cache coordinates into Mapblast, Mapquest or Topozone, I either can't get a map at all, get a foreign map (yes, with the "-") or else am told that those coordinates aren't in the U.S. And yet when I posted the cache, the Mapblast map that came up automatically had just the right spot marked. What am I doing wrong? Arggggh! I'm not usually this stupid... Heh.

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Guest bob_renner

First convert the coordinates for the cache to degree decimal format (HDDD.ddddd)

 

+38.73590 -077.25443

 

Go to Mapblast and do the advanced search and put in these numbers. You should get a location a little SE of Lake Mercer, N of Triple Ridge Rd., and W of Hooes (sp?) Rd.

 

I think what was happening is that you were entering in HDD MM.mmm format and Mapblast was taking the MM.mmm as DD.ddd. It took N38° 44.154' W077° 15.266' and discarded the 38 and 077. N44.154 W15.266 is in the Atlantic WNW of Spain.

 

Bob

 

[This message has been edited by bob_renner (edited 19 July 2001).]

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Guest poppyseed

off to learn how to convert to the proper format for looking up coordinates at map sites. Thank you so much!!! icon_biggrin.gif

 

(Or ummmm... I could simply change the format in setup on my eTrex. Another non-thinking day for me today.)

 

[This message has been edited by poppyseed (edited 19 July 2001).]

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Guest poppyseed

off to learn how to convert to the proper format for looking up coordinates at map sites. Thank you so much!!! icon_biggrin.gif

 

(Or ummmm... I could simply change the format in setup on my eTrex. Another non-thinking day for me today.)

 

[This message has been edited by poppyseed (edited 19 July 2001).]

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Guest Yawningdog

Back on the subject;

I like to leave it up to the hunter as to how they will get to the cache. Maybe I'm a nut but when I hunt I ignore the parking suggestions and usually bushwack my way to the cache from a mile or so away. I find it very pedestrian and somewhat boring to follow a paved trail through the woods. It even seems kind of silly to me that I would buy a GPS and then follow the trails anyway. As for people who hunt my caches, they have several resources to make their adventure as hard or as easy as they like it without me giving them any blatant details.

 

Here is the rub; I hide my caches in what I consider to be interesting and somewhat difficult places. What has been happening is hunters that find them often place them in an easier to find position and then even leave hints on their log at the web site. Am I too touchy, or is that incredibly inconsiderate and rude? I just had one guy do that to a cache that I planted over 3 hours from where I live, so it will be difficult for me to fix the problem. What's even worse is that he was the first one to find it. So much for the hours I spent chosing the spot for my cache and deciding what hints I would give.

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Guest zilla

This is an interesting problem with no clear answer. I too feel that the seeker should have the option of either shooting from the hip, or careful preparation. Recently a cache hunter complained of one of my cache's being hard to get to.. But if you know the route, you can drive within a few hundred yards. In my opinion it is up to the seeker to do his homework.. Myself, I look at as much info as possible before I even begin the hunt, much as if I were going out on a pack trip etc..

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Guest BigFig

Huh? That run through the bush thing works for flat land - running up and down mountains gets old quick. Maybe folks would be better off taking a short peek at a topo for the area when it ain't flat. Called land navigation - some of us came to geocaching from that direction ....

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Guest BigFig

Back to Ydogs question - they moved your cache?? That was sure RUDE. Far as I am concerned - find it, log it and LEAVE IT. If you want to move a cache - buy a tupperware container and move your own! I'd be really pissed if someone took it upon themselves to move one of my caches. If you think it need to be moved - tell me and I'll decide. Buy your own freaking tupperware bowls .... dadgum.

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