Article of the Month

Hiding Your First Geocache

Hiding Your First Geocache
8/1/2005

Ron F. (aka “EnergySaver”)

Ron, his wife (Geri) and two daughters (Michelle & Jaimie) make up the team EnergySaver. To date, EnergySaver has hidden 27 regular geocaches in Ozaukee County, in addition to 23 event hides.

It’s very tempting after you have a few finds under your belt to run out into your neighborhood woods and place your own geocache. OK, well at least it was for me. While I personally understand your excitement, by slowing down and taking some well planned steps, you can save yourself some headaches and make that first hide something to be remembered by other geocachers.
Research from your computer

With your potential general hide area in mind, run a search on the Geocaching.com web site, to see if there are any other geocaches nearby. If the coast is clear (no other cache within at least a mile of your target area), then head out to your area.

If you’re not so lucky, understand that your hiding spot must be at least 528 feet (one-tenth of a mile) from any other geocaches. I recommend that you load the coordinates of any geocache that’s within one mile of your target area into your GPSr. That way you’re loaded with the waypoints of potential road blocks to your hide as you venture out.

When selecting your hide location, make sure it doesn’t break any placement rules and secure permission from land owners.

Check out the rules on placement in Wisconsin:

Hiding a Cache Rules and Tips

And it doesn’t hurt to be up on all the cache listing guidelines:
http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx

Research your site potentials

Now you’re ready to actually start the fun part, finding that perfect place to hide a geocache. Since you’re most likely a local, mark the waypoint for your perfect parking spot on your GPSr (we’ll come back to this later). If possible scout out your target area, looking for an interesting place to locate your hide. That might mean the scenery is interesting or there might be something worthwhile besides geocaching in the area. For example, exploring “PeeWee’s (Pewit’s) Small Falls” (GC79EB), a geocache at a great hidden waterfall near Baraboo. It’s a great example of a very memorable place to visit.

Please try to seek out a unique hiding spot. Many times I’ve picked what I think is a suitable spot, then I’ve stepped back 25 feet and looked around the area (maybe from a different approach than the way I came in), and found an even better location. When planning my “Laughing Lion” (GCMGP2) cache, I found a pretty nice hollow spot in a somewhat small tree. I wanted to place an ammo can but it didn’t quite fit. Instead I lowered my expectations and placed a large plastic jar. I stepped out of the woods, back onto the trail, but I was not 100% happy with using a jar. I approached the same area from a different way along the path and suddenly before my eyes, the best geocaching tree I’ve ever seen appeared. It had room for the ammo can and then some. It was one of those Keebler Elves type of trees.

Oh yes, let’s not forget about the potential for other caches in the area. Now that you are standing in what you hope is your spot, check the waypoints of those nearby caches. If the nearest is over one-tenth of a mile away, that’s a step in the right direction. Remember other considerations and geocache placement guidelines. Examples: distances to active railroad tracks, private property, dangerous areas, or off-limit areas (such as Wisconsin State Natural Areas), to name a few.

Finalize your geocache placement

Make sure you get the coordinates of your cache as accurate as possible. This might mean coming back an hour later or another day if those GPS satellites are just not cooperating. Also, many GPSr units (even my old reliable Garmin eMap) have an “Average Location” function, which take coordinate readings every second or so. When I’ve selected my cache location, I set the GPRr on the container or a tree limb and let the averaging run for 10 minutes or so. This simple act has gotten caches that started out at 25 or 30 foot accuracy down to 12 to 20 foot accuracy, with my good ‘ol eMap. Other popular techniques involve walking away from the cache location and approaching it from another direction, or manually averaging coordinates taken over several hours or several days.

While planning hide locations for “The Secrets of Stonehaven” (GCMC7T) event, I have had excellent results with averaging. I did very careful averaging on all these hides and would not settle for accuracy readings of higher than 18 feet. I then revisited all the hide locations on two other dates to find that my coordinates appear to be accurate, even on two different GPSr models. Your GPSr and my GPSr may have a different opinion on where the cache is hidden, but you owe it to your geocaching audience to get it as close as you can.

Please do yourself a big favor and select a strong container for your geocaches.
What works:

  • ammo cans
  • decon containers
  • Tupperware
  • small drywall compound buckets
  • 35mm film canisters

Avoid using:

  • yogurt containers
  • disposable-ware (like Gladwear)
  • low-grade metal tins (like Altoid tins)

You can get ammos cans, decon containers (web search for “M258A1”) and other sturdy decommissioned military containers at army surplus websites/stores and sometimes at places like Fleet Farm. I also like to consider the possibility that non-geocachers might come upon my caches, if that potential is high, I go with a less valuable and less threatening looking container (i.e. Tupperware). If the geoache is in a less traveled area, I prefer my valuable and potentially threatening looking containers (i.e. metal ammo can or French IV/86 first aid kit). No matter what the container, mark it as a geocache, and in the case of decommissioned military containers, spray paint over any original markings.

Submitting your cache for approval

Now you’re back on the computer to submit your new cache for approval, and logged onto the “Report a New Cache” page at http://www.geocaching.com/createcache.aspx. One could write a whole article on this alone, but some highlights are:

  • Plan your text well. This will increase interest in finding your cache and if done right, maybe add mystery to finding your little old box in the woods. Don’t forget an extremely cool title (called “Nickname” on the submission screen), to really draw them into your cache.
  • Understand that your body text is divided into two sections. The “Short Description” comes first on your cache listing and is limited to 500 characters (including long HTML code that might be hidden on the final product). Then the “Long Description” follows, which is indented compared to the short text. I don’t know if there is a character limit on the long description, at least I’ve never reached it, but I gave it my best try on “Port Puzzle” (GCK6YC).
  • When writing the body text, think about how difficult it might be for a stranger to the area to find a logical approach and/or parking spot for your cache. Unless you want the road trip to be part of the challenge of your cache, consider giving some basic information on where to drive or possibly even parking coordinates.
  • Please leave a good “Note to Reviewer.” This is a special log entry that only the human that will approve your cache will see. That poor human has the tough job of deciding if your cache makes or breaks the rules for a new geocache. Be helpful and clue them in about your cache, regarding anything that might be odd or of concern to them.

Also, when in doubt, contact an approver before submitting (currently in Wisconsin that would be geocache usernames of WGA or WGA2). Make that advance contact especially if you’re planning your first multi-cache, because they want to see an electronic file containing all your hide locations (a .loc file), so they can map them out.

Enjoy the experience of placing your first hide and the rush of seeing that FTF posting!