I also think this was a great post to remind those seekers out there who MAY be likely to ‘trample’ for a find.

If you can’t locate it fairly easily – take the DNF and email the owner. (I absolutely agree on the original statement – give a hint thats actually a hint – but if one wasnt given – swallow your pride and email.)

IMO the find isnt worth the damage. (Aside from normal traffic, but I dont think that can be prevented.)

I have to agree with the sentiment on hints. You don’t have to geocache very long to get aggravated by nonhelpful hints. Examples of useless hints on active caches in Wisconsin:

• Park at……
• At the trail junction, go left and then after 1/2 mile, go right
• Across the street from….
• and of course, no hints, you don’t get a hint, etc.

Where I disagree is blaming the finders. Remember that most people who geocache do it only occasionally, never hide a cache, never post to or read a forum, and do it for fun. We cannot expect everyone looking for a cache to be responsible and “give up” if they run into a hard hide in a sensitive area. When placing caches, it is the hider’s responsibility to make sure the cache can be found without significant damage to the environment. This means you can’t place 4 and 5 star difficulty caches in prairies, bluff sides, and some forest areas, as the trampling damage will be too severe. This means that you can’t place any caches in places where hiking will cause erosion damage. This means your coordinates have to be averaged over several days in sensitive areas. This means that you probably need a real hint in sensitive areas, even for easy hides. Most importantly, this means we need to THINK about the seeking process before you place and list a cache. In populated areas, a lot of caches are found 100 or more times. Consider what sort of damage 100 people walking through the area will do. If it is not acceptable, don’t place the cache. Remember that several of us are working hard with government agencies to keep the game viable. It only takes one bad cache to tarnish the reputation of all of us.

[/rant mode off]

@Team Deejay wrote:

• and of course, no hints, you don’t get a hint, etc.

These irritate me the most. When I spend time looking up a hint then see it reads something like “No hint for you!”, I feel like giving the hider a swift kick for wasting my time.

The above statement is solely that of the poster and does not represent the opinion of the WGA board. 😈

I do enjoy the hunt for some difficult caches. I have hidden a cache in the rocks on the lake and I wanted it to be difficult, but I caved in and gave a clue.

Maybe too good of a clue. now it is a pretty easy find.

The good news here folks is that it all grows back. All but erosion that is.

Last year I placed a cache “NEMESIS 3: Are you nuts yet?”. I was tore up over how tore up the area got. I may have even posted here about it. 😉 The damage was extensive.

The good news is, that going back there this spring, I’ve noticed the whole area has grown back in quite well. One more season and all that horrible damage will never be noticed. Trees have regrown branches, plants and grasses have completely filled back in. Even the footprints in the mud are gone. Erased by water or filled in with pine needles, it matters not. The only evidence that we were ever there, is the break in the thorns where a small path was formed. This is also starting to fill back in with thorns, and should not be noticed within a years growth.

I myself rarely look at the clues before I head to a cache unless I’ve heard it’s a problem. The hints usually spoil the fun. But then, I’m not affraid of a DNF either.

So, IMHO cachers should be aware of the damage they are doing, and so should cache owners. But, myself included, we should all not get so upset over trampled grasses and such. They grow back quickly, and they’ll be there long after we are all gone. IMHO

Peace!

everyone is forgetting that the difference between where your gps hid the thing and my gps shows that it is can be 20 feet or more. i love a good hint to get me in the right area.

@Team Deejay wrote:

@tyedyeskyguy wrote:

The good news here folks is that it all grows back. All but erosion that is.

The bad news is that the vast majority of caches are hidden on public land, managed by public employees. And when these public employees find an area destroyed by one of our geocaches, the result is more regulation and more problems for everyone. They won’t care about the other 99 geocaches on their properties that are creating no problems. They won’t care that the grass grows back a year later. They won’t care that you put “Don’t tear up the area” in the cache description. The result is banning, permission forms, placement fees, licensing, and more rules.

Now nobody is saying that we can’t place difficult hides. The problem is difficult hides in sensitive areas. There is no problem with difficult hides in shelters, rockpiles, marshes and swamps, bike trails, ball fields, thorn thickets, beaches, parking lots, city parks, and many other places. But most forests (especially forests near ponds and other bodies of water) and all prairies can be severely damaged by extended seaching. Its in all our best interest to preserve the places where we play our game.

Well said. Wish I would have written that.

zuma