My son and I cache together, on occassion. We did a couple “touch ‘n’ go” caches a few days ago, to protect the integrity of the hide. We both saw the cache but with so many muggles nearby, it would have been compromised. That’s one thing.

But if a container is up a tree I can’t climb, too bad for me! I may send a pm to the CO, asking permission to log the cache as a find, after describing the hide, GZ, and container. But with sooo many cache hides in Wisconsin, I’m not that desperate for smilies! And if the CO says “No” to not signing the log, that’s OK. It’s the CO’s cache!

I think that posting a Note on a cache that you couldn’t sign, due to physical restrictions, is the best. You can always change it later, if it bugs you that much to not get a smilie.

Your cache, your call!

Delete.

Hey Brian, when we come to do you’re “evil monkey” hides we’re bringing our 14 year old Emma along to do the climbing. She will toss the container down and I will “physically” sign the log so there. Delete it if you want, but do you really want all of the POTM caches deleted from your finds. All of the kidding aside the older I get the harder of terrain caches that I try. I’m 64 now and obviously not getting smarter. I have only logged a find on one difficult cache that was a tree climb that I came within 2′ of touching. It was Dr. Dolittle’s Spike and he e-mailed me and said I could log it. It’s a high crawl on your belly evil monkey. Age was not a factor here. I probably shouldn’t have even been trying it just 4 days after I had my gall bladder removed. Like Jim said with so many caches in the State no one can do them all. Our hides have mostly been fun and easy to find. When we passed 200 hides we started hiding more difficult and challenging caches as you know. The reason for that is so cachers who want a challenge have a choice. I have deleted several logs recently for ” not following what was intended”.

I would be more inclined to ignore those that don’t sign, especially if they clearly located but were unable to retrieve. For me, it’s about bringing a person to someplace special. The log signing is less important.

I and I think just about everyone out there would definitely delete someone claiming FTF, when they didn’t sign, but for the others, it becomes a case of having to police all your caches to make sure that they sign. If that’s what you want to do, that’s a personal choice which we all are entitled to.

I would never claim a cache as a find until I sign the log, but that’s me. It’s part of the quest. The people who seek the tally “numbers”, are always going to find a way to stretch or bend the rules regardless of what we do. Just look at the groups who claim puzzles they haven’t personally solved or those who cache in small armies together. I hope that the experience in the location or the solve is more important to them than the tally, but we know it isn’t always that way.

P.S. As a side note, I still have handful of your caches up north that I have been in the area of, but have yet to locate. Getting to ground zero and opening that container and signing that log as I enjoy the surroundings is going to make the experience complete for me!

I’ve always gone by if you don’t sign the log, you can’t count it as a find. It’s one of the most basic rules there is to this game/sport/hobby/obsession. I’ve had a few times where I couldn’t get the log out – because the container was stuck, or frozen, or something like that, and I log it as a note – and don’t log it as a find until I actually come back and physically sign it.

Great question Brian. I’d delete. If we could get credit for a find merely by being nearby, those 5/5s would have a lot more finds and it makes the ratings somewhat meaningless. If I hid a tree-climbing cache and someone emailed me with a good reason asking permission to log it as a find without a signature, I would be inclined to say no, except perhaps if they were from out of town and the log was temporarily unavailable because of special circumstances (such as frozen in place). Or maybe if they forgot to sign but dropped a travel bug in the cache as proof of their visit. Or if they had a free vacation cottage available in northern Wisconsin. 🙂

@Ashen15 wrote:

We have had quite a few logs we haven’t been able to sign due to not having a pen, wet logs, etc but we always have a camera and I wouldn’t log something if we don’t have a picture of someone holding the container.

That’s what I usually do and I haven’t had any complaints from any CO’s yet. I just email a picture taken from my cell phone of myself holding the container to prove that I’ve found the cache, I just forgot a pen.