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I have yet to find my first cache. The first thing I discovered is you really do need a gpsr. I tried to look at the mapquest section on a geocache page and look as close to the red star as possible. But that is about as much fun as getting donkey punched and it never worked. So I borrowed a friends unit and tried. I get right to wear the gpsr says 1 foot and search like a Phish fan looking for a ticket at a sold out show, but I always end up listening to the band from the parking lot. How small are these things that you can get within a foot and not see it? When I made a cache myself I knew exactly where I put them and marked them good. I must be doing something wrong. I tried new caches and I even grabbed some I printed out in the past when I first found the site like el sopo grande and icaris and looked and looked. No dice, you’d have better luck finding eminem at Lillith Fair. I went to log the no find and then I couldn’t even find the cache page on the website anymore. This sport is fustrating!
Some of the caches you mention were removed a long time ago. I found out the hardway that you should check the cache page on the internet right before you leave. Some caches get stolen or the owner removes them. If your working off old printouts, you have no way of knowing if its missing or not.
Another tought is that the GPS has about a 30′ margin of error. In the best case scenario, your gps and the cache places gps are within the same 30′ circle. Worse case, the circles may be side by side and you need to search 30+ feet from “Ground Zero”
During the summer, the tree canopy also causes accuracy problems with some gps units, which compounds the problem.
Another thing to check is to make sure your gps is setup properly. Make sure the Map Datum is set to WGS-84. If your datum is different, you wont be searching in right spot.
Other then that, keep plugging away. Look for a few more caches with low difficulty levels. These should be easier to find an should help build your confidence.
Judging that you are in the Waukesha area, here are some easier ones that I’d recommend. Fox River Lair, GC2634. Beam me up Scotty, GC2D74. Birthday Cache, GC28A2. Glacier Cone Workout, GCE6C6. LPS14, GC3BC0.
Try these. The GC*** stuff are the waypoint numbers if you do a search on geocaching.com for them.
If you have a calculator, this is a good one, BADGER VOR. You have to drive from a spot in Hartland to a park in Pewaukee but once you have the coordinates figured out, the hike and other waypoints are easy. Also in the same area and pretty easy are ”Toy Box” and ”Chief O’Brien, Energize, Part 2”
It takes a while to get a feel for where things are hidden. There comes a time when you get into the area and know what is a likely spot.
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