Archiving Caches

[rogheff]

This is an announcement to inform cache seekers that I’ll be archiving all of my caches over the next few months. That includes Groundspeak, Navicache, Terracache and Letterboxing caches. If you’re working on a series, you might want to step it up. If you have plans to go hunt any of my caches, you might want to put it near the top of your “to do” list.

I’ve got a whole new flury of ideas running around my tiny brain for new cache placements. But I have some maintenance issues with several of my caches and don’t feel right about placing new caches without dealing with the old caches first. I’ve been one of these absentee cache owners for several months. That’s not fair to the game, that’s not fair to my geofriends, that’s not fair to the environment.

So, rather than throw a bunch of new containers in the woods and replacing a dozen soggy logbooks, I’m picking up all my old containers first. I started picking up my Kenosha caches over the weekend. It’s going to take me a while to get to all of the caches, so the further away from my house a cache resides, the longer they’ll be active.

I went to the site of about 30 of my caches over the weekend and have some interesting observations:

– All of the caches that I was able to pick up had degenerated into mushy logbooks and garbage swag. None had anything worth trading.
– Roughly half of my caches were AWOL. I don’t know if this is due to cachers moving the containers, critters taking them, muggles muggling them or something else. They weren’t in the locations (or within 10′ of where I placed them).
– The camo duct tape purchased from Menards has held up wonderfully.
– The camo duct tape purchased from Walmart has failed miserably.
– The “fuzzy” camo tape purchased from Gander Mountain looked like it did the day it was applied.
– The rubber “O”rings on the metal pill bottles (Bison tube like containers) had disintegrated. Some of these caches were less than 6 months old.
– Every single mini ziplock holding a logbook had been left open.
– No pencils were in any caches where pencils were placed there within.

Once I take care of the old caches, I’ll be placing a whole new series of caches. These are my plans for my new caches:

– Good containers – no more plastic pill bottles, or other non-watertight containers. I’ve seen the folly in using substandard containers. I don’t know how many ammo cans I’ll use though. I’ve had a large number of ammo cans walk off over the years. I find many uses for ammo cans outside of caching, I’m sure other folks do too.
– Fewer (note I didn’t say none) micros. I can’t get the logs out either. The placements would have to be in locations worthy of the container.
– Easier to find caches – less decoration. The more decorated a cache was, the better the chance that it was going to walk off.
– Better coords. Don’t know if I can deliver on this one, perhaps the caching gods will properly align the satelites for me. Philco may develop some upgrade for the 1942 Problematic, I can always hope. I’ll sure do everything that I can to try for better coords.

I welcome any comments

[GetMeOutdoors]

I second the accolades of the Menard’s camo tape!

I have a suggestion Rodger, hide more caches up by Wausau, then maybe I’ll be able to find some finally, LOL! I’ve been hoping to get to some of your lauded caches but I just haven’t been able to get to that part of the land, heck I can’t even seem to get over to Camelot, which is another area I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time. Sometimes I wish there WASN’T more to life than caching. reality is such a nuisance sometimes.

But I do look forward to your new releases and hope I can get them someday 🙂 Thanks for your comments and keeping it real.

[TyeDyeSkyGuy]

Roger,

I like the idea. And I have also found the same to be true of my caches when it comes to decoration, unzipped bags, missing pens and pencils and crap swag, except for a certain few caches.

Walmart duct tape turns bright blue and falls off quickly,

Ziplocks aren’t really waterproof cause no one closes them.

Pill bottles suck.

O-rings on containers fall apart unless they are oiled every three or four months. Replace these o-rings with automotive grade ones and they last longer.

Animals do take caches. Some of them walk on two feet, some don’t.

Micro’s in the woods suck, but in the right place they are loads of fun. You know you have a great micro as soon as it disappears.

Pens and pencils evaporate when left to the elements.

When good geo-swag dies, it becomes rocks and old golf balls.

Great geoswag stays… FOREVER, unfortunately. “Signs” has been open for 13 months. It still contains a DVD player and a Sony Sport portable CD player, among other cool items.

Ammo cans fill with water when placed on a breakwater. 🙂

Roger, I look forward to the “new you”. I just hope you can keep the new stuff as much fun as the old, though less frustration in caching could be a good thing for me right now too.

[labrat_wr]

@tyedyeskyguy wrote:

When good geo-swag dies, it becomes rocks and old golf balls.

or Mcjunk

@tyedyeskyguy wrote:

Great geoswag stays… FOREVER, unfortunately. “Signs” has been open for 13 months. It still contains a DVD player and a Sony Sport portable CD player, among other cool items.

Some may actually have a feeling that taking such good stuff and leaving Mcjunk would be wrong.

Kudos Roger for taking this stand and not just putting out more. You have many more out than I do and I find it difficult to revisit to check, none the less maintain the ones I have.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[Author]

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