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I am very interested in learning more about all the different types of Geodesic markers out there. It would be interesting to learn how to find them, whether out looking specifically or while Geocaching, they different types, the tools needed, etc.
I had the idea of including it within the EC forum, since it is such a specific type of hunt. What do you think???
AstroDon made a suggestion to have benchmarking as it’s own forum. It went unheeded.
I dunno, I don’t equate benchmarks and earthcaches as the same. But would certainly offer our comments where ever it gets placed.
We hunted benchmarks many years BG (before Geocaching). This was a family activity for us when our children were the age that our grandchildren have now attained. At that time, Earth caching to us was “sight seeing” and presented little challenge compared to hunting BM. This is the reason I see a vast difference between the two activities. I have to agree with AstroDon, Benchmarking should be in a separate forum.
I think benchmarking has its own forum on groundspeak. It certainly seems to generate interest in Wisconsin, why not a forum for it here?
….a show of hands on who has found more than 20 of these?
Who wants to make the poll?I don’t know much about benchmarking, having only found a couple, but it sounds like fun and I’d like to learn more. I don’t think discussions about it belong in the EarthCache forum, though. A forum just for benchmarking would be nice – you might get more people hunting and discussing them if they have a specific place to go ask questions.
@astrod-team wrote:
AstroDon made a suggestion to have benchmarking as it’s own forum. It went unheeded.
I dunno, I don’t equate benchmarks and EarthCaches as the same. But would certainly offer our comments where ever it gets placed.
It took some time to get the EarthCache forum, so I can understand the stand still in any decision. EarthCaching as well as Benchmarking, though included on the GC.com site, are separate entities. Hmmm….lets see what we can come up with. Here would be our reasoning behind TRYING to make a separate category:
EarthCaches are regulated by the Geology Society and we are lucky enough to have them counted in our Caching totals. We now have our own forum category.
Benchmarks are also regulated outside of GC.com and though counted on GC.com, are NOT included in our totals, so they are seen as “Something Totally different than Geocaches”
These both have their differences from all other categories of Caches found on GC.com. Searching for EC info/discussion withing all the forum threads, was frustrating. With increased interest in Benchmarking I see it only as a Benefit to have it’s one Forum Category.
I have been on a number of other Caching association sites and many have a large variety of specific Forum titles. I’ll toss this into the Lion cage and see what happens!! 😯
@lostby7 wrote:
….a show of hands on who has found more than 20 of these?
Who wants to make the poll?*raises hand – proudly*
@astrod-team wrote:
@lostby7 wrote:
….a show of hands on who has found more than 20 of these?
Who wants to make the poll?*raises hand – proudly*
I have found 9….plus a few more which I couldn’t find online to log.
I just think the first thing that should be done is to gauge interest….In other words how many people are looking for them and how many have they found….the forum topic should come after figuring out the interest by the membership.If they were a bit more accurate in GC I’d go look for more…..the one closest to me was listed on GC about 3/4 miles from the actual location of the mark.
haven’t done them yet. would like to, but I think I’ll wait til the snow is off the ground to try it.
I have found 9….plus a few more which I couldn’t find online to log.
I just think the first thing that should be done is to gauge interest….In other words how many people are looking for them and how many have they found….the forum topic should come after figuring out the interest by the membership.If they were a bit more accurate in GC I’d go look for more…..the one closest to me was listed on GC about 3/4 miles from the actual location of the mark.[/quote]
If there is a forum with the basics, it may generate even more interest. Benchmarking is a hell of a lot more work than loading coords in a GPSr and going and finding a disc or chiseled square or bolt. Having a primer at hand, would certainly help those who may be interested in trying their hand at recovering one. Right now, if one wanted to try benchmark hunting, who could they ask for help and where? Right now the only place is the GC.com benchmark thread. And while everyone on there is VERY helpful and friendly (and has a great primer BTW), I think it would be nice not to mention useful to have more of a local voice and connection.
I know we would love to meet up with other BM hunters for a day/weekend of hunting marks in our state. But other than ourselves, we have no idea who is interested. We have questions, would like to solicit local advice etc. but there is no dedicated place on the WGA forum to do that!!
In regards to your BM you looked for: you need to pay attention to scaled versus adjusted (which is stated near the top of the page by the coords). Scaled coordinates can be up to a mile off (the joy). If they are scaled, forget the coords and go off the description. You’ll have much better luck getting to the correct area to begin your search. Adjusted coords should on average bring you darned near the mark.
GC.com only accessed the marks that were in the NGS database up to 1999 or 2000. Not all benchmarks out there are NGS agency marks and therefore wouldn’t be in their database and subsequently included on GC. And forget about any marks set after 2000. They will not exist on GC either. For any of those marks not in GC, you can always add them to waymarking.
We’ve found 34 that we could log, plus others not in the database. In fact, we had adopted a Lil ‘Otter cache in BRF, saw a number of DNFs, went to check on it and whaddya know? A benchmark was placed where the cache had once been!
We haven’t gone seeking them for their own sake, but find it interesting the things that might be listed as benchmarks, like fire towers, church spires and that goofy ear of corn water tower in Rochester. For the reasons Anne stated, it makes sense to create a separate forum for this. There are probably as many who hunt benchmarks as those who do Earthcaches.
@lostby7 wrote:
….a show of hands on who has found more than 20 of these?
Who wants to make the poll?I have found a number of them while traveling etc, but they are not listed. Sooooo…. are they not Benchmarks or are they other Geodesic markers??? I Dunno!!! LOL If they are benchmarks I don’t know how to get them listed.
So far the poll is leaning towards NOT having it included in the EC’s. Maybe the creation of a Benchmark Category on it’s own would be something to look at. Got thinking about it and the WGA site might be of more use to cachers of all types, if it offered more education and help on these types of specific caches and even a category for Puzzle discussion.
I HATE having to search thru Search Results for things I thought I saw somewhere. The WGA site is a great site and has a lot to offer, but I see great potential. I have visited a great number of other State sites and this one is very basic in comparison to some of them.
As for the Groundspeak forum, I rarely if ever go there. Waaaaaaaaaaaay too much….information overload that doesn’t pertain to WI….and as many times as I have posted questions, I was told to search for it or got little or no response. I would much rather come to MY OWN State site. That IS what this place is for isn’t it???
- Camaraderie
Education
Useful info
Discussion
Keeping up on who’s doing what?
Congratulations, etcI only have 2 benchmarks (and 2 I could not log as they are not on GC) and I have 6 ECs. Neither one excites me much (sorry EarthCaching nuts), however I think if we have a forum for ECs we should have it for benchmarks.
I would probably have more benchmarks but GC doesn’t make it as user friendly as it is to find where other caches are.I have 15 bench marks recovered. And enjoy hunting them very much. Bench mark hunting is much more challenging that finding the film canister in a guard rail, or a skirt lifter. My vote would be for a separate forum. That’s my two cents worth…… 🙄
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