Lamp post caches

[Todd300]

Before I start this thread, I’m putting out a spoiler disclaimer. If you don’t know what a lamp post cache is, then obviously you have never found one. If that’s the case, stop reading now and exit this thread as it containers spoilers as to what a lamp post cache is.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I’d thought I’d ask you guys on your very first lamp post cache find. Did you find it right away or were you confused and had a bit of a hard time looking for that cache before having that “duh” moment and making the eventual find?

My first experience with a lamp post was this. I pulled into a parking lot at a harbor. At first I was thinking it would be inside a tree over there, but the GPS kept pointing to the middle of the lot. I paid no mind to the lamp post that was standing there. I went to look in that tree anyways, thinking the coordinates were off. Not finding it, I wrote it off as a DNF and left.

I moved on to another cache later that day. This one was in the parking lot of a hotel. That lot had more possible hiding spots for a micro such as some shrubbery. Again the GPS kept pointing to the middle of the lot, but like the rookie I was, I thought maybe the coordinates were bad and looked in the shrubbery. Not finding it, I walked back to the lamp post. I was thinking, “WTF is the GPS pointing this way?”

The micro was a bison tube so I knew it could be anywhere. Finally, I decided, “What the hey, I’ll try looking there.”

So I felt around the lamp post and as I reached for the bottom, I discovered the skirt was not a permanent fixture of the lamp post. I was like, “Hmmm” and lifted up that skirt and – Bingo! There it is! I was like – duh! I signed the log of that cache and then quickly went back to the previous cache that I wrote off as a DNF as well. I quickly found that one too.

It’s funny how something as simple as a lamp post hide can be tough to someone new to geocachiing.

How about the rest of you and your first lamp post find?

[TheBalks]

not all lamp post hides are skirt lifters, I had to bring a ladder to one as it was about 10 foot up the pole hehe. I dont remember my first one, but I dont recall having any problems finding it, i love them when I am on numbers hunt.

[RSplash40]

I remember being in a walmart parking lot and thought for sure that the metal on metal grinding that was so loud and reverberating off of the store front would draw the ire of the local gendarme!

[amita17]

My first one I didn’t find when I first looked, I had probably less than 10 finds at the time. Another one close by was also a lamp skirt cache, didn’t know, and moved on. Then when I was more experienced, I tried the first one again, logged the DNF, and went on. One day when I was with a group, we went back to both caches. There were plenty of nearby possibilities, as neither was in the middle of a lot. One of the people in the group suggested the lamp skirt, and I was like, what? And then I found it. So when we got to the second one, it was an easy find. Makes me wonder how many of my DNFs are types of caches I have never seen.

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

Nothing says “Get me outdoors” better than a Wal Mart Parking lot.

[-cheeto-]

Team Bear Bear taught me the art of lifting the skirt on a flag pole rather than a lamp post. Multiple visits that learning experience took. I applied same logic the first time I encountered said lamp post hide.

[Lostby7]

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

Nothing says “Get me outdoors” better than a Wal Mart Parking lot.

🙄

…that screeching sound still haunts me.

The first time I found one of these I was in New Jersey…or was it CA…both had lots of these.

Hunted a series of these in MN. The series was based appropriately on cockroaches. I like to think of LPHs as the cockroaches of the geocaching world.

As a noob I hid one like this and got complaints about it being dangerous so I archived it. Clearly it’s not a big deal to hide in this fashion anymore.

[srvive]

I had the same first time luck as Todd300 did on the LP caches. I know they don’t always take you to an interesting spot or place but when we are camping in a new area I have found places I needed to go back to for supplies, food, and repairs. I also think of the people less healthy than us that get to enjoy these type hides for one reason or another, that we pretty much take for granted. We will keep doing them, to learn about the new areas layouts.

[Team Deejay]

The reality is that most business owners don’t want people messing with their lampposts. A significant number of people have told me that, after seeking permission, the property owners allow them to place a cache in a tree or bush, but not in a lamppost. From what I have heard, the general thought is that anyone lifting a lamppost skirt is a potential vandal (loosening bolts, cutting or stealing wires, etc.) and they would just as soon not have to filter out the baddies from a steady stream of cachers. Some also have concerns about electrical safety, although that seems to be a smaller group. Just be sure to get permission so that they don’t create a law enforcement incident the first time they see someone searching.

[Lostby7]

@Lostby7 wrote:

Clearly it’s not a big deal to hide in this fashion anymore.

Reading this back…I meant, that clearly folks are hiding these this way and finding them fairly often so the concerns by the placers and finders seem to be minimal at best. I think they are a very bad idea and have read several times where law enforcement have been called out to these hides. That said, the thread wasn’t about the appropriateness of the hide but rather the thoughts and experience of finding one for the first time…I guess the first time I found one I thought it was clever….the first time.

[AuntieNae]

First time = clever
200th time = boring

[Todd300]

Exactly, LB7. The thread is not about the appropriateness of LPC’s but about finding them for the first time.

Thanks for getting the topic back on track 🙂

[CacheARRRS]

@AuntieNae wrote:

First time = clever
200th time = boring

1000th time = YES! One more number without any work! 😉

[-cheeto-]

@CacheARRRS wrote:

@AuntieNae wrote:

First time = clever
200th time = boring

1000th time = YES! One more number without any work! 😉

Beats circling pine trees for 15 minutes and walking away without a smiley 😉

I own one “LPC”. It’s not in a parking lot and was placed with permission. It was funny getting permission because the person I showed it to didn’t know they lifted up 🙂

I get logs that sound like the finder has never found one before and it’s fun to read these “first time” logs. Not everyone has found them before…

And on a slightly funny note, even caching veterans had a hard time finding it when it was first published simply because it magnets to the underside of the skirt as opposed to set there in plain site and is easy to miss when looking up under.

And on a funnier note, there’s a nearby business with windows facing the trail and the workers there are well aware of why people are lifting the skirt and the on occasion razz the finders which make for fun logs as well.

Like everything for me personally some things get old but I tend to agree with Cachearrs here. Sometimes it’s real nice that a find is predictable. It build confidence since I’m so bad at looking for caches.

[CacheARRRS]

one thing I LOVE about this hobby, is that there are 1/1/ lamp post caches for when I want a quick easy stop on a road trip or lunch break, or I can plan a whole weekend for a couple on an island that it takes two ferry boats to reach… (Shameless plug: Everyone come to Rock Island Getaway VI!)

I like having the variety, and it’s ALWAYS fun to take a first timer to a lamp post cache to see that first A-HA! moment when they learn that camo can be something other than green duct tape.

[Author]

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