One power trail after another????

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I know it’s not the ET highway or anything, but have others noticed the proliferation of packed bike trails showing up all of a sudden? Yes, we’ll probably do them eventually, because we do enjoy biking rather than driving from one to the next, but does this beg the question……when is it too much????

I have a few more planned on the LaCrosse River Trail, but have never intended to create a power trail. I have some favorite spots where I have always enjoyed stopping to look for birds or listen to the water or whatever. Those are the places I wanted to bring people, giving them a chance to burn off some calories between finds.

[JimandLinda]

I think alot of the newest cachers are enjoying hiding caches. The bike trails are the most convenient, especially for a cache series. We appreciate cachers giving back to the community by placing containers for the rest of us to find. It may look like a power trail, but there are just so many public places left to hide new caches. We were surprised to find a new cache ON a water tower recently! That tells me that the Reviewers are probably swamped with caches to publish and this one snuck through. Do we need a cache every .10 mile on a trail? Probably not. But if the Reviewers can’t find a problem with them, they will get published and, perhaps unfortunately, become “power trails”.

We, as cachers, have the power to choose NOT to seek certain caches. So if we don’t want to find all of the caches on a bike trail, we don’t have to. (But it’s hard to pass one up, isn’t it! 😉 )

[Trekkin and Birdin]

(But it’s hard to pass one up, isn’t it! )

It is indeed! LOL And there’s no way I’d ever find too many caches problematic, I just find it to be an interesting trend of late.

There’s one ON a water tower? Where? Trekkin’ has developed a bizarre fixation on those things lately, this would be right up his alley!

[labrat_wr]

Forget the watertower, T&B we need you over in Selzzup looking for “Not Quite the End of the Line” Something new to fixate on 😀

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Pete, Do I even want to know? Dare I look?

I’ve been sitting here happily making bookmark lists and solving puzzles for my trip to Newfoundland in a few weeks. Don’t drag me into that stuff! LOL

[sandlanders]

It’s not a puzzle, Gwyn. Just a s|s container hide that no one has found yet. Everyone in Selzzup has at least one DNF on it already. 🙄 😉

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Oh sheesh, that’s almost like throwing down the gauntlet for Trekkin’! But I promised if we go over there, numbers only next trip. We laugh, cause our friends go there for numbers, and we have very few check marks next to any of their finds. We go there for, well, puzzles!

Other than that epic bike run to the Bugline and Glacial Drumlin, we have not been doing any numbers at all. 15-25 caches on an outing. If even that. It’s been kind of refreshing!

[Barry Butrymowicz]

Val and I did the Glacial Drumond, and it was a very nice and peaceful walk, around 24 caches and it took us approx 4 hours to walk the 8 miles or so.

The same day we went to sussex area and did another 10-12 on the bugline.

We wish we would have spent more time on the bugline, more rustic of a walk. we will be hitting more on the bugline, the next time we head to Brew Town.

Barry and Valarie

[rcflyer2242]

Bike trails are real good for series caches. Try finding spots for 56 caches in an urban setting. The America the beautiful series on the west end of the Glacial Drumlin Trail. Most are 220 yards apart. There are 45 of them placed so far. The particular placement of some caches was well thought out along with the special cach containers for 1 out of 5 makes that part of the trail exciting.
Here is a link to the first one.http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=c2ac2336-0b44-4f4c-aa61-660fae15ed42
Good Luck and bring the DEET

[CodeJunkie]

@sandlanders wrote:

Everyone in Selzzup has at least one DNF on it already. 🙄 😉

Not quite “everyone” – I haven’t taken a swing at this one yet.

[CodeJunkie]

@JimandLinda wrote:

It may look like a power trail, but there are just so many public places left to hide new caches.

I disagree (respectfully). There are millions (or at least hundreds of thousands) of spots to place caches. The problem as I see it, is that most cachers want something easy. This is apparent from the fact that easy P&G’s get lots of visitors (not so exciting however) and other caches that are out for 3+ years that are moderately difficult only average 3-6 finders per year.

I’ve been hooked on the Lonely Cache Game since my start and have found that many of the caches on this list are more difficult than average but have taken me to some great spots. Recently we also just did a couple caches in the KVR and they were amazing. We did grab a couple easy ones on the way back, but the experience of the first two were 100x better. The first one took us on an 11 stage multi over 4.5+ miles. This could just have easily been 11 traditionals or 40+ traditionals along a trail. The next one was 3.5 miles and could have been 30+ traditionals. Neither of these would be the same if they weren’t what they were.

[-cheeto-]

@rcflyer2242 wrote:

There are 45 of them placed so far. The particular placement of some caches was well thought out

So what you’re saying is someone put a whole bunch of caches along a trail. Some are good and others are just padding the numbers.

I have not done any of these major “series” caches that keep getting nominated for cache of the month that are along these trails but this is exactly what I suspected about each of them. Some memorable caches and the rest there just to make the series look big and fill in the spots along the trail that are “missing a cache”.

Everyone can play the game as they want but in my opinion our goal in placing a new cache should not be .1 from the nearest cache to it. The proximity rule is a minimum and not a goal. While the guidelines have lapsed slightly on powertrails (they introduced the word “please” to indicate it’s a preference and not a rule) the intent is still there. Many of these “series” caches should be multi’s not large groups of so-so traditionals placed to increase find (and hide) counts.

No dis-respect towards the placers of these powertrail series is meant in this post. It’s just my opinion on the “fad”. The existence of the powertrail series and the larger powertrails (like the ET Hwy) do not affect my life as I will probably never do them so I just am observing from afar. There’s no harm in placing a cache every .1 along a rails to trails bike trail. But there’s probably not a lot to gain except for numbers.

[jenhen1]

Good question, T&B. When is it too much? I always thought from way back when that Groundspeak frowned on power trails. Apparently that must have changed.

Personally, if you’re actually biking a bike trail, I feel it’s a real hassle to stop peddling every tenth of a mile or even quarter mile, so we’ll normally hit a few going one direction and a few going back. Plus, can the quality of the cache/hide really be there every tenth of a mile? If you would like to see a bike trail done right, come up and check out the Chippewa River Trail series. They’re spread out reasonably and most of the hides are unique and worthwhile.

Where I have a problem is when the power trail spills over to a National Senic Trail. There is a one mile stretch of the Ice Age Trail in Taylor County that has a cache placed every tenth of a mile. I believe if that trend continues, the trail associations may start to have a real problem with geocaching on those trails. The Appalachian Trail in some states already has prohibited caches from being placed on it. The AT falls under the same designation as the North Country Trail and the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, being National Scenic Trails, and if geocaching were not allowed on these great trails it would be a real travesty. There is some Federal governance to these trails, and I say tread lightly.

I think it would be very unfortunate if one day geocaching along let’s say the Ice Age Trail evolved into one huge power trail.

[CodeJunkie]

@jenhen1 wrote:

If you would like to see a bike trail done right, come up and check out the Chippewa River Trail series. They’re spread out reasonably and most of the hides are unique and worthwhile.

MuddyBottoms and I did the Mascoutin Valley Trail (Berlin – Ripon) and used the mile markers as general beacons for the caches. Nothing exact, but a decent distance that can be walked from the crossing roads or biked without stopping as soon as you get started. Definately not a power trail and I applaud the others that have placed some caches that filled in some of the blanks without making you stop every 0.1 mile.

Then there are others areas that are cache sparse. There’s an area near me that I’m working on (12,000+ acres) of DNR land, but the land manager is being a real pain to work with. I don’t have the exact number, but I think there are less than a dozen caches in this whole 12,000 acres currently. I have some plans, but they definately won’t be P&G caches, but more in tune with the Wild Side Series near Wild Rose.

I also noticed that recently when a bunch of puzzles were archived in the Fox Valley area, they were quickly replaced with P&G caches. Interesting fact is that many of these have also had issues now with muggles and other things that didn’t appear to be a problem in the past when they were puzzles.

[PCFrog]

I found that 500 feet away on a bike is not very far at all. It is to darn close and makes being on a bike really hard having to start and stop all the time.

About 1 mile apart would be better when on a bike.

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