Requriements for logging a "Found"

[gotta run]

I’ve never compared a physical log to an online log and don’t intend to do so in the future.

Despite the rules, common sense should prevail here and if you find cache remnants but the log is AWOL you should be able to claim the find. If you find a wet log wad or a frozen logsicle and forgot your Cache Aid kid you should be able to claim the find. If you found where the cache was attached but the cache is missing….your choice. For me it’s a hollow victory to log online unless we find at least some part of the cache. In any of these cases a friendly note to the CO with your intentions is usually all it takes.

Well anyway, that’s just my opinion because the rules say otherwise, and I had intended to refrain from giving any opinions on topics in these forums and stick to facts, so I think I’ll go wash the car.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Astro_D]

I haven’t compared signed logs vs online logs unless the online log seems hokey or rasies a red flag for some reason. I tend to trust cachers that they did find the cache when they log it online. Besides, I have far better things to do with my time than ensure all logs are signed by those who claim to have found it.

[cheezehead]

Well, it was not my intention for this thread to go where it has.
In MY opnion, you sign a log, you claim a the find. I have had many caches stump me for a DNF and they were right where the should have been. Logging a cache, with out finding the cache it’s self or signing a log is just like armchair geocaching or drive by caching. I drove by this cache, so I’m going to claim it as I find.

I will ask this then. If I solve a puzzle cache that is many miles away, do I get the find cuz I did solve the puzzle?

[gotta run]

In my book if you find the cache remnants you claim the find, puzzle or no puzzle. Same difference. Point is, you found the cache or what’s left of it. If the cache is gone missing, gone muggled, gone archived, or just gone, then there is nothing there for you to find, so no soup for you.

Just one man’s opinion…..

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Team Deejay]

The problem is, if you find “remnants” without a log, how do you know that it is the cache and not just random garbage. I see this all the time, where people log “I found your cache, but the logsheet was missing. TFTC!”, immediately followed by “Tricky find, took me three visits to find it. Trashed out empty yogurt container that someone had pitched near GZ. TFTC!” Remnants indeed! If you don’t sign the log, you didn’t find the cache.

[sandlanders]

@cheezehead wrote:

I will ask this then. If I solve a puzzle cache that is many miles away, do I get the find cuz I did solve the puzzle?

NO! I will delete your log!
(Oh, wait. You’ll have to solve one first. 😉 )

[gotta run]

From our own experience—

If you find an open ammo can sans contents at the posted coordinates…what do you do?

What about a camo-taped PB jar in the same circumstances when the cache listing says that’s what you’re looking for?

What about the remains of a camo-taped matchstick container (again described in the cache listing) that got hit by the park mower with no paper left to sign?

Yep, we claimed a find in all those circumstances and never thought twice about it. Replaced logs where we could but not always. Looking back, maybe we ended up rehabbing someones letterbox…or something else.

Some communication with the cache owner if there are any questions also goes a long way.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[kc9gbo]

Found only a cover (barely there in of itself) and no logbook for a cache, returned to Geocaching and saw that folks had been logging only finding the cover for quite a while and logging that as a find. I claimed the find, and then posted a N/M log as it was obviously gone for awhile. And yes we did trash out the cover, and it did get eventually archived.
Have found a few that I didn’t want to wreck, one frozen shut and no matter what I did I couldn’t open it and another was just crossthreaded on and I couldn’t get it and claimed it. I will say we have yet to just log a find on a cache that we felt we were close on, we almost always have the cache in hand and or a very good feeling the cache was at that point, i.e the cover.

[zuma]

Always an interesting point to discuss and lots of room for a variety of opinions.

For what it is worth, I recently found a tricky cache that was located about 5 feet from a lamppost. The previous “finder” solved the problem of not finding the cache under the skirt where he expected it to be, by writing his name on a piece of paper and putting it under the lamp post skirt, where he presumed wrongly that the cache “belonged.”

No real point to the story, unless you want there to be. I just like the story.

z

[seldom|seen]

@Team Deejay wrote:

The problem is, if you find “remnants” without a log, how do you know that it is the cache and not just random garbage. I see this all the time, where people log “I found your cache, but the logsheet was missing. TFTC!”, immediately followed by “Tricky find, took me three visits to find it. Trashed out empty yogurt container that someone had pitched near GZ. TFTC!” Remnants indeed! If you don’t sign the log, you didn’t find the cache.

I think I stand on this side of the equation. Like most, I don’t waste time verifying physical logs unless it’s real obvious that someone is sidestepping. Since I own almost exclusively puzzle caches, the final log is not so critical to me if you’ve gone the distance on the solve. Ergo, if you find a final of mine with a wet log and can’t repair it, if you find a canister frozen in place, then by all means log a find and also alert me to the conditions, but please leave the physical cache alone. I’ve had too many broken caches in the past to strictly enforce this requirement.

On the other hand, if you find a nano with cords and go to the cords to discover that you have to crawl through a drainage pipe to sign the final, don’t post a Found It saying, “we saw the cache, but didn’t want to go in there to get it”! That kinda defeats the intent.

My ground rule is this. If you can physically put your hand on my final caches, than you can log a find, particularly if you think getting into the cache may damage it.

[bartrod]

I made a cemetery cache with a 35 mm film cannister in a spruce tree a couple of winters ago…the FTF-er accidentally dropped the cap in the snow and couldn’t find it. He went home, got a new cap, and replaced the cache where he found it. The next spring, another cacher found the cap and a scrap piece of paper on the ground…thought the cache had been muggled or that winter had gotten the best of it, and he replaced the whole cache with a new 35 mm film cannister and log. Now there were TWO caches in the same spot. Several more cachers logged this new cache before I got around to doing spring maintenance and finding that my original was right where it was supposed to be. I certainly didn’t delete any logs because of an honest mistake and I always appreciate another cacher helping out with maintenance. Weird…but it happens.:D

Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)

[zuma]

@bartrod wrote:

I made a cemetery cache with a 35 mm film cannister in a spruce tree a couple of winters ago…the FTF-er accidentally dropped the cap in the snow and couldn’t find it. He went home, got a new cap, and replaced the cache where he found it. The next spring, another cacher found the cap and a scrap piece of paper on the ground…thought the cache had been muggled or that winter had gotten the best of it, and he replaced the whole cache with a new 35 mm film cannister and log. Now there were TWO caches in the same spot. Several more cachers logged this new cache before I got around to doing spring maintenance and finding that my original was right where it was supposed to be. I certainly didn’t delete any logs because of an honest mistake and I always appreciate another cacher helping out with maintenance. Weird…but it happens.:D

Interesting story. And I tend to agree with ya.

Another interesting ancedote: See GC1J4WM for a cache logged 3 times as found, though obviously removed by a nosy muggle.

z

[gotta run]

@seldom|seen wrote:

My ground rule is this. If you can physically put your hand on my final caches, than you can log a find, particularly if you think getting into the cache may damage it.

That’s a sound, common-sense practice in my opinion. Of course it is complicated by the fact that some of your caches look like random garbage by design…at least one that I can think of… 😛

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Walkingadventure]

Getting ready to claim the ISS cache. See, I knew where it is or at least where it was and I didn’t bring the right clothes to make the find, so I’m getting the FTF.

Following the signals from space.

[cheezehead]

@Walkingadventure wrote:

Getting ready to claim the ISS cache. See, I knew where it is or at least where it was and I didn’t bring the right clothes to make the find, so I’m getting the FTF.

RIGHT! My point EXACTLY!!!! If ya don’t sign a log, ya don’t get a find. If there is no cache, there is no log, there is no find. Take the SSSS cache in the winter. You are litteraly standing on top of. You can see it. Does it count as a find if you do not sign the log? My opinion, NO!

In my casem there was no cache, I disabled it cuz I did not have replacement ready. The next persom found the GZ, but there was no cazche to find, there was no log to sign.

Here is the interesting part thou. When I went to check on it, all that WAS there was the LOG 😯 !!!!?!?!?!?!?! How the cache container disapeared, I have know idea.

[Author]

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