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*** This is intended to be a light hearted discussion – Flaming will be deleted ***
I’m not pointing my fingers at any specific geocachers here, and don’t have any one person in mind.
Lately, It almost seems like everyone has to hide a big series of caches. Find X amount of caches to get the coordinates to a bonus cache. It almost seems like people are trying to out do their fellow cachers. What happened to the days of a simple hide one part hide
Why does it matter? Well maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. First off, nothing wrong with making a series of caches. I’m sure there are people that enjoy the challenge of finding all the parts of the series.
Here is my concern, and it may be somewhat personal. I used to be able to approve almost every new geocache submission the same day it was submitted. Now I’m waking up to find multitudes of multi caches waiting to be approved each day. Approval time has increased to several days, up to a week.
I’m afraid that with the increasing numbers of cachers new to the sport, people will need to wait longer and longer to have their caches approved. Now if everyone is submitting multiple caches at the same time, the backlogs multiply also.
I’m also concerned about that some areas are already becoming over saturated with caches. With increasing frequency, we are archiving new geocaches because they are too close to existing caches. This will be an increasing problem as the numbers of geocachers also increases. SOON will be the day when you will need to drive out of your home area to hide a cache. The urban parks are becoming saturated with geocaches. When one person hides multiple caches in one area, it will prevent other people from hiding caches nearby.
So I ask, why these large multi/mystery caches? Why not tone it down and keep it simple?
“There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting and grouse hunting.”
-Aldo Leopold, A sand county AlmanacBrian
WGA President
Grousetales at wi-geocaching dot com
KC9GMWI agree. When I geocache, it’s usually when I have some free time while I’m in a particular area and I want to see what the local geocachers want to lead me to. I don’t often have time to do a series. I simply want a nice walk in the woods along a trail that the geocacher is encouraging me to visit.
I’ll post here when I can, but first I have to find my 10 ft pole.
I’ve been contemplating placing a couple caches for a while now. Got the ammo cans and the area to place them narrowed down.
It’s funny, but I thought I’d need them to be elaborate, jump on one foot while patting your head type of searches with multiple stages. There are so many local cachers with large (to me) amounts of finds, I figured the last thing they’d want to hunt for is a “simple” single stage cache.
But I’d be more than willing to place a nice single stage cache if that’s the prevailing preference.
** Neutral **
**Not for or against***
But…
If you feel you must have a series of caches, it can save a bunch of review time if you also get a “.GPX” or “.LOC” file to the reviewer. You should include in the file, the co-ords for all stages of all of your caches, all of the surrounding caches, and all of the stages of all surrounding multi-caches.
Keep in mind that all stages of all of your caches need to be at least 528′ away from anybody else’s cache, or stages of anybody else’s multi-cache.
Also be sure that your are at least 150′ away from RR tracks, no matter how abandond they look.
As a reviewer, I spend a great deal of time, manually typing in (or sometimes cut/paste) all of the stages and surrounding caches. If I don’t have to spend my time doing that, then I can usually get through them faster.
I would reccomend you E-mail the files to BOTH of the addresses listed below.
wga2-admin at wi-geocaching dot com
and/or
wga-admin at wi-geocaching dot comI understand how from a reviewer’s perspective, so many of these caches can be a pain, but from a cacher’s perspective…
Having too many multi/series caches seems like a wonderful problem to have when considering that many areas are suffering from a “lamp post micro” epidemic.
I’m with GrouseTales on this one.
I would much rather put on 100 miles and see several places with totally different caches than to spend all day on one cache.
Then again, it is all about location!
I think this type of thing goes in cycles…in my part of Northern WI/MN puzzle caches have become the “thing” with an astounding amount of creativity shown. I would guess that the novelty will wear off and the simple single stage cache will return. Only to be replaced by????
I’m really not trying to rain on anyone’s parade. We all have different types of Geocaches that we prefer. I don’t want to put anyone’s style down. I’m just pointing out some observations I’ve made lately.
It’s a fact that the numbers of Geocachers is increasing. As new people become involved, they will start hiding caches. If everyone is hiding 4, 5, or more at a time, we are going to see the problems I indicated above. I wanted to give people something to think about when considering hiding caches.
While I’m on my soapbox ,(Boy I’m really digging my grave now), Many of us remember hearing The Lil Otter’s stories of her trip down south last year. Now I personally have NO PROBLEMS with micro caches, if they bring me to a quality location.
I’ve noticed an increase in the numbers of magnetic micros, that are hidden in urban areas. I know some of these are challenging and appeal to the covert crowd that likes to geocache among the muggles. I’ve been noticing a trend toward increasing amounts of magnetic micros hidden in areas such as parking lots, or other non-distinct locations. Quite frankly, I could probably hide 50 such caches in an afternoon. Not a whole lot of effort goes into creating the container, contents and log book. What do new people think our sport involves when their first cache is a magnetic container stuck to a light pole in a parking lot? My first caches involved a nice hike to a scenic spot. That’s what got me hooked. I think if my first finds were micro magnets in a parking lot, My find count would be about 5.
I think if our sport is going to continue to grow , attract new people, and flourish, we need to be concerned about maintaining quality. My perception is that the overall quality of caches containers seems to be deminishing. This is just MY opinion, and maybe I’m just not keeping up with the times.
I’m just tossing these observations out there so people think a little broader then just tossing a cache out there. It’s just some food for thought and I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers. If your set in your ways, then continue to do so. My opinions are just mine
I’ll add in my observation too- why a micro in a forrest full of downed trees?
I endorse anything that gives the approvers a break. You know them by their glassy eyed stare.
But one way to filter out caches that are not to your taste is to use the ‘ignore’ list of geocaching.com and/or the similar feature in GSAK.
Unfortunately, my ‘ignore’ list is already full (100 caches) and GSAK is blocking 100 more of the lampost and ‘bush toss’ type caches within my normal caching range.
[This message has been edited by jthorson (edited 04-09-2005).]
Some observations from a newbee. I only have 7 finds so I think all would considerme a newbee. I think the biggest problem I have found so far is not the size, or location of a cache. I like finding them all. It is the condition of the caches that bothers me. I mean if people with over 200 or 700 finds can’t find it and the last 7 groups that have looked for it can’t find it what is the condition of the cache. Also if your logbook is wet and cann’t be written on and this has been posted. I mean what about the maintainance of the caches we have out there? If I find a magnetic one in a parking lot I would just be as happy but I know the ones I like best are the ones made for a family. Ones that have a treasure to trade with at the end for my 3 yr old daughter. I personaly want to try the puzzle one and see what those are like. I am just in this to have fun and so far from a newbee point of view that is just what I am having.
Even though I have a “taste” for planting tricky caches … I agree with you Grousetales.
In my case, I like to challenge people and I’m using geocaches as a “vent” for my creative side (I use to write/direct local murder mystery plays, but got tired of actors letting me down). So even though I like making things a bit tricky … the funny things is, now that I think of it, I tend to go FIND the not so tricky ones more. However, as others have said, my team perfers to find the ones in real scenic settings (in the woods or a very cool bridge or something). So I can’t even tell you what make me tick! At the same time, I’ve recently been told be a couple of my friends that just started caching, that they like to see some covert simple city ones (aka magnets, I guess); so I might have to create a couple of those under the mugglers noses … but I will make them in creative and fun locations.
Oh, Oh….hey Professor…you might want to re-think your 6 stage multi in Regner Park (West Bend)? Darn, this was our first multi?
Tami[This message has been edited by ecorangers (edited 04-10-2005).]
3 cents worth: since i have wiped out most of the caches locally and have to drive to a new location to go caching, i do like to have a decent concentration in the area to search for. i very seldom look for degree of difficulty before i search (no wonder i am sometimes frustrated). if the concentration is part of a group, so be it. if they are singles, that is good too. i don’t like the difficult multis, i figure if i miss one WP i have wasted all the effort of the hunt. and even if the cache contains just trinkets, i like a box large enough for trade items and a decent log book. the little bits of rolled paper just don’t do it for me. and truthfully, i really don’t like searching for micros–i mean with the accuracy of these gps’s usually not closer than 10-15 feet it always feels like finding a needle in a haystack.
djwini
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