Winter friendly vs Available in winter

[Da Bloodhound]

Just a comment and suggestion to all those hiding caches in Wisconsin.
First, Thank you for your efforts.
Second, I personally would like to see two distinct changes on published cache pages. Use the snowflake attribute for “findable” with reasonable effort in the winter and with the red line through it for probably “un-findable” in the winter without extraordinary efforts and tools. Adding additional stars of difficulty just doesn’t do it in my estimation.
The published definition for the snow flake does not lend itself to adding any usable information for us here in Wisconsin, land of ice and snow, as all non-disabled caches are “available” but many will be unfindable.
Third, a note in the cache description as to “winter friendly cache” or “not winter friendly cache” would certainly be appreciated by most active cachers.
Stay warm and good hunting
😆

[Mister Greenthumb]

I don’t put the snowflake on my hides unless they are a foot above ground or a regular size in an obvious spot. I never put “not available” on a hide. Why discourage looking? All caches are available in the winter if your hungry enough. With something like 14,000 caches in the state you can always find some to look for in the winter.

[JimandLinda]

It must almost be time for the craphas (snow). This topic comes up every 12 monthes!
We Attribute 3 ways:

1) If there’s a snowflake, there is a 90% chance of finding it in 2 feet of snow.
2) If the snowflake is listed and crossed out, there is a 90% chance that it is at or below ground level and buried in winter with 3″ or less of snow.
3) No Winter Attribute – 50/50 on finding it with 2 feet of snow on the ground.

You might as well Attribute for deep snow up front. You might get a dusting of snow in Janesville and 5 feet in Hayward! The snow flake is only used 1/3 of the year, but that’s what it’s for!

[CodeJunkie]

I’m not sure there’s anything that isn’t findable in winter. Last winter was my first caching winter and I managed to be part of a team that dug one out from under 3 inches of ice submerged in a swamp, solo find in a rocky crevice area with > 1′ of snow, dropped a nano is a snowbank that I had to recover, climbed 300′ over icy rocks with a group just a few days ago, etc.

What’s the point? I agree the snowflake as defined as pretty useless. I use it as a gauge though to help guide me. If it’s there, I generally assume the hide is not on the ground. If it’s crossed out, I generally assume the hide is at ground level or some other place that’s going to get snowed / iced in. No indication – go for it and have fun.

Snowsnoes are now out of storage and will go into the car as soon as the rifles come out.

[sandlanders]

Well, I don’t know how accurate the snowflake is anymore, but if someone writes “winter friendly” on the cache page, or uses it for a hint, I take that to mean that the container is up off the ground, usually high.

We don’t put the snowflake on our caches unless you don’t have to dig for them. Of course, now that it is cold and we have had some precipitation, we have found higher caches that are frozen in place or hard to open, so those aren’t very winter friendly either. I just don’t like digging for a micro under a pile of snow.

[Team Deejay]

I’m not going to argue with anyone’s opinion here, but if you would like the definition of the attribute changed, you want to either write Groundspeak directly (likely to work) or post to the gc.com message boards (not likely to work, but what the hey!). I do agree that “Available in Winter” is kind of stupid, as it would be disabled if it wasn’t “Available”.

[cheezehead]

Ya, but if ya use the snow shoes & skiing icons???? 😉

[CodeJunkie]

@cheezehead wrote:

Ya, but if ya use the snow shoes & skiing icons???? 😉

That’s right, we have some new icons this year to describe the “journey”, but we’re still stuck with a somewhat unclear “GZ” icon.

Here’s a thought – We have icons now that describe the length of the journey. How about a set of “vertical” attributes that describe how high / low the cache is? (tongue in cheek humor – don’t flame me over it) 😆 😆 😆

[Todd300]

Keep in mind that most guardrail caches are not winter friendly either.

Case in point – I went to look for an “easy” guardrail cache last year in Green Bay while my kids were X-mas shoppiing. This cache was in a parking lot – with a 30 foot high snowbank in front of the guardrail. Yeah right. So unless I wanted to get heavy equipment to clear that snowbank away from that guardrail, I walked away with a “DNA” (Did not attempt).

This past summer, I went back, got it with no problem – lol.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

We’ve encountered this with skirt lifters, too. Since the caches are usually placed away from the main part of the lot, the snow gets shoved to the area and buries the lamp post.

Each season presents its own challenges. The trade off for the snow is….no ticks! This is fairly important to Trekkin’.

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