Winter Hides

[Lostby7]

Went winter caching today…all caches with the snowflake icon….wouldn’t ya know at least half of them were FAR from winter friendly…some were under rocks in rock piles and some were out under bushes covered by over a foot of snow….I guess you need to expect the winter friendly ones to be there in winter but not necessarily findable in winter.

[gotta run]

Here’s one that has the available-in-winter attribute…

And one that doesn’t…

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Lostby7]

the Oregon didn’t go swimming again dd it? Looks like you had fun.

[gotta run]

Nah, the top one is from seldom seen’s sloppy seconds in Jan 09, and the bottom is Nifty Fifty from Feb 08 using an underwater camera.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Yeah, I recognize the top one. Man, did we wish we’d brought Trekkin’s ice auger for that one!

[Hitman4]

I make sure the attributes on my caches say “Winter Friendly” if they are in fact reasonably easy to find in winter. e.g. Tree hides, magnetic key holders, etc. I also mention in the description of the cache if it is winter friendly. Even though my ground caches aren’t winter friendly, I don’t disable them because they are actually available in winter if you have the perseverance to find them. I looked for a cache today that didn’t mention if it was winter friendly or not. Unfortunately after a DNF we found out it was a ground cache and wasn’t winter friendly.

[Sparse Grey Hackle]

GC1GGZM Bear’s Pot of Gold
It was “Winter Friendly”
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=bf79adc8-169f-44f4-8d21-522199831cd5

[-cheeto-]

@-cheeto- wrote:

@gotta run wrote:

I would not disable a cache for a particular season of weather. By doing so you’re essentially taking on greater responsibility for the safety of the cacher–now it’s ok to hunt, now it’s not ok to hunt. Seems to be a much greater chance of someone claiming “well you said it was ok now” if something goes wrong.

Not too play devils advocate but you disabled a bunch during deer gun. Isn’t that taking on safety of the cacher?

A slightly different reason for disabling for the winter might be to protect the container! If it gets frozen in place and damaged due to careless winter cachers that might be another good reason to disable during Winter.

Wow, it looks like s|s took this comment to heart!

[myside]

I think common outdoor knowledge should be respected in the sense of the cache’s difficulty.

A person with 60 finds should by then have the common sense to head off dangerous behavior, while those new to Geocaching with just a few finds might take unnecessary risks to retrieve the cache.

The only solution I can find reasonable is to post a note on the cache page, or the description section giving warnings and precautions. Why disable these and spoil it for everyone. If you can Geocache, you can read. Don’t jump ahead of yourself.

[zuma]

@myside wrote:

.

A person with 60 finds should by then have the common sense to head off dangerous behavior, while those new to Geocaching with just a few finds might take unnecessary risks to retrieve the cache.

Only 60 finds to learn common sense? I must be a slow learner, since I have a few more finds than 60, and I still managed to walk on thin ice yesterday, earning a boot of icy cold water and swamp muck in the process. 🙂 Fortunately the water was shallow, and it did not impact the day’s plans to cache.

z

[myside]

@zuma wrote:

Only 60 finds to learn common sense? I must be a slow learner, since I have a few more finds than 60, and I still managed to walk on thin ice yesterday, earning a boot of icy cold water and swamp muck in the process. 🙂 Fortunately the water was shallow, and it did not impact the day’s plans to cache.

z

Sounds like a blast! The swamp muck I could go without though. 😀

[Author]

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