[jenhen1]

We have geocached in alot of bear territory and have backpacked over 500 total miles in the backcountry of MI, WI, MN and ME and have never actually seen a bear! Not that they aren’t there, they just avoid people in the wild for the most part. When we backpack we tie our foodsack 15 feet up a tree on a branch, mostly because bears can be attracted to our food, like raccoons. However, we see this as more of a nuisance than a danger.

The danger lies if you are unfortunate enough to cross between a sow and her cubs. However, I’ve heard that if you slowly back away and not look the sow in the eyes, you should be ok. Also, the number of people actually killed by black bears is extremely low. People have been mauled by black bears but very, very few have ever been killed.

Bears are neat animals, not to be feared, but respected. I would consider myself lucky to see a bear on the trail, but would never let the presence of bears keep me out of the woods. But, if bear spray is piece of mind, it can’t hurt. Personally, I would really think twice about carrying a gun while geocaching…..unless you’re hunting too!

[jenhen1]

In August we hit an active cache at a rest area in Pennsylvania. Unbeknownst to us PA was going through almost exactly what WI is going through right now; Caching not allowed at rest areas, caches still active at rest areas. We were approached by a DOT employee who had apparently been watching us from a distance, followed us into the woods and yelled at us to stop what we were doing, geocaching is NOT allowed, it is illegal, he could call police if he wanted to. He was pretty abrasive. Needless to say, it created an uncomfortable situation and we hightailed it out of there, no questions asked.

The point is, we didn’t know the PA policy being from out of state and I doubt most people not from WI know the WI policy as well and would hate for our out of state brethren to be unwittingly violating DOT policy. From what I gather the likelyhood of someone being approached by a WI DOT employee at this time is nil, but my question is, will the WGA necessarily be informed when they decide to start enforcing their policy? It almost seems like a bad situation waiting to happen. Perhaps it is time to be proactive with this situation and archive existing caches in the offending areas. I would hate to see our great game with a stained reputation because we knowingly geocached in areas where caches are not allowed. I don’t agree with their policy, but don’t want to be yelled at again either!!!

respectfully,

Mike and Jen

[jenhen1]

I’m a Yahoo user and it ended up my Spam folder. Thanks for the tip! And thanks for the newsletter! Looks great and a great idea to guide those of us who don’t log in as often back to the site to check out what’s going on at the WGA. Thanks again!

[jenhen1]

I was questioned once by an officer on the outskirts of Centuria last year. I was rummaging through an ammo can at the end of a road by a fence near the power station when he pulled up and asked if I needed any help. I explained geocaching to him while he nodded with a confused look on his face, but he said he was cool with it and just wanted to make sure I wasn’t up to “no good”. I’m sure he was relieved that the ammo can didn’t actually have ammo in it.

[jenhen1]

Yup, I remember our first find like it was yesterday. the “rush” you speak of sounds really familiar and it’s the rush I remember that keeps us coming back for more! I know I simply could NOT wait to find my second! Although the high isn’t as powerful, everytime I look in “the right spot” that feeling of accomplishment and “woohoo! I found it!” is always there, it never goes away. I guess that’s the addiction part! Congrats on your first find I’ll bet you’re already planning your second!

[jenhen1]

I would highly recommend doing the Felsenmeer Ridge cache in late Fall or early winter as the trails can get a little overgrown in the Summer. Someone even snowshoed in and found without trouble, although, like Zuma said it is a ground hide so be aware of that if there is substantial snow. Plus, when the leaves are down the view is even that much better!
Plus no heat, humidity, ticks or bugs!

Geologically, the felsenmeers are pretty unique and there is another felsenmeer cache about a mile away that sounds pretty neat, too. I think Jack Pine Savage hid that one(?)

If you go, the 2 Pipestone caches are on the way, so hit those too!

Lastly, I have plans to replace the container over the weekend of Dec. 1st. Apparently the lid of the lock-and-lock is busted so everything is wet 🙁

If you choose this one, have fun and enjoy the view!

[jenhen1]

The Rice Lake Chamber seemed very pleased with how the event turned out. They had over 60 participants and gave away some outdoor equipment such as flashlights, binoculars, a sleeping bag and chair etc… Nothing really huge. They are planning to do it again next year and are open to having new caches placed specifically for the event. She understood the difficulty of attracting local geocachers without new caches. Bottom line is they were happy enought to do it again next year.

[jenhen1]

I think you hit it on the head, elfdoctors! I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the caches that were part of the event. The amount of driving though, drove me nuts! The “Rice Lake” event spanned from Prairie Farm to Exeland east to west and New Auburn to Turtle Lake north and south. Holy gas guzzler! I also failed to turn in my passbook on time. The last day I cached the event was the last day of the event and I finished after closing hours of the Chamber. So, I mailed it in but by the time it got there they had already done the drawing! Oh well, I have a contact over there and I will check with her to see how participation was, what they gave away, whether they will do it next year and whether they plan to add new caches next time.

On a very positive note, I noticed some logs from first time geocachers during the event, which may be a main focus of these things anyway; introducing new people to the sport. Having other organizations help spread the word about geocaching I think helps to promote it to newbies in a way beyond what we as a geocaching community can do on our own. Of course, seeking input from those in the know such as the WGA can only help make events such as these an even bigger success. Hopefully some ideas can be shared if they have a next one!

[jenhen1]

A difficult journey culminated by an easier, interesting/scenic find. I like those best. I love clever hides that are somewhat difficult, like the “Bridge to the Past” cache up here in Eau Claire, but the micro in a rock pile can be somewhat irritating. Easy finds in a non-descript location are just that…easy and non-descript. To us, the more difficult the journey and uniqueness of the final location is the most rewarding type of cache.

[jenhen1]

We feel that seeing DNF’s on a cache page could potentially cause other cachers to not look for that cache fearing that it is not there, so we are somewhat picky when it comes to logging DNF’s. If we gave it a fair shot, we will definitely post a DNF, basically to let the cache owner and other searchers know that, hey, it might need some attention or may not be there. If we couldn’t find it because there was a muggle nearby, or were running out of daylight, or the GPS was giving us weak signals or similar reasons we will write a note simply to say we tried to check it out. We don’t want to provide a reason for other cachers to not attempt a cache that is probably still there.

But, if it’s an ammo can and the clue says “fallen tree” and we find the perfect downed tree and no ammo can, then that baby’s getting a blue frowny!

[jenhen1]

Seems like a difficult proposition. I agree that a numbers based awards system could cause irritation. You could use “best view”, “most unique container”, “cleverest puzzle” etc… but, it’d be tough to come up with nominees simply because noone’s done them all to see which ones are superior! There are some insanely awesome caches in northern Wisconsin, but these will undoubtedly not get nominated, and if they do, will not win simply because there aren’t alot of people who have done them. Is this fair? It’s like voting for “best picture” if you havn’t seen all the other pictures up for the award. Therefore, it becomes a bit of a popularity contest. The caches that get hit the most get the most votes and now we’re back into a numbers based award and possible irritation. Seems like a tough deal to pull off fairly.

[jenhen1]

That’s true, all caches are existing caches. For some reason they specifically wanted all existing caches for their first trial run. We’ll see how it goes, but it doesn’t give much of an incentive for those who have done alot of caching around there and have found most of the event caches. But, if you havn’t done many up there……..come on up!

[jenhen1]

I agree 150% with Cachew and Commander Bob. C’mon, that’s how you prove you were there! I’ve been caching since 2004 and this is the first time I’ve EVER heard of a practice of NOT signing the logbook. Why wouldn’t you? I don’t care who you are, and what your reputation is, if you don’t sign the physical log, just be prepared to have your online logs deleted, unless expicitly stated in the online log that the cache had no writing utensil and you didn’t have one on you or something. Color me puzzled, I can’t believe this is an accepted practice. Sorry to be so passionate, it’s nothing personal but this concept is new to me. Do alot of people cache this way???

[jenhen1]

Just finished “Around the the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne and just started “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, a book I actually traded for from a geocache! A little trivia for you: “Heart of Darkness” was actually the inspiration for the movie “Apocalypse Now”!

[jenhen1]

For us, one of the joys of placing a cache is reading the feedback. For the most part, the caches we place we try to make it a memorable, loggable experience. Some succeed, some don’t, but we really enjoy all feedback, even if it simply says that the cache is getting empty, there’s brush that’s grown up around it etc… So for those that have left original feedback (which is almost everyone) Thanks!!!

It seems to me that as the game has shifted to a more numbers oriented game, that there has been a dramatic change in logging practices in the last few years. While there is still a majority of poeple who write original logs for each cache, it seems there is an increase in short and generic logs as the number of finds achieved in a single day has increased. It’s not easy coming up with something original to say for 50 straight logs in a day, and quite frankly makes it hard to remember all of them. It’s fun to go back and read the old logs of old caches written back in the day when each and every cache find was a memorable experience since there weren’t that many of them.

I would assume most hiders enjoy positive feedback if it’s warranted, and think it kind of cheats the hider who hides a GREAT cache and has it’s log lumped with the guardrail caches.

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