1616

Numbers Nerd

I had the morning free today, so I headed out to try to find a few caches I had previously dnf'ed. I am slowly working through my list of caches around town that I've tried and not found, so I was eager to knock at least one more off of that.

I started with one on Parker Rd. The first time I looked for it, there was a dog carcass right near GZ :( I tried to look around it but the smell was pretty bad so I didn't stick around too long. Today, almost an entire year since my first visit, the dog was gone (rest in peace), but so was the cache (I think). I try to not say for sure that a cache is gone, because I have a rare talent for not seeing things, but I looked up and down the fence line for 80 feet on either side of where my phone said GZ was, and I found a lot of empty bottles and cans, but no cache :( There was this beautiful view however :)  

Florida farmland :)

After leaving there, I continued south to Archer Rd. I had several dnf's between Parker Rd. and Haile Plantation on Archer, so I hoped to hit all of them. Then I went and looked for a brand new (to me) cache *chuckle* At least I found it! 

When I got back to the business of clearing dnf's I pulled into the YMCA property. I'm not sure what's going to happen with this place. When I was here a year ago, there were "Land Use Notice" signs up, and they were still there today. We'll see...

The cache I had looked for a couple of times was near the parking area. It was a small container under a rock...somewhere. From other logs I knew it wasn't right at the given coordinates and another cacher used the phrase "It's like kissing frogs. Gotta try a few times before getting it right." ;) Third time's the charm, as Bilbo Baggins says ;)  Today I finally found it!

Non-spoiler photo from GZ

There was another cache at the back of the property that I had never looked for before, but with 1 dnf redeemed and hours left before I had to be back home, I decided to go for it. It was a beautiful day--cool but sunny, and a little windy--and it was only a quarter of a mile to the cache. Once there, I thought I had a good idea of where the cache would be, but I was wrong. Shocker! I was a little surprised that my phone was still getting a good signal under the trees, and when I walked toward where I thought the cache would be, the needle pointed elsewhere. I swerved back into the middle and quickly spotted the cache. It was tied to a branch with something that looked like a thick rubber band, and it was getting old. It had that look to it that it was going to crumble if it moved too much, so I tried to get the cap off very carefully.

The cache owner will have to keep an eye on it ;)

Back to the car and a little further down the road for 2 more former dnfs. One of them was pretty straight-forward, with just a small detour of looking in the wrong spot. The other one was a little more tricky. It was in full view of the ever-present traffic on this busy road. I walked to it and then had to find something to do while waiting for a gap in the traffic to retrieve the cache. I took several pictures, read Twitter, looked at other cache pages, until I had an opportunity to grab that darn thing :)

The slow truck that had traffic backed up for a ways

Some pretty flowers nearby

I was happy to finally get this one as well :)  I had tried it twice before, and never felt confident enough that I could grab it without being seen. It was great to cross this one off my list.

I ended the day with two more dnfs, which sucked, but before that I did replace a cache that hadn't been found in a while. Even the people that logged a find on it last were saying that the cache was missing its lid, and later on that it was missing everything. I prepared a new cache to put down and went looking for the remnants that others had mentioned. I couldn't find anything, so I tried to place my new one as close to the description as possible.

My phone read GZ as out in the grassy area but there was nothing there. It looked like there used to be a big rock there, which matched certain clues on the cache page, but no hide was possible there at this time. 

GZ

There were some other rocks about 20 feet away, so that's where the replacement ended up being hidden. I threw in a few small items for trading, a new log and a pencil, threw some black duct tape on the container and we were good to go. I hope it lasts for a bit and others can find it too :)

Overall it was a successful day! One of the trackables I have with me sums it up well:

Lucky!

I noticed on the first or second log I signed today that the date was cute: 1-6-16 :) What I didn't notice until I got home and logged everything was what my cache total was...

Cache total: 1616! :D

Successful Day

Teamwork!

5-1

I went out today with my friend to try this particularly challenging cache that has kept us going in circles, individually and as a team.

I tried it over a year ago and couldn't even get to the correct GZ :( It's located in a courtyard of one of the medical buildings on the UF campus, and the entire area is one big gps tease. The tall brick buildings and all the metal around mean there's no reliable signal. I found a courtyard, and even though it didn't match the description given on the cache page, I spent a couple of trips there checking the many, many places a cache could be.

I eventually asked another local cacher if where I was searching was the right spot and she confirmed my sinking feeling. So I googled for a labeled map of the campus and matched up building names to the suggested route on the cache page. I was able to find the right place on my next attempt. Turns out, finding the right courtyard was only the beginning. Sigh.

After another couple of unfruitful visits I put it on the back-burner. It was a long time before I tried again, and of course was unsuccessful. I mentioned this cache while chatting with another cacher who had not found it yet and we decided to give it a shot.

On my 6th visit and 2nd with her, and after a hint from a former finder, we finally did make the find :) We celebrated with some Starbucks and with looking for more caches ;)

I ended up finding 5 and dnf'ing 1, which is a successful day for me. I would have been happy with only the first one, so everything else was icing on the cake :)

One of the trackables I had on me

(yes, we were caching in the rain)

All wrapped up with a bow on top!

Cache Count: 1610

D/T Ratings

Wheelchairs to SCUBA Gear

I'm going caching with a friend tomorrow, and she's got a cast on her foot. We need to look for caches that will be reachable for her. I went online to do some searching for low-terrain caches that neither of us have found, and one I was looking at in particular reminded me about this topic.

Every geocache has a Difficulty rating, and a Terrain rating. These each go from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest). On the geocaching web page, these ratings are shown as stars:

This cache is a 2 Difficulty and a 2 Terrain

but on my iPhone app, they are boxes:

In other places I've seen them as only the numbers:  2/2

Difficulty

A Difficulty 1 is something that is easily seen without searching, easy to get to, and easy to actually get it in your hand and open it. I recently found a cache that was an ammo can in someone's front yard that I saw as I drove up to park alongside it--pretty easy :)

On the other end, is the Difficulty 5 category. I don't have too many of these yet, but I'm working on it :)  A Difficulty 5 would be a cache that is so well-camouflaged you really need to search carefully for it. It could be one that might have a very intricate way of actually opening the container. Another common D5 involves solving a very difficult puzzle to get the correct coordinates before you can even begin to search for it!

A cache rated in the middle somewhere, might not actually be that difficult to get to or to open. It could instead be in a very busy location where there are constantly other people around prohibiting you from simply retrieving the cache and signing the log. You will have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to make the grab :)

Terrain

Terrain ratings are based on how easy or difficult it is to physically get to the correct coordinates of a cache.

A Terrain 1 should be wheelchair-accessible, so will probably be adjacent to a sidewalk or some other kind of pavement, and should be within the reach of someone in a wheelchair.

A container hanging in a bush next to a sidewalk waist-high would be a T1 as long as you didn't have to reach in very far.

A T5 is something that will require special equipment to get to it, such as Scuba gear to retrieve an underwater cache. I have a few T5 finds which were on islands only accessible by boat--the boat being the special equipment.

Here's a link to Groundspeak's handy chart that says all that and more:

Difficulty and Terrain guidelines

With all that said...

So here's the catch:  different people have different ideas of what those ratings mean.

I am an overweight 40-something with arthritis in my knees. Generally, if the T rating is accurate, I can't do anything 3.5-4.5 because I'm just not physically able. I might look at a cache page for a 2/4 cache (2 Difficulty, 4 Terrain), but there would have to be something very peculiar about it for me to actually go attempt it. Like maybe the T rating changes according to the time of year. During the summer, you might have to wade through a swamp, but in the winter it's a dry path. I would wait until winter to try it.

A healthy 22-yr-old might think a mile hike followed by climbing a tree to retrieve a cache is not that hard and give it a 1.5/1.5 rating. Someone like me might give it a try and end up frustrated and (silently) cursing that cache ;)

The lesson is, READ THE CACHE PAGE! Look at the description. I was looking at the page for a cache down near Orlando, and it was listed as a 2/2. The description started with something like "Very nice hike in the park that will take you on a 6-mile loop." Um, no thanks. Until I build up my stamina a bit more, a hike on a well-maintained even path is a challenge if it's more than 2-3 miles.

Also READ THE LOGGED VISITS to see what former finders (or not-finders) have said about the cache. Usually there will be very good information, like "Bring your boots, you're going to get wet", or "I couldn't handle this climb", or "Easy park and grab". Granted, you still have to take it all with a grain of salt, because everyone's different in ability and experience. Easy and Hard are very subjective.

The older caches tend to have wildly varying D/T ratings because as I understand it, there wasn't a consistent guideline. Everyone was just kind of winging it. At some point Groundspeak made that handy-dandy chart I linked above, and that's helped give a better picture of what you're getting into with a particular cache. Of course nothing is 100%.

I started writing this blog post because one of the caches I was looking at for my friend and me to try tomorrow was a 1.5/1.5 cache. When I looked at the information on the page, the description didn't really say much, but the logs were very helpful. Several people pointed out that not only are the coordinates off by about 50 feet, but the cache is actually about 7 feet off the ground. My friend definitely won't be able to retrieve it, and it's questionable if I can (I'm pretty short). That cache has now been stricken from my list.

If you ever hide a geocache, try to think about all geocachers who might search for it. Give your cache as accurate of a rating as you can based on that guideline and everyone will enjoy it a lot more :)

D/T 1/1

Yes, the whole thing is the cache! :)

Cache Count: 1605

Happy New Year :)

Jan. 1, 2016

Re-re-restarting

A new year, and a new start :) I'm still active with geocaching and have been thinking of some tips for newbies. There are various guides out there, but I hope to add a new perspective on some of these things. I also plan to talk about some of my caching outings and post photos from them.

Geocaching Events

There is a kind of geocache called an "event". It shows up on the geocache map, and has its own page just like a regular cache, but it is simply a gathering of geocachers. They can last as little as 15 minutes, or as long as a weekend. There may be some that are longer than that, but I haven't seen them. That doesn't mean they aren't out there, just that I haven't seen them. When you attend an event, you log it on the cache page just like a physical cache, but you choose "Attended" instead of "Found it". You get credit for a cache, and a smiley shows up on the map where the cache icon is. [I often refer to a "found" cache as a "smiley"]

Here is an event planned in my area for Jan. 9th as it shows on the geocache map:

It's the speech bubble icon next to the green box "traditional" geocache

Event caches are open to all cachers that care to attend, their guests, and anyone interested; anyone, really! When I really started seriously geocaching, I was nervous to go to an event. I wasn't sure if anyone would talk to me, or what I would have to talk about if anyone did talk to me! But I went to one and had a great time :)

Back in 2013, Groundspeak (the company that runs geocaching.com) ran the challenge of "31 Days of Caching" during August, to find a cache every day in August. There were several events planned in town during this time, and the first one was a meet and greet at Cold Stone Creamery on a Saturday afternoon. I showed up a little late, but everyone was really nice and I chatted with many people. It was neat meeting people whom I had only previously known as names on a cache log, or as cache owners on a cache page :) 

I soon became a regular at events in Gainesville. After that, I started looking for events whenever I was traveling out of town, and then planning trips because of events like the Florida Finders' Fest Mega event (a "mega" event is when 500+ people attend), held in the Ocala National Forest every October.

Most of the events in my town were at a local bar with a limited menu. I enjoy going there and hanging out with local cachers, but I had heard some other people saying they wished there were more family-friendly events. I decided I would host one, and in Jan. of 2015 I hosted my first event in a nearby park. I held it on a Saturday afternoon at a park that had what I dubbed the 3Ps:  Parking, Playground, and Potties :)

There were about 20 people that attended and I think it went pretty well :) 

Most of the group

My intention was to host an event at a different park with the 3Ps every other month. That didn't happen, but it's ok. I ended up hosting 5 events in 2015, with my 6th being today--Jan. 1, 2016.

My point is, if you're wondering about attending a geocaching event, DO IT! Worst case scenario: you have a bad time but get a smiley out of of it ;) Best case scenario: you have an excellent time, meet new friends, maybe get a caching buddy, and get a smiley out of it :)

Happy New Year Everyone :)

Cache count: 1605