This past weekend at the Thanksgiving Rally at Caledonia SP in PA Mariska Hargitay her bro, and I went geocaching for the first time with LadyHawke and her husband. Friday night around the campfire we were chatting about what we were doing on Saturday. We were going to go on a hike and LadyHawke and Pat were going to go geocaching......we said that sounds like fun, can we tag along, so we did. Here is a video of our experience.
So now I have some questions.
1- I see there are aps for my phone. Are they OK or do I need a special GPS device?
2- I see there are many in my area that are not "in the woods". Are those considered cheesey and not "real" cache's?
3- How often do you not find the cache? The last one we found by pure luck if you watch the video.
4- What is the funniest, oddest thing you have found? I had an idea pop into my head (some are good, some aren't) I want to find a cheap engagement ring at a yard sale or something and leave it in a box with a note "Will you marry me?" I think that would be hilarious to read the log book afterwards :rofl:
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
1. You do not NEED a gps dedicated for caching, but most phones are not as accurate. A gps will get you closer to "ground zero" making your search for the cache easier.
2. Depends on your reason for caching. Sometimes those little (micro) caches can be a challenge to find. My kids obviously do not care for them and prefer the regular sized caches with the little crappy toys for them to exchange. We look at geocaching as treasure hunting in that aspect. Some people like the challenge of not being caught finding that cache in an urban area.
Try a few of each kind and you will be able to decide for yourself which kind you prefer.
3. I would say we find 95% of the caches we look for. As you cache more, you begin to know what to look for (generally) and your success rate increases. It is also easier to find them when they are bigger too. Our DNF's are usually micros, especially if we have the kids and do not spend a lot of time looking.
4. Check out the forums on geocaching.com. They discuss some of the caches found and even show some pictures of cool caches.
We have found quite a few interesting cache containers.
Listing them and especially showing pictures of them might just ruin the fun of a great find for someone else and is generally frowned upon.
I will describe one of my favorites though. It was on the end of a pier on a fresh water lake. 200 feet long and the GPS put us right at the end and it was probably a 30 ft x 30 ft area once there. A couple benches at the corners, a garbage can, and a wooden railing.
Right in the middle of the concrete pier (on the end) was a small chip in the concrete. The chip was there and it took us quite a while to find it. It was about the size of a nickel and appeared to just be a settling crack type of thing.
We had to use a paper clip to lift the edge of the rock and lift it up. A tube was attached to the bottom of the rock and was sitting in a hole drilled in the concrete.
That took us about an hour to find and luckily nobody was there to see us search.
The caches name was DNF. If you went to look for it multiple times and could not find it, the cache owner would give hints. It took most people 5-10 times of searching to find it.
It had a lot of "favorite" votes and that cache has since gone missing.
Just use your imagination when looking and think of how you might hide something there to make someone have to find it.
Just went back and am watching the video.
The one girl said how she kept a geocoin. Those are not to be kept and are to move from one cache to another and will sometimes have certain goals. To get to a certain state, travel around the world, visit rocket facilities, etc.
Geocoin a are the same as the travel bugs that were mentioned.
The one heart shaped travel bug looks awfully familiar. We were in Virginia this summer and I wonder if that is one we had moved.
A gps works best when moving. Sometimes it helps to walk away from the cache site a hundred feet or so and walk back in to the search area. You can get a better reading and close the search area a bit.
Wizfisher, I know that she told us the bugs were to be moved around. I don't know if the video caught it or not.
Do you know how if you see a movie with the wrong person you can end up hating that movie and not wanting to give it another chance? I was definitely grateful to be taken Geocaching for the firs time by someone experienced. I can only imagine how terrible I would have done using a phone trying to find them. At least when I went up the side of a mountain, it was for fun, not because I didn't know better.
From my understanding cell phones triangulate, and don't use actual GPS, that's why they're not as accurate. That said, I'm going to give my cell phone a shot. Why not?
I just reread Wizfishers post. I didn't know what DNF was ???.....now I do. Do Not Find.
Maybe I'll take Nathan on a small hunt and see if I can find one of the ones that is in my area near a park. This way if we don't find it he can still play 😉
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
I was on Geocaching.com and there isn't one in that little park by me. However there are 3 in the area by the Sunoco station and 1 by some ballfields off of Hopewell road. I'll try some tomorrow.
Matt O 2006 Skyline Nomad 27' travel trailer. Previously owned 1986 Coleman Columbia / 1992 Coleman Senecca / 1989 Born Free Class C RV.
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