Cache Mania

Every geocache has the option of including hints.  Some caches are so easy that a hint is kind of pointless.  That is until the cache goes missing.  Maybe it is muggled or maybe it is covered in snow.  In either case spending 30-60 minutes looking for a cache that isn’t there is frustrating.

I am probably guilty of not providing great hints with my caches.  Going forward I’ll be sure to post better hints.  What is a better hint?

• is the cache high or low
• is it inside something
• is it far from the trail

Those are the kinds of hints that don’t give away the location but do help the searcher track down the cache.  Standing outside in -15C looking for a cache that is unavailable either from snow or because it is missing is not a lot of fun.

Tags: clues, hints, snow, winter friendly
Posted in Rants | No Comments »

Night Caching

How much of a hint is too much?  I think that all depends on the person that needs the hint.

I was out with a group of eight to do some night caching .  This wasn’t just caching at night this was attempting to find geocaches that have been designed to be found at night.

Our first cache got off to a roaring start.  We found the fire tacks, the container, the coordinates and headed off.  Thirty minutes at the coordinates and we had nothing.   Did we do something wrong?

We read some of the logs and it appears we were not the only group to have encountered a problem.  How pure do you play the game?  Is reading the log like getting a hint?  We decided to go back to the start and see if we missed something.  Others before us had done this also.

We returned to the first stage and reread the instructions.  How could we be doing this wrong, the coordinates were there for us to read.  Yes they were written as words, even homonyms but still, it was really straightforward.  Having done a few caches by this player in the past I should have known better.  They are NEVER this easy.

We searched some more.  We reread the description.  We searched some more.  We read previous logs.  We searched some more.   We had already read the hint provided but it wasn’t helping.  In retrospect the hint makes sense.  That hint will give you reason to stay at the first stage until you can do what is suggested in the hint.  Something had to be done.  It was time for phone a friend.  Were we taking an unfair advantage by calling someone that has already done this cache?  Should we have abandoned our search rather than call for help? Once the call was made we had the correct coordinates for stage two in a matter of seconds.

The next two stages were challenging but not anywhere near as tricky as the first stage.   Having completed the cache I noticed that the first stage’s instructions would have seemed different had they been in of the later stages.

We really enjoyed this cache even more so because we were thwarted in the beginning.  It feels better to have triumphed than to be defeated.  I did get to thinking though, at what point is a hint a spoiler?

Follow this link to read my complete log for this geocache.

Tags: BFL, hints, Night Caching, spoilers
Posted in Geocaches, Rants | No Comments »