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Where are there so few trails on open moorland?
Not neccessarily power trails (although I would argue that particular term is for roadside caches as per its American origins, rather than a “one every 0.1m or so” walking trail.
There’s a few dotted around the edges, South Brent, couple now near Hennock, some up at the north end, and of course Dartmoor Dave’s Walk on the Wildside which is listed in http://www.geocachetrails.com as a trail so probably qualifies 🙂
Letterboxers do several charity walks twice a year with boxes at similar distances. Nice little walks of 2-6 miles with spacings similar to a geocache trail, so precedence is there.
Cachers *love* trails, especially interesting ones with variety and history, and you definitely get that on open Dartmoor. My trails get many times the visitors as solo caches, even “unusual” caches with lots of Faves are ignored for the prospect of a nice walk with some numbers thrown in.
I’m just confused why it doesn’t seem to happen more often, is it because of the extra checks caches need to gain beyond letterboxes?
Do moorland cachers/co’s not like open moorland caches?
Is there a feeling that it would harm the moor somehow?
Or some other reason?
I have 3 sets of caches that should be considered as trails:
Walk on the Wild Side (16 caches in 13 miles – circular)
Lych Way (16 caches in 7.5 miles – not circular)
Heads of the River Trek (17 caches in 11 miles – circular)
However, as complete trails these have only been completed by a fairly small number of cachers, but a lot of the more accessible ones are much more popular.So why so few trails? The major reason is that there are few of us who are prepared to venture into the remotest parts of the moor to place caches AND TO MAINTAIN THEM and that is one of the biggest problems. You may get a great idea to place a series of remote caches and then some time later you are faced with maintaining them – and then it doesn’t seem such a good idea as when you placed them 🙁 if you genuinely love walking the moor, then maintenance should be as enjoyable as placing or finding. As I wrote recently – a cache is for life and not just for placing!
You ask “do moorland cachers not like open moorland caches?” It depends on your definition of moorland cachers. Genuine moorland cachers certainly do, but if you are including those whose idea of moorland is Roborough down, then clearly not. There seems to be a huge fear of real Dartmoor, for many who live within sight of it and they rarely venture there and that is obvious when you look at the names of the finders on the remote caches. Many of those who genuinely love Dartmoor, live miles away and get here as often as they can. Head of this list has to be ELDitton, but others include Amberel, Golden Haystack and many others I am sure.
I could go on forever on this subject and will return later to it when others have also had their chance!
Are caching trails really needed on Dartmoor? Surely Dartmoor is one big caching trail already. Why not create your own caching trail by planning a route, for example i have been thinking of walking north to south (cache to cache).
I do venture into the remote moor but would never place caches there as i live in Torbay and would not be able to maintain them.Why create any trail? 🙂 You could join the dots when caching anywhere, and yes, sometimes that’s fun.
Challacombe has a nice circular walk, which is sometimes used for events, and some excellent history with Birch tor and Golden Dagger mines. Could even have a bonus cache sited near to Plymouth museum where the dagger was last seen before it was bombed.
But as the letterbox charity walks show, circular walks can be done anywhere on the open moor.
Now I am mystified???
Dartymoor has asked this question but when I check my list of finds I discover that he hasn’t completed even one of my three trails! I don’t want to get too personal, but now I don’t understand this question at all.
Is Dartymoor asking for more open moor trails? At the very least he could answer his own question “Do moorland cachers/co’s not like open moorland caches?” And that would help me to decide whether I should place another series. Maybe the existing ones are too difficult? Maybe they are too long? Maybe they are too remote?
I agree with Reb10. Creating and executing one’s own trail is a challenge that I also enjoy, it gives me an independence.
On a pre-arranged lowland trail my GPSr may say ‘next cache at 198 meters’. You know it will be a well trodden, dog mess littered footpath or a race track country lane. On the moor it could easily say ‘next unfound cache at 1.27 kilometers’ and you’re not exactly sure if you will encounter bogs, rocks, streams or a driving hail storm in the open.
Now that’s a challenge. GH.Dave, why would any part of my question suggest I had exhausted all the possibilities?
Happy to answer your questions, though!
Lych Way – difficult to get transport. It’s in my sights and I want to do it one day, but as a solo walker such things are sometimes logistically difficult. Circular walks are definitely more my thing, although I did do the Templer Way last month. (Solo through choice, mostly. Harder to appreciate the landscape when you’ve got to make smalltalk)
WotWS – again, intend to one day, but forays into the deep moor are few and far for me. I don’t get the free time I once did and typically have responsibilities to get back for.
Leap Day – did that within a couple of weeks, IIRC, although not the final as it was too difficult to find.
However, for the casual map-browsers, your series have placements so far apart they’re hard to spot as a series as they don’t form an obvious loop on the map. You’ve explained that’s your taste, and absolutely don’t have a problem with that, but it’s much harder to see that there is a series.
And to answer my own question: Yes, I like walking on the open moor, and I don’t find geocaching whilst doing so detracts from it. Indeed, it gives me form and targets. Without, I’ll sometimes not go as far or get such a sense of achievement. If there were more walks with 0.1 or 0.2m placements in a loop I would do them, and I think others would too, and I’m also thinking as a CO – although I may need to consider time vs maint with 50 odd out already. I’m thinking of walks 2-10 mile, circular. Ring of Laughter is one such and it’s had 292 visitors. Not bad going.
It’s not fashionable to say you go geocaching for the numbers, but that is a part of it for me and many others. And it’s a driver that’s taken me to some very interesting pieces of countryside.
My purpose in asking this question was to guage others’ opinions and discuss it, because Dartmoor is surrounded by circular trails yet there are very few on the moor itself, and I wanted to know if there was some particular reason. Sorry it confused you.
I think I’m now beginning to understand what you are saying. Basically the remote series are too difficult and too long and you want more finds in a full days walk than the 16 or 17 that my trails offer. You didn’t mention Heads of the Rivers Trek which has 17 caches in 11 miles, but this is probably more difficult than WotWS.
You did mention Ring of Laughter which is a very nice and popular trail but can hardly be described as “open moorland”. It only has 9 caches in 3.6 miles, so spaced at 0.4 mile apart, which I consider to be about the optimum spacing – but then power trails are not my favourite.
I think that you are probably raising some of the earlier questions “is it all about the numbers?” and “do we want power trails on Dartmoor?” both of which are very valid questions. My preference is to walk 6 miles into the moor for one new remote cache, rather than travel miles for a power trail or the new urban power trail which seems to be creating a stack of DNFs around Newton Abbott. But as some will quickly remind me “to each their own” which I do respect 🙂
I will normally go for quality over quantity and really enjoyed Dartmoor Strider’s new series near Bovey Tracey. We really enjoyed our morning there, so very many thanks to Kevin, Sue & family for those caches. I think that is the sort of series I would like to see more of – a great walk, some quality caches, great variety and not too closely spaced – an almost perfect series 🙂
You sound miffed… This was never a personal thing, but you seem to think that it is, Dave. Whether I had done all your series or not, I would still be asking this question – if not here, elsewhere. This isn’t about you or your caches, only your opinion and that of others.
You and I have spoken several times about what appeals to us both. We have different needs, but also a lot of common ground. I think I understand what you enjoy about caching, but you seem unclear about why I do it – and I’d hoped I was being clear! Let’s try again: A nice interesting walk in the country, easy to find caches with good clues, and yes, plenty of them to motivate me to get there in the first place. And I tend to set trails as I would like to do them. Just as you do for your trails.
About 1/3 of Ring is open moorland, as about 1/5th of South Brent’s is. Ring of Cox is the only circular one I can recall that’s entirely moorland. (I know Suzy tried to set one earlier this year, but fell within the no-go zone of Spitchwick and had to remove them again. 🙁 ) I’m struggling to find other examples because of the very reason I’m raising this question – they ain’t there!
Why?!
Answer so far seems to be; “No particular reason” and that the long distance moor walkers aren’t too fussed about circular series.
Dartymoor, I’m not miffed at all, but do wish you would come and complete some of the trails that are there. Our ideal trails are clearly not the same, but as I said above “to each their own” and I think I have come over to find most of your caches 🙂
Most of the remote walkers don’t need trails because they make their own out of the caches that are available. They pick and mix and if they want a shorter or easier walk, especially starting from Holming Beam, there is a huge choice of caches and routes for them.
One of the problems of setting trails on the real open moor, is that there are very few paths. You won’t find paths on my trails, you walk in a straight line from cache to cache, if you can 😉 otherwise you have to dodge around the rivers and bogs etc. Another problem is the lack of hides. In huge parts of the moor there is just acres and acres of grass. No rocks and not even any gorse, and therefore very difficult to find a hide. For some of my remote caches I have wandered around for a long time trying to find any sort of hide and if you are going to place them every 200 or 300 yards, then almost impossible.
Aye, I will do some more of yours!
Hides; the charity letterboxers manage okay. Yep, some areas are tussock hell, but pick the area and there are almost too many places to hide. Foggintor School and out to the quarries, Nosworthy Bridge up to Black Tor and back, Chat Tor are just a few 3-4 mile loops that I’ve done as charity walks.
In response to the initial question, I think perhaps the “Dartmoor” trails (and there are a few) are completely different to the others, in that they require a lot more commitment, and are a serious walk which casual hikers mostly aren’t bothered with.
I enjoy both types (especially the remote Dartmoor trails), but must say I have never actually followed a “Dartmoor” trail all the way through, and instead tend to combine these caches with other caches to create my own walk.
To create a “well visited” trail on the moor would require close hides, a shortish walk close to the road, paths, and a fairly sheltered location (like Bellever Forest), which doesn’t really tie in with the high moors which are remote, inaccessible, wild, wet and usually raining – or the people who visit them who are perhaps more committed to going further for a cache, like Dartmoor Dave’s series.
Dartymoor mentions charity letterbox walks but i don’t think you can compare them to caching walks as i think charity caches are not allowed.
clownpunchers: Good comments, thanks. I’m still toying with the idea but do realistically need to assess committments if I do it, so as not to put out something I can’t maintain.
Reb: Yes, you’re right, but I meant about size of trail and hides, really. Not as an actual charity ethos. I couldn’t even mention the name of a charity I’m associated with when placing a cache on their property with their permission!
I think that a major problem is that for so many cachers the PRIME driver is the “numbers”. No matter what they say about a nice walk, visiting beautiful countryside, seeing interesting things, the bottom line is “how many caches are there?” This is why trails are so popular and the more frequent the caches the more popular the trail.
Example 1: Smiths Hill – Dartmoor Photo Trail 2
This cache hasn’t been found since July 2011 and has only ever been found 8 times! It starts and finishes in a layby and is only about 2 miles long. It takes in one of the most beautiful stretches of the Cherry Brook which is hardly visited by anyone, but it is only ONE cache!Example 2: Dartmoor Red Herring Trail
This cache has only been found once in the last 14 months and has only ever been found 12 times. Again it starts and finishes in a layby and is about 3.5 miles long. It follows the O Brook which is one of my favourite streams on Dartmoor and the scenery is stunning. But it is DIFFICULT although you are rewarded by THREE caches!These trails should be ideal. They are NOT remote, they are sort of circular, they are between 2 and 4 miles long – BUT you only get a few “numbers” for your effort. When I placed these I wanted quality caches that were something different and I think I have achieved that – but I have to admit they are not popular.
Part of the reason that Dartmoor has so few trails is that there are very few actual tracks to base a trail on. Any caches on the open moor are going to be placed pretty much at random, and the terrain doesn’t really lend itself to trail placement.
As for frequency of finds, whatever your preferences, and whether or not you are after the numbers, human nature will always tend to favour the walks which give you the highest return on your investment of course. Also, not everyone has the physical ability or inclination to venture onto the moor, and so these caches will always have relatively few visitors.
It’s a bit of a dilemma when placing a cache too. If you want lots of visitors then place an ammo can in a layby on a busy minor road. But there’s no fun in that, so we place them on the moor instead. Given that people are after numbers, though (and there’s nothing wrong with that), a greater concentration of caches on the moor will definitely attract more visitors. Perhaps we do need a power trail after all…
Tracks are not really needed to create trails, there are loads of ancient routes on Dartmoor with no visible tracks on the ground.
And is not the Dartmoor Forest series based on the Perambulation, yes too long for a day walk but people do it over two/three days, perhaps it could be promoted as a long power trail to attract visitors, good for Dartmoor caches and Dartmoor tourism.The Dartmoor Forest series is an excellent series of caches, but few could achieve it on one walk, even taking 2 or 3 days. There are 54 caches in total and I was FTF on 16 of them including the bonus, but I did a total of 19 walks on 14 different days, my longest walk being 15 miles. In total I probably walked 80 to 100 miles, but unfortunately lost all my GPS tracks. The series was placed over a year ago but has still only been completed by 5 cachers! Probably not what dartymoor had in mind when he started this topic!
I realise Dartymoor was thinking more of shorter trails, my point was more aimed at muddypuddles saying there are no tracks on the moor. But i’m sure there are cachers who could complete the Perambulation in one go.
True, reb10, tracks are not needed to make a trail, but they get the ball rolling if someone has a trail in mind.
I have it on good authority that the Perambulation route has been completed in around 15 hours. The route is about 50 miles long, so a 15 hour trip would then mean a non-stop 3 miles an hour over mainly trackless moorland. You’d need quite a few Mars bars for that I should think.
I’ve normally had enough after 20 miles on the moor, but I do intend to do this as a single walk one day, although I expect to break it up with an overnight stop like most other people who do it.
I’m off to Sweden later in the year to walk part of one of their historic trails, the Kungsleden, high in the Arctic Circle. There aren’t many geocaches there either, but the route passes close to Sweden’s highest mountain, which may be just too tempting to pass up.
But it’s not just the walk. There are also 54 caches to be found! At an average of 10 minutes search for each cache that is another 9 hours. Minimum possible would be 5 mins per cache and that still equates to 4.5 hours. Another 2 minutes per cache to log and calculate the bonus information equates to another 2 hours. Not forgetting that the route neither starts nor finishes on a road but in the middle of the moor!
I think we should start a sponsored walk for muddypuddles. Let him name a charity of his choosing and I will be the first to put my name down for 50p per cache. I am sure he could get an enormous amount of support and maybe others would join him?
Count me in!
I think the one’s I have found of the series have been fairly easy finds so ten minutes a cache a bit high especially with more than one person looking.
Anyway muddypuddles would have an advantage (if a good memory).
On the topic of shorter trails i did the Bushtucker Trail/Its a jungle series today, not quite on Dartmoor but still worth a mention, a great series.
Just a thought what is the definition of a power trail?My understanding of the definition is that it originated in America and was for very long series intended to be completed by car. There’s quite a lot of info, videos etc. Every 0.1m there is a cache on the guardrail. Drive, jump out, sign, jump in.
Over 1,000 caches in a day have been achieved by teams working together, taking turns to jump out and sign. In some cases, not even sign, just slap a sticker on the outside of the cache, sometimes without even getting out of the car! Averaging one minute PER CACHE, including travelling.
Each to their own, but that doesn’t sound like fun to me, and why I dislike the term “Power trail” when applied to a walking series or series, even if the density is the same.
I have just worked out a caching walk doing the Dartmoor North – South (based on Eric Hemery’s walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks).
I made it 35 caches over the 27 miles without deviating too much from the route. 21 of the caches would be on the north moor and 14 on the south. For me all 21 on the north moor would be finds but only 3 on the south moor as i have the other 11.
Not everyone’s cup of tea i know but it is a good two day walk, i have done it twice before (before caching), the first time we stopped at Bellever YH, the second time at the Forest Inn.Delighted to see a perfect example of what I’ve been talking about published today!
GC48YFP by Brentorboxer. 15 caches in an “easy” circular walk on open moorland. http://coord.info/GC48YFP
Further, it’s following the course of owner’s charity letterbox walk. Am hoping to get out there very soon for a bit of a bimble. Spoken to the owner today and they’re planning to do something very similar on another of their charity walks soon too. Great stuff!
Looks a good easy trail but i wouldn’t call it an open moorland walk, but we all have different ideas of what makes a good trail or walk. Sorry if i have been thinking more of longer trails but thats how i see trails, but its really about getting out there and caching/walking, whether you walk 3 miles or 15 miles we all enjoy it.
We had planned to do dartymoor’s new series today and were just about to leave when up popped this new series. The choice, rush over to Tavistock for the chance of lots of FTF’s (I’m sure we would get there first) or stay with plan A and walk what looked like a very interesting and varied walk in an area we had never visited before. I knew the Tavistock trail was on a rather uninteresting common full of gorse and bracken, so it was no contest. We stuck with dartymoor’s new series and got a really enjoyable walk. I’ve had no time to log my finds yet but I’ve no doubt that we made the right choice 🙂
reb10: Yes, lots of scope for variety and each to their own. A little walk like this (and I’m heading out there in a mo) will attract a lot of people though, which I think is great. I love dartmoor and want others to enjoy it too. (Although every year it gets harder to find solitude, so there’s a certain internal conflict going on!)
DD: nice of you to say so. 🙂
We walked the trail by Brentorboxer on the side of Blackdown yesterday.
I won’t say anything more here than we said in our log for the last of the series.
“The second hide of the series that is not in a gorse bush.
A quick find. TFTC.
Can’t say that we enjoyed this trail very much but kept going in the hope that it would improve. Some of it involved tramping through gorse and 12 of the hides were identical to each other. Surely an experienced letterboxer and geocacher could do better? Perhaps it could be re-named “Following the Dartmoor Gorse Trail”?!!
At least the weather was good and it’s bumped up our numbers!”I think that’s undeservedly harsh.
I enjoyed the series a lot. Fantastic views, mining history and a nice walk in an area I haven’t tromped before. The containers weren’t micros, the coords excellent and the clues helpful.
For all the gorse, I only got prickles in the first one before I learned they could all be unhooked easily.
There’s little more that I could have asked for and drove away very happy.
Dartymoor,
You are very easily pleased!!
From an experienced letterboxer and geocacher we could have expected more! There was precious little information about the mines and the views might have been better if we had been taken further up Black Down.
A mediocre series!
Oh Hobo, do stop hedging and say what you really think 🙂
It sounds as though I made the right decision in heading off for dartymoor’s series rather than 15 FTFs here – but I do know this down and guessed that a lot of gorse would be involved 🙁
I know hobo & miss were not that impressed by my Smallacombe Bottom hide, but it sounds as though it is still the best in the area, although I notice that dartymoor didn’t make the small diversion to have a look?
Anyway, looks as though there’s scope for improvement for the next trail. I must see if I can come up with something that suits Dartymoor, but it will definitely be longer and have less but more varied caches.
Or you are too difficult to please, Hobo? Grump instead of manners? 🙂
(I carried on up Gibbet hill as I’ve not been up there before, and yes, the views are spectacular from there on a clear day)
DD – Smallacombe. I didn’t actually realise it was there until I got back. That said, having seen the string of DNF’s now I probably would have just added to them.
If you’re planning a trail just to please me, I warn you, the hides must be easy to find!
I think a trail like this proves that for many it is just about the numbers. Of the 18 finders since 4th april almost all have well over a thousand finds.
And Brentorboxer says in the cache description – ‘This walk is designed for families and people who are not used to walking on Dartmoor, not the seasoned innermoor hiker’.
How many of the finders so far fall into the first category?
Give me a long moorland trail any day, even if you only pick up a cache every mile or so.Well, it’s explained clearly. The CO asked me to point this out;
[i]”Hobo and Miss
Sorry you didn’t enjoy the trail. If the gorse bushes weren’t there, there would be nowhere to hide the caches, my previous walk in the area was very much enjoyed by many letterboxers and has raised hundreds of pounds for the charity I support, the same letterboxers have also purchased my new charity walk in the Wheal Betsy area, when I take the walk in after the 6 months I shall be putting out another geocaching walk like this, may I suggest you steer clear of it due to even more gorse bushes in that area.”[/i]And honestly, why the sniffiness? From several people here, not just H&M.
Yes, geocaching IS about the numbers, so is letterboxing (100 club, badges for higher numbers to show off your experience), so is walking in itself (miles, not hours – how we do like to keep score). We’ve had this discussion several times and it is human nature. Even the owner of this site won’t list you in his rankings until you’ve done over a thousand (and he’s even quite tardy in this, hint!).
I respect those who, like reb10, enjoy a walk with or without caches. I like walks AND caches, and if they’re close together, great – best of both worlds – to the extent that there are still so many unfound caches within my reach, I rarely go for a long walk without a cache plan in place.
But it seems that respect isn’t always two-way. Don’t look down on those who enjoy a series with hides close together, or those who seek out short circuits because they’re inexperienced, have young families, aren’t fit enough for a long walk, don’t have time – whatever. They’re still doing something a lot better than sitting on their arse in front of the tv letting their brains rot.
Closely spaced trails are very obvious on the map, so just stay clear if you don’t like ’em. Don’t do them and then moan about it, it’s disrespectful of those who take the time to place caches at all and makes it less likely they’ll bother at all.
Dave will remember some comments made by others about my first series. I damned near gave up caching altogether because of them. Dave himself made a point of being complimentary and supportive, and others too. I now know, with more experience, that those comments were unwarranted and actually quite spiteful, so I do get pissed off when people are unduly critical. Fortunately, this is rare in caching.
Dartymoor – thanks for this post, some very interesting points.
In my own defence the 1,000 limit was purely there to limit the mammoth task of pulling these statistics together and the tardiness is due to exactly the same reason – just a lack of time.
I love statistics and numbers and ranking lists etc and have no problem with any of that at all. However, I do have a problem with the quality of many caches that are currently being placed and also their location. As soon as you concentrate on the quantity then the quality takes a nosedive. In my opinion one good cache is worth 10 rubbish ones and the vast majority of cachers would agree – you need only to look at the logs of a decent cache and the number of fav points it gets. Power trail caches get virtually no fav points (I analysed this on HALO) and it tends only to be the last cache in a series that gets any points.
You mention your first series. I thought at the time (and I still think) that this was an excellent series with some good hides, and if I remember correctly, several home made caches that you had put considerably effort into. I hope you won’t be upset if I say that I prefer this first series of caches to your recent series. I really enjoyed the latest walk but I would have enjoyed it just as much if there had been only 12 caches and would have enjoyed the series more if the caches had been more difficult to find and more varied. I know others will not agree as they only count the number, but I hope you see the point I am trying to make.
I really am planning a trail for you, it will be called Dart’moor’s Dozen and will have only 12 caches over a 6 mile walk. Hopefully the caches will all be interesting and different to each other and will definitely not be trivial finds. Hopefully it will get you out on to the real moor, which I don’t think you get on to very often, but will not be remote. But I’m not going to rush these out tomorrow, they need thinking about and planning.
If we don’t say what we think the quality of trails will not improve. If caches in a series are repetitive they become boring!
The fact that letter boxers are prepared to contribute to a charity to buy the route does not necessarily make it a good geocaching route. The two hobbies are quite different.
Also why is there a need to archive after six months? I understand that when selling the route instructions one wants to be able to clear the area so that another route can be placed and sold. However, we don’t sell our cache descriptions. There are many square miles of moor without caches that could be used for additional routes. Is the cache owner hoping to record a high number of hides without the resultant maintenance load? Or perhaps is it that the distinction of being able to say “I did the earlier series” important to some people?
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