Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
SM said “Dave I aggree with most of what you have said, but before you can pass any comment on Coffin Stone you should go off and find it if you are able to get to it, you should do.”
Fair comment and today Judy, Tigger and I went to find Coffin Stone. We started from the nearest logical parking just west of Ingra Tor and followed the very easy gravel track until we turned right on to the bridleway which we followed across the ford and up to the old railway track. A few hundred yards around the track until we crossed over to the cache. This route is almost exactly a mile in length, all of it on gravel track or bridleway, with of course, a fairly easy ford, although I would imagine it could be far worse than today. Enter this route information into the terrain rater and it gives you 3, which is probably fair. Difficulty is a problem with this cache as the main difficulty is getting under the stone and finding the cache. If you are relatively nimble it should provide little problem and I found the cache within a few minutes. So probably anything between 2 and 3 depending on how you feel about climbing under many tons of spoil!
Forgetting the ratings for this cache, I thought it to be a very good cache, a bit different to most traditional caches and one we thoroughly enjoyed and rewarded with a favourite. Definitely the best cache placed by SM that we have found to date.
It’s good to see a sensible discussion and some interesting questions being asked.
I believe that anybody who takes geocaching seriously should always endeavour to help the cache owners. I now always carry kitchen roll to dry out caches and spare logs to replace those that are beyond signing, because they are too wet. I would never take away a full dry log as the cache owner may want it but will always take away saturated logs as they will be a source of new moisture in the cache. I always log what I have done and ask the CO if they want the log I have removed. So far not one has wanted a saturated log back. If the cache is cracked or of really poor quality then there is little point of adding a new log as that too will become saturated.
As I asked in my original post, what is the difference between a cache and litter? Dartmoor IS different because of the preponderance of cheap plastic boxes (ice-cream containers!) aspiring to be letterboxes, but we know they are not. Surely we need to differentiate our geocaches from this sort of litter and make it clear to the finder that they have actually found a geocache and what it means. I also believe that a properly labelled geocache will better protect travel bugs and geocoins from being stolen if the finder believes that this is a part of a bigger and properly organised activity. Without the label and possible stash card they will have no idea what they have found.
There does seem to be a problem with Greasemonkey and OS maps after the changes by Groundspeak. There is a forum topic here which may eventually help:
I am now closing this topic. Please leave any comments under the New DNPA Land Owner’s Agreement topic
It looks as though after 3 months of constant complaints Groundspeak & Google have patched up their differences and we are back with Google maps, at least for Premium Members. I can find no announcement of this, it just happened last night. There is also no mention of this on the Groundspeak blog, but they are advertising Google maps as an advantage of Premium Membership. I guess we will now see a hike in membership fees. Strangely enough, when using Internet Explorer it does NOT state that you a using Google maps, but Firefox does.
However, this change by Groundspeak seems to have blown our Greasemonkey scripts and I can no longer get the OS maps, just Google maps!
I’m afraid that the new land owner’s agreement only covers public access land. It has never covered NT land for which you always need permission. muddypuddles has placed several caches on NT land so I am sure that he will be happy to give you a contact name. As regards letterboxes, I would think that they must also require permission to be placed on NT land.
I have to admit that a lot of the caches I found in Cornwall were placed by only a handful of owners, but it was clear that they did take a pride in their caches and it was a noticeable difference to many of ours on Dartmoor and in my opinion made the experience more enjoyable. A bit like the difference between the thrown in the hedge micro and the carefully crafted cache. I am very pleased that we do see many of the latter type on Dartmoor and several of these placed by muddypuddles.
The other reason I mentioned this was that I had just received the geocaching guidelines from the DNPA and near the top of the list is the requirement that all geocaches should be labelled as such. As this is such an easy requirement to meet I think that we should play our part in this agreement and ensure that we do label our geocaches. It doesn’t have to be an expensive green sticker, I’ve seen many just with the word “geocache” scribbled on the box with a permanent pen.
Possibly I am in a small minority who think that we should take a pride in the caches we place and that their presentation is important. But whatever the general opinion, I shall continue to place caches that I would like to find, and that probably means a nice green sticker, a log book in a waterproof bag, a stash card, a pencil and in many cases a camouflaged bag as well!
But I do echo muddypuddle’s sentiments when he says “However, I am just glad that some people have taken the time and effort to place caches around this beautiful location which I can then go and find.”
🙂 🙂 🙂 I think we are finally there! 🙂 🙂 🙂
I have today received written confirmation from Chris (Graculus) our reviewer that he is happy with a revised covering statement supplied by the DNPA (see post above).
So, we now have a new set of geocaching guidelines for Dartmoor, issued by the DNPA, together with a covering statement written by the DNPA and agreed by Chris. We have all of this in writing!
It has taken just 2 days short of 2 months from my first post under this topic until today to get this agreement. Had we all been in the same room we would probably have had agreement within 30 minutes, but facilitating by email is not the easiest of tasks.
But it appears that we are there and my sincere thanks to both Andrew Watson (Head of Recreation, Acccess and Estates – DNPA) and to Chris (Graculus) for their respective agreements. There still needs to be a couple of amendments made to the respective web sites but everything is now agreed.
I will add a new item to this web site with the new guidelines and the covering statement from the DNPA, but the bottom line is that we are now able to place geocaches within SSSIs on Dartmoor without needing specific permission for each cache.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
That’s ok if you understand how it all works, but an inexperienced cacher may log the cache on-line because he has found the QR code. I think it unfair to latch on to the name and location of somebody else’s cache (and possibly cause confusion). Wouldn’t it be better to chose new locations along the same footpath?
I’ve seen these codes appearing on the odd cache and I see there are a few around Dartmoor. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Seems that the organisers are encouraging more competitiveness than groundspeak and are publishing leader boards, etc. I also notice they are charging $30 for premium membership! They are also using Google maps – so that won’t last!
But is the munzee an article like a cache or is it just the code? The first one of these codes I saw was on a fence post next door to the Log Ness Monster – but probably not on the cache (I didn’t actually find it!) So, I’ve just looked this one up and see that the munzee is owned by LordDarcy, but of course the cache is not his. Seems strange to place a munzee right next door to somebody else’s cache and call it the Log Ness Monster. If these are going to be just stapled to fence posts it all seems a bit pointless. Am I missing something here?
Latest News – I have just received an email from Chris (graculus) suggesting a single sentence to be added as a covering statement. If I can get that from the DNPA, then he will be happy to publish our caches within SSSIs without specific permission for each. I will attend to this on Monday.
“No news” is not necessarily “good news!”
After nearly 2 weeks I got a reply from Ernie saying that he had been ill and won’t be reviewing for some time to come. I then found out that he has actually been in hospital. So, if you read this Ernie, I would like to wish you a speedy recovery on behalf of all the Dartmoor geocachers.
As a result of this I have had to redirect everything to Chris (graculus) who will be taking over the reviewing for this area. However, so far I have not been able to get him to accept the new geocaching guidelines that I have agreed with the DNPA, but obviously I will continue to pursue this. It is frustrating that I have been able to agree these guidelines with the authority responsible for the use of the public areas within the DNP, an authority which is really getting behind and in favour of both letterboxing and geocaching, but that it is still difficult to get the geocaching reviewers to accept them. I will keep trying.
No, I’m not asking anybody to revisit a cache they have already logged. If you have already logged it I will provide the code, but not yet as I don’t know them all! If anybody reading this has completed the series and has kept a full list of the codes, please email it to me as Cantor Clan haven’t been able to provide this yet.
I think most cache owners wish they could set up a list of cachers who can’t see their caches 🙂
Wow, Scotland and back in under 6 hours! Station Master must have his own private jet! I hope he dipped it in some interesting caches and put a few miles on it!
DM&L – 1 Hangman’s Pit
New cache placed today, together with bonus information, and now in accordance with the hints. If anybody has already logged this as found and needs the bonus information, I will be happy to supply it.It appears that when you publish a cache, the “a cache by” field defaults to the person who is publishing the cache, but this can be overwritten to anything you like. When you adopt a cache, this field isn’t changed in the adoption process, but it is linked to the new cache owner, and the words (as opposed to the link) can be changed.
I will be changing these to acknowledge that the caches were placed by Cantor Clan, but that I have adopted them.
I am sorry that it has suddenly gone very quiet on this topic, but I have heard nothing back from our reviewer yet – maybe he is on holiday, because I have noticed that Chris (Graculus) has published the most recent caches.
Anyway, my thanks for the posts above, thanking me, I just hope they haven’t been a bit too premature!
Hook, line and sinker again Station Master and it’s not even April Fool’s Day! This could be a better hobby than geocaching. Wind ’em up, reel ’em in!
Why am I not surprised that instead of getting thanked by Station Master for saving this series of caches so that others, like him, will still have the opportunity to find them, just as anticipated he has jumped right in with this post.
I have not placed these caches and don’t even know where some of them are, so yes, as stated above I will be logging finds on them when I find them – that seems perfectly reasonable to me and probably to every other cacher. However, I will not be logging them should I have to archive any!
I am please to say that things have moved even quicker than I had hoped. I have now received a draft set of new Geocaching Guidelines which I am perfectly happy with and which I believe meet our requirements and which give us permission to place caches on public access land within the DNP whether or not it is designated as an SSSI. This brings us into line with letterboxing. I have sent these draft guidelines to our reviewer and if he is happy I will publish them here and send them to GAGB. All you will need to do is to say that your caches meet the geocaching Guidelines and there should be no other hurdles to jump!
Hi Clownpunchers, welcome to our a new hobby and our web site. Welcome also to a few problems that I am attempting to sort out. I don’t really want to duplicate the information you are requesting in this topic. There is a landowner agreement database maintained by our friends at GAGB which I can point you to: http://www.gagb.co.uk/gagb/glad/agreement_view.php?p=69 This should be the sole source of information and there is no point in duplicating it.
However, I am attempting to renegotiate the land agreement for Dartmoor and further information can be found in the Changes to SSSI Rules topic which you have already looked at.
The other very important source of information is the MAGIC map (http://benchmarks.org.uk/magicmapit.php?) which shows the SSSIs, Scheduled Monuments and various types of Nature Reserves, all of which will have special restrictions for placing caches and in some cases they will definitely not be allowed.
If I can get the landowner agreement sorted out, that will solve most of your problems as the majority of the common land within Dartmoor will NOT require any special permission. In the meantime, if you avoid the SSSIs and the “Refused Areas” you mentioned above, look at the MAGIC map and place your caches on common land you should not have any problem getting your caches published by our reviewer.
I have some very good news re my efforts to sort out the placement of caches within SSSIs on Dartmoor. I have now had a long email from the head of recreation at the DNPA and also a long telephone conversation, both of which were very positive. There are still some issues to be addressed but he has confirmed that he wants a level playing field for us and our letterboxing friends. He states “I am happy to amend our current guidance regarding landowner permissions to reflect that given to letterboxers.” This was specifically in relation to caches being placed in SSSIs. He has told me today that he will change the geocaching guidelines to reflect this. If these changes take place we will be back to where we were last year, but instead of us following the letterboxing guidelines, we will have our own set of guidelines, which will basically be the same as the letterboxers.
I will keep you all informed as to how this progresses, but I get the impression that it will happen sooner rather than later.
To answer Station Master’s query above. He has supplied me with the coordinates for the proposed cache and it is NOT in an SSSI but in a Scheduled Monument! All Scheduled Monuments are shown on the MAGIC map (http://benchmarks.org.uk/magicmapit.php?) and this map is ALWAYS used when a reviewer checks a cache location. It is highly unlikely that they will allow a cache on or in a Scheduled Monument, whether or not you have landowner’s permission.
Not such positive news!
I had to chase my contact for his written confirmation of our telephone conversation last week and when I did finally get a reply from him he didn’t sound as positive as he did last week. It seems that he needs to discuss some of this with his colleagues but he did think that we would be able to get it sorted ok. However, he is off on holiday for a week now, so I’m afraid nothing further will happen until he returns, and even then it may not be as quick and easy as I had been led to believe. We will just have to be patient for the time being.
I have to apologise, I seem to have taken my eye off the ball on this problem. I was promised this in writing last week when I was stood on top of Stenga Tor, however I have not received this and unfortunately have not had time to chase it up (I am supposed to be running a hotel on Dartmoor and the Easter weekend is nearly here :))
However, I will try to get hold of my contact again tomorrow and see what the holdup is. Unfortunately I failed to get an email address from him, which would have helped.
Much as I would hate to gate crash what appears to be a private party, if I have guessed correctly at what has been occurring here, then I would say to Station Master, “I think you were – hook, line and sinker!”
Well I didn’t get notified of that at all. I suspect because of all the German it has ended up in spam or junk somewhere in the ether 🙁
I’ve no idea to what you are referring – however, with regards to a certain cache which I will not name yet, I think I am the April Fool – but more about that later.
I was going to start a new topic – Worse Caches Ever! but have posted it here for the time being as we are discussing ratings. Do take a look at this GC1G142 and read the logs (including mine). It is a micro in a huge pile of rubble and is rated 2.5!I’ve just looked up GC28Q1K and it does appear to be a superb cache. However, it’s only ever been found 9 times and not at all in the last 16 months (doesn’t that qualify it for something!) It seems to me that if you are going to create a really good physical cache, it’s rather counter productive to make the puzzle too difficult as too few people will experience the delights (or otherwise) of your work.
I agree with Miss re the time factor on puzzle caches, the 30 minutes is in the guidelines but only applies to traditional caches and similar types. I also very much agree with StationMaster on puzzle caches. My statistics on the 2011 caches show how unpopular they are, especially the very difficult ones. They appeal to a very small audience which is a shame considering the effort that has been put into some of them.
In particular, muddypuddles Great Scientist series were, in my opinion , far too difficult and resulted in very few finds. I worked out 3 of them but really can’t be bothered with the rest. Which is a shame as I am sure the caches are very worthwhile finding especially if they are as good as Hobo suggests. I did think I might try to work out some of them in the dark winter nights, but devoted my time to generating this web site instead! I much prefer his Dartmoor Forest series, which is where I was both Tuesday and Thursday (not that I’ve seen StationMaster’s name on any of the logs!)
So far so good 🙂 After playing telephone tag with the DNPA since Tuesday I finally managed to speak to them today – I had actually just descended from High Willhays!
My theory of what happened (as described above) was exactly right. There was NO intended change in policy and NO conspiracy (as had been suggested). As far as they are concerned our original land agreement is still intact. What actually happened is that nearly a year ago they came up with new guidelines for geocaching which they published in May 2011. They were a combination of the normal geocaching guidelines and the letterboxing guidelines. But nobody in the geocaching world noticed! More recently they withdrew their Letterboxing Guidelines which were in pdf format as they were unsuitable to be read by those who are visually impaired. As it happened our land agreement was linked to their pdf document, so it didn’t work. Somebody at Groundspeak jumped to the wrong conclusion that this meant that the land agreement no longer existed.
As regards SSSIs, it’s NO CHANGE. We can still place geocaches in SSSIs without specific permission for each cache. We have the same rights as letterboxers.
As I said above, so far so good – I have asked for this in writing (as I know nobody at Groundspeak will accept it otherwise) but at the moment I have received nothing. However, I firmly believe that I will receive this as the conversation I had was very positive with absolutely no negatives at all.
I will keep you informed.
Oh! this opens up a can of worms and is one of my favourite hobbyhorses!
First your cache, impossible really to give an opinion before attempting to find, but having looked on the OS map it is less than a km from a road and only a few yards from the old railway track. How that can ever be more than terrain 2 I can’t possibly think. The railway track by definition is flat and you can easily cycle there. The last few yards do not count as far as terrain ratings go, so even a 2 might be high. The nearby caches are all 1.5 or 2. As for difficulty, if no special equipment is needed and it can be found in less than 30 minutes it can’t be more than 2. So a 2/2 would seem fair sitting at my computer, rather than walking around the railway track at Kings Tor 🙂Generally though, for some reason many cachers want to overrate their caches. Probably because they think it makes a better cache and more people will want to find it. Certainly it helps to fill the grid, but if it’s not genuine then who are you kidding? In my opinion it is difficult to rate any cache on Dartmoor as more than a terrain 4 rating. The following is required for terrain 4 “Experienced outdoor enthusiasts only. (Terrain is probably off-trail. Will have one or more of the following: very heavy overgrowth, very steep elevation (requiring use of hands), or more than a 10 mile hike. May require an overnight stay.)” For terrain 5 it requires the following: Requires specialized equipment and knowledge or experience, (boat, 4WD, rock climbing, SCUBA, etc) or is otherwise extremely difficult.
So which caches on Dartmoor have a genuine terrain 5 rating? The only one I have found all I needed was a pair of wellingtons – hardly specialised equipment. I’ve not done it, but I understand that Satan’s Pit is one of the most difficult on Dartmoor, even that is only rated 4/4. I expect there will be many who disagree with the above, but remember, the ratings only have a range of 1 to 5 and that is to cover every cache on this planet! (plus the one on the space station!)
As promised I have been straight on to the DNPA today and now have the name and direct dial number of the person who is responsible for the “new” guidelines. He is in the office tomorrow and I will be contacting him then.
Welcome clownpunchers to both geocaching and this web site, we are always pleased to have a new member. Obviously we are already trying to sort out the placement guidelines, so keep watching this space.
A couple of other points you raise. I haven’t checked your profile, but I would suggest that you find two or three hundred caches before you place any. That way you will begin to understand what caches are good and what are not. In a rural environment most cachers would like to see fewer micros and nanos (unless they are something a bit different) so best to think about larger caches. Also everybody likes to see quality caches, and cache & dashes don’t often come under that category. I know I am generalising and there will be some who disagree, but generally these caches are best suited to urban and surburban areas where hides are often difficult. No such problems exist on Dartmoor.
The other point you mention is that of Premium Member caches, and once again views differ. My personal view is that they are not necessary except in very special situations and out of my 105 caches I have placed not one is a Premium Member only cache. However,we do suffer a lot in this area and if you want to place caches your probably need to take out a Premium Membership.
Before others moan, I know most of this is off topic. Perhaps I need to set up a new forum for new geocachers and their questions.
You wouldn’t be referring to “cat litter, cans, fag packets, a condom and plenty more” by any chance 🙂
Mark, this topic wasn’t started to point a finger at you, but was already in existence. I get notified of all archived caches (so that I can create the end of year stats) and I noticed that you logged a find every time you archived a cache. I thought this was a very strange practice worthy of note 🙂
Of course it’s a game, but every game has it’s rules and geocaching seems to be a particularly competitive game, so it’s important that everybody plays by the same rules.
I think most people find the statistics really interesting which is why they used to get them put on their profile, but now, of course, it’s all done automatically. I hope to produce an even more complete set of stats at the end of 2012, it will be interesting to see how it compares with 2011, but already we seem to be getting many more caches placed (and presumably found).
Thanks Ernie for your clarification on this, as usual I know that as a cacher yourself you try to help us as much as possible and this is really appreciated.
Interesting that you acknowledge that most folk don’t bother asking for permission and this backs up my guess of 80% who don’t.
I understand that you are not able to negotiate land owner agreements and I will set about tackling this on Monday. Thanks again for your post and ongoing help, it is much appreciated.
Lots of confusion here I know, which I will attempt to clarify with the DNPA. Please copy me in on any relevant emails as that will help and I will feed back any information that I get on to this web site.
The new DNPA guidelines were obviously put together as a combination of the standard Groundspeak rules and the existing letterboxing guidelines. To clarify muddypuddles point above about “all caches” or just “SSSI caches” the Groundspeak guidelines say “You assure us that you have the landowner’s and/or land manager’s permission before you hide any geocache, whether placed on private or public property.” This is nothing new and has just been incorporated into the DNPA guidelines. Both guidelines also say that all caches should be labelled as such and I have seen many recent caches that have no label at all saying they are geocaches.
I would imagine that 80% of caches placed in the UK do NOT have landowners permission, but we were given dispensation from this rule with the previous GAGB land agreement.
Matt, I don’t think you are correct about every cache – after all, haven’t you had several published in the park today? I am sure it’s the SSSI that is significant here.
My own interpretation is that the DNPA didn’t understand the significance of the land agreement with GAGB. They thought they were helping with the guidelines but Groundspeak seem to have other ideas!
This has probably been the most useful topic to date on the forum. My thanks to dartymoor for originally drawing our attention to Greasemonkey and to Tamerton Chocolates for updating us. Has anybody seen any mention of this on the US forums, because although they couldn’t get OS maps, they could certainly get Google maps back.
