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We have been putting “ticks” on a some of our caches because of this danger. I understand that most insect repellents also deter ticks.
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?
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!
If one finds an archived cache, one should feel free to log it as a find but one should also remove it as it has become geolitter. The argument that it belongs to the CO only serves to convict the CO of littering. The cache should be removed and the log should include a note to the CO to arrange return if wanted.
Intentionally keeping open archived caches could be negating the controlling benefits of the 161 metre rule and may also lead to reviewers asking about archived caches in the vicinity of new ones submitted for review.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!”Reading the rules too pedantically can lead to ridiculous ratings.
We attended a weekend camping event on a nice level site rated 1/5! This was justified because the site was easy to find but special equipment (a tent) was needed!
I’m glad the effects of re-rating were noticed!!!
The cache GC28Q1K illustrates my point about teams. Miss loves puzzles and I do the stupid bits. Neither of us could have completed the cache without the other. Incidently I didn’t use any “special equipment” and would not personally have rated each stage at 5 terrain but the rate is certainly justified for the cache overall.
This difficulty/terrain discussion has been going on for ages!
They are not really very useful because of the numerous inaccurate gradings. A lot of cachers don’t even bother to check them before looking for the cache.
Some people find puzzles easy and others don’t so should the rating be set low if the cache owner is good at them or should they recognise that others will find them hard. Similarly caches up trees are easy for some and not for others. I like climbing trees so would tend to rate them way below 5 but others find them impossible. Some of our caches have been made easier by finders thus making a mockery of our rating
However most of us cache in a team of some sort and in most teams there is a good puzzle solver and a competent tree climber. In some cases the problem solver stays at home while the nutter goes out for the cache. Other teams even recruit extra members for specific caches. How can one possibly assess the D/T rating for a cache being sought by a team?
I have discussed this with Miss and she has over-ruled me but my suggestion was that we should re-rate all our caches at 1/1½. All our puzzles have at some stage been found after some help from us or by cachers who have been given the puzzle solution by others. Puzzle solution sharing is rife! Lots of cachers have claimed finds, and therefore filled in high terrain boxes in the grid, which they could not possibly have reached by themselves.
The laugh is that if we did that, some empty spaces would appear on some peoples grids!We too wanted to find 100 caches in a day to meet the challenge.
Challenges are set so that other cachers can enjoy meeting them. We have set several ourselves and hopefully they have been enjoyed by their finders
This is not everybodies idea of what caching is about but in our caching we like to indulge in a little bit of everything.
Some challenges are easy and so is this one. We found our 100 in under 3 hours and this included 2 DNFs.
Why on earth would anybody ever want to adopt an archived cache? If it was that good one could put a cache with an identical description (even an identical puzzle) in the same place in one’s own name!
If the owner has lost interest in a cache it should be marked “needs archiving” so that the reviewer is alerted to the problem.
When a cache has been archived it is reasonable to treat it as geo-litter and remove it from the countryside. One could, if one felt that one had committed a criminal act, e-mail the owner to seek instructions for its disposal or return!
We do try to practice what we preach. A good cache is worth preserving and therefore worth adopting. (All caches in a gorse bushes are good!!!) However if the cache is a traditional one and just consists of a box under a boulder it’s best to archive and free the location for a new cache. The new cache may even have some interesting information in its notice or an intriguing puzzle. In any case a new cache will encourage cachers who have already found the original to visit the place again.
Not all caches are worth preserving. We have adopted three caches and they have all been puzzles and would have taken more but they had already gone.
We all know that caches shouldn’t be in dry stone walls. When submitting a new cache we tick a box to say that we understand the rules etc!
Not long ago a cacher became well known to us all by making a bit of a stir when a cache didn’t meet the Dartmoor Letter Boxing Criteria. For a while this had the right effect. We should all do this all the time. What we need to do is not just record the fault in the log but to place “needs maintenance” or even “needs archiving” notes on the cache. This will eventually alert the reviewer who can then insist on corrective action being taken.
ie Don’t bleet but make a proper noise!
Of course it’s about the numbers.
If it wasn’t we would just go for a walk without the frustration of not finding a cache or the dubious pleasure of sticking one’s hands into wet muddy holes under rocks etc. Broken glass, adders and beer cans could all be avoided if we weren’t chasing numbers
To produce meaningful comparisons or rankings there would have to be a simple system for grading caches, such as equating a cache’s value to the sum of its difficulty and terrain ratings, so that a true comparison can be made. Caches hidden would have to be included, being graded similarly. This would reflect the time put into the hobby for the benefit of others. Of course only live caches would count, the value of archived caches being deducted. The result of any artificial upgrading of one’s own caches would be negated by the enhancement of everybody else’s scores.
The joy of a system like this is that it could be done using the existing information held by groundspeak.
Must stop so that I can get back to logging some caches I haven’t found yet!
No they are not dead!
We have eleven challenge caches out there and none of them have a time qualification to them.
What is far more worrying to me is the fact that if a cache is made too “challenging” (such as to find 50 earth caches) it will not be accepted unless it is watered down (to 30 earth caches) to make it more “readily available” to most cachers.
Three of our more recent challenges caches had to be published as rather pathetic unchallenging mid-achievement levels to meet the reviewer’s idea of the meaning of the word “challenge”.We currently have forty five puzzle caches out there. They cover a wide range of puzzle types including encryptions, maths problems, embedded details in the notices and ones requiring information from reference sources. They are of course intended for those cachers who like solving puzzles as well as going out and finding caches. There are plenty of caches that don’t require any intellectual activity for those that don’t like puzzles.
After a cache has been found for the first time we are very happy to help any cacher with a clue or two to help solve one of our puzzles. We are fully aware that there are several cachers who seem to like giving away the answers/locations. We have to accept that this is part of the game in the same way that there are cachers who cannot physically reach some caches but get others to “find” them. Usually if cachers are in a group and one has solved a puzzle all members of the group will record a find in the same way that only one of the group need climb a tree.
If some cachers think that the numbers are so important that they need to “cheat” that is up to them but it would be nice if they attributed in their logs any help received.Mark, since you found nine of Dartmoor Dave’s Caches on 4/6/12, it would help if you said which you thought were overated. You may well be right but it is difficult to judge!
Having been led to the Coffin Stone by my little friends I am now qualified to comment on it. I am still wondering from which angle it looks like a coffin because I couldn’t see the resemblance. The difficulty rating may be a little too high but the terrain rating is about right certainly no higher.
I think “Was my Coffin stone Cache the first you ever found, if it was very well done! Were you the First To Find it?” is proof that we did get you!
Pity you have to spoil it by telling the whole world who the witch and wizards are!
I look forward to reading your find logs for GC3FG93, GC3FW2C & GC3FMQH.
I could only accept the Station Masters comment about 5 terrain on Dartmoor if he had found GC28Q1K and also thought it wasn’t a 5.
There is at least one Dartmoor cache worthy of its 5/5 and that is Muddypuddles GC28Q1K, Great Scientists: Albert Einstein. At the time I rated it as 15/15 but that was mean’t to be a joke!
Normally if I can climb it at my age its terrain rating cannot be a 5. I have done a 5/5 which I would have rated 2.5/2.5 the only equipment needed being a torch and it could be found without even looking at the puzzle to work out where to go.
On a serious note, I agree with Dave’s comments on this subject except for his interpretation of the length of time it might take to find caches of the various ratings. I am too impatient to look for much over 15 mins.Dave, Thank you.
As a return gesture we are “de-premiuming” Prominent Feature!
I’ll buy you a drink on 29 Feb at the Royal Oak! The Goodwill will never cease!
I recently found GC3AV2T, Blacklane Brook. I needn’t have worried because the co-ords were spot on but as I approached the area my heart sank at the thought of feeling under the thousands of rocks in the area without a hint or spoiler. I am always wary of feeling under rocks. You never know what you will find. Broken bottles, jagged half crushed drinks cans, poly bags full of whatever and adders. Even with a spoiler it can sometimes be difficult to find the right hole but at least you only need to chance one hole.
My view is that hints and spoilers should be on the cryptic side, even amusing. They should add to the caching experience. They should not be there to make the cache easy.
Wow!!
I went out hashing in the Devon Great Consols (Europes Largest Copper Mine) area at 1900 last night and have only just caught up with this lot
It would have been better if the wise men had been guided in the first place!
As far as I’m concerned the matter now rests with the reviewer. In the meantime the cache owner can make these challenges achievable.
I make no aplogies for introducing the rules to all players.
Dave, if you had followed the rules and published when you were ready there wouldn’t have been a problem. We have had several caches rejected by reviewers, we have lost some because of abuse by other cachers and we have even archived one because another cacher particularly wanted to use a rearby site. We have to follow the rules in all walks of life whether we like it or not. I didn’t write the rules and I don’t like them all but geocaching just won’t work if we only follow the rules we like and disregard the ones we don’t. By the way I did let you know my objection before going to the reviewer and you could have taken the hint and disabled the two caches yourself until they were ready.
Oh Dear must we get so picky?
See GC2z3JG & GC221BN and you will see that this challenge is currently achievable. There are many local cachers with only one day [29 Feb] to complete.
I see that someone is very quick to make assumptions without evidence. We have hiden 129 caches or events, well over 50 being in the National Park. They include traditionals, multis, puzzles, challenges events and earth caches. Unlike Wenglish who has found over 500 and hidden how many.
I am the one who contacted the reviewer about these two caches. I am not ashamed of it as my intention was eventually improve caching everywhere (not just Dartmoor). I regularly cache on Dartmoor and have more caches there than most.
I believe that caches should be hidden in accordance with the rules. At the time these two were published they did not. They should not have been published until it was possible to achieve them. They are only disabled and will probably be enabled when possible. I did give my objections to Dave before contacting the reviewer but he refused to accept the rules had been contravened.
What I sent to the reviewer was:-
“ I have strong objections to two new challenge caches on Dartmoor. They are Dartmoor Dave’s ‘Dartmoor Mega Challenge’ (GC3BGYA) and the ‘Dartmoor Minor Challenge’ (GC3BJJF).
“Para 3 of the rules for challenge caches, to which you referred us the other day, states
“’Challenge cache owners must demonstrate that there are sufficient available caches to meet the challenge at the time of publication. Reviewers may ask the cache owner to demonstrate that they have previously met the challenge and/or that a substantial number of other geocachers would be able to do so.’
“I note that this is a rule, that it should always be followed and that it is not modified by the further ten points to be considered. There are not enough caches available for these two challenges to be met. No 5 of the additional points prevents the use of the argument that, instead, one could hide a cache in a square that does not already have a qualifying cache in it.
“When I pointed out to ‘Dartmoor Dave’ that his new challenge cache did not meet the criteria in that it did not comply with para 3 he replied “I have had lots of discussion with the reviewer on this cache before I went to all the trouble and a huge amount of time (most of this week) putting this cache together. He was involved at the very start and has asked me to make several changes to it already, which I have done. Originally it was going to be about 250 squares, which he wouldn’t accept, for the reason you have mentioned. We both agreed that 70 squares was achievable by almost all cachers. Most of the squares are readily accessible by road and only a few are truly remote. He was happy that this did meet the criteria.”
“His insistence that only caches published this year and the exclusion of premium only caches ensures that the challenge is not currently possible. It seems to me that this aspect has not been taken into account at all.
“When I pointed out that these two caches contravened the rules his reply was “The reviewers will tell you that these are only guidelines and not hard and fast rules. The bits they seem to interpret as “rules” are the numbered points below those paragraphs, and we meet all of those.” This surely is exactly the opposite of what should be the case.
“If the object is to increase the number of caches on Dartmoor then a separate challenge cache for each square would have an even greater effect and could be published square by square as the required caches became available.”
Stephen Hughes [Hobo]
Archiving and Care and Maintenance of Caches
Many of us carry out small repairs to caches as we go about our normal cache finding trips, most often putting in a dry log. Sometimes it is not the best solution in the case of problem caches.
If a cache has been neglected for a long time and its owner appears to have moved on, it should be archived unless there is a strong reason for keeping it. The advantage of archiving is that the location or its area is then freed up for someone else to hide a cache. A disadvantage of someone adopting a cache is that people who have already found it cannot find it again but if replaced by a new cache we are all encouraged to go to the place again. Caches should only be adopted if there are strong reasons for doing so such as a particularly good hide or puzzle. I would quote our adoption of Spannerman’s “Conspiracy Theory” as a good example of this.
The main danger of encouraging others to maintain caches is that they are tempted to “improve” them. We have had caches completely ruined by one or two well intentioned cachers who thought they should “improve” them. We have also been very grateful to those who have replaced logs.
On a different topic, how many of us “find” our own caches? If this is an acceptable practice we could add 120 to our score instantly!!
Please continue this new discussion here.
