What does my geocaching hobby say about me?

Geocachers come in every size, color, nationality, gender, and education level which in itself is not peculiar for a hobby. What is peculiar is we all have a strong sense of curiosity mixed with adventure. How else can you explain a 55 year old grandmother in rubber boots and dress wading across a muddy ditch to find a small box in the woods behind a superstore? That is odd behavior considering she's a court reporter or dentist, or professor. What could possibly motivate this normally prim person to step over blown debris, broken glass, through thorns and poison ivy to possibly wander around "back there" for 20 minutes swatting mosquitoes by the hundreds?

Normal hobbyists do not put themselves through this much abuse for so little return. In fact, this woman's husband, who is an avid golfer, sits in the air conditioned car in the back of the parking lot and watches a YouTube golf match while his obsessed wife side-steps a snake 80 feet away. Normal husbands would be worried for her safety. He's just glad she didn't ask him to join her.

When this normally well-coifed lady kicks off her rubber boots and slips back into her heels, she rattles on enthusiastically describing in great detail the container, location, degree of difficulty, and the many hazards she experienced. He looks at her smile and the sticks in her hair and nods. He doesn't see the allure and fascination of the game, but if it makes her happy and he can stay in the car and out of the woods, he is more than happy to go with her.

My observation as to what common traits we appear to have is elusive at best and I pride myself on paying attention to detail. Wait, that is another item we tend to share. We are detail people. I've often wondered why the police departments don't ask geocachers to a crime scene to find out what they see. We not only look, but we see, if that makes sense and the sooner you develop this observation skill, the quicker you will find the containers or boxes.

Here in the Houston area, it appears to be an equal number of men and women who play the game, which I think qualifies as being peculiar. On top of that, most married people play the game sans their mate. That is also odd for a hobby. Geocachers tend to be more outdoorsy than most other hobbyists. Geocachers are the new outdoorsmen, as we spend more time in the woods and out of the way places than hunters. We are more likely to be in some remote place than any other mainstream hobbyists also.

Geocachers appear to have a nerd gene despite all appearances to the opposite. They also tend to talk to themselves when on the hunt. They say stuff like, "The hint says small rock," or "I see you Mr. poison ivy!" They purchase all kinds of stuff and accouterments to aid them caching and then forget to bring it or leave it in the car. Why is this so and why do I still do it knowing it is stupid? There is an unwritten law which states we must forget one important item when we go out caching.

For the most part, geocachers are friendly and like to eat. They are also generous and will share anything at any time. Cachers are opportunists with the hobby always lurking in the background. Otherwise how do you explain our curious tendency to find a cache in the cemetery after a funeral? I clearly remember the first time I did that.

Geocachers have photographic memories of where a cache is located, but can't remember what they ate for lunch yesterday. They point at various locations whenever they travel about town with their muggle mate and announce, "There is a geocache right there," and always get the same silent response. We will jump through hoops to add a souvenir badge to our profile, or dash like a lunatic to get a FTF on a cache. Never mind that it looks idiotic to everyone who doesn't play. "What? You went where at 3:30am to do what?"

I'm omitting a number of the traits that make us a peculiar bunch, but I think its safe to say there is a very common thread that unites us happy adventurists. Maybe you can write me to add them to this list.

So you want to hide a geocache

So you want to hide a geocache

By Bert Marshall (BaytownBert)
Southeast Texas Representative Texas Geocaching Association

I think it is safe to say that after you’ve found a few geocaches you decide it would be awesome to hide one and then watch the thousands of people look for your evil hide.  Of course it will be evil – possibly the most evil geocache ever!  So you grab a thin taco soup plastic container, wrap some expensive camo duct tape you bought for this purpose and bury it under a pile of leaves by a rose bush in front of a super busy business.

You decide it will be a real challenge because the place is open 24 hours a day, so you give it a difficulty rating of 4 and a terrain of 3.5 because the bushes have demonic  thorns.  Figuring out what all is required on the submission page is a hassle, so you leave anything nonessential off and presto, it publishes 2 days later.

However, the day after you hid it the maintenance crews half-destroy your flimsy container and then comes a frog-strangling rain storm.  The FTF geocacher writes a less than flattering needs maintenance log, as the container was not only in terrible shape, the contents were unsignable, and the coordinates were off by 82.5 feet.  Your Smartphone provided the coordinates.

You are floored and seeing that your experience level is so low, you have no idea how to adjust the coordinates on the page or how to post an owner maintenance log.  Your hours at work suddenly keep you from trying to focus on repairing the cache and before you know it, the Reviewer disables and then archives your geocache, as 2TF claims the owner of the business complained. 

This sad scenario happens quite frequently.

I teach geocaching classes and recommend a newbie cacher find a minimum of 50 geocaches before attempting to hide one.  This gives them a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t as far as containers, locations, and camo go.  Geocaching.com has very good instructions on their page about requirements located here: https://www.geocaching.com/guide/  and it is not my intent to cover them in this primer.

I also have a 101 page located here:  http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert/geocache.htm

What I do suggest is contacting an experienced geocacher in your area through their GC.com profile page and asking for help.  You can also attend a local geocaching event and meet other cachers who will gladly assist you.  I’ve been a geocacher since 2003 and own over 300 hides and I have a mentor.  I learn new stuff about the game all the time.

As far as containers go, let me give a couple of pointers.  Hide as large of a container as you can, avoiding nano and micro containers as much as possible.  Forget being sneaky and evil on your first few hides and remember, whatever you hide – you MUST maintain.  The large pill bottles that hold a 90 day supply are awesome free containers that will hold a travel bug or geocoin and can be listed as a SMALL container.  Attach a monofilament fishing line or a wire to the container and then wrap duct tape around it and spray paint it.

After creating the container, you will have to find a place a minimum of 529 feet away from another geocache.  There is a place for this on the submission page and if it passes this test, you are ready to go to step two and make sure you have permission to place it if it is not public land.  Try to pick a cool place for people to visit.  Spend a lot of time figuring this out.  Avoid trashy ugly areas just because they are open.

Next, remember that you must maintain it, so make sure this is not going to be a problem.  That’s another reason to not make the container too elaborate or spend a lot of money on it.  Now let’s say you live down a dirt road and you hide one at the end pretty close to your house.  There are no caches for 10 miles in any direction.  Don’t be disappointed when no one shows up to find it.  Instead hide one every 529 feet and suddenly you have visitors and it’s just as easy to maintain 10 as it is that lone cache.

Pill bottles are also fairly water-proof, so there is no real reason to put the log (you printed off the Internet) in a baggie.  The tether is to keep the container from walking off.  Follow the old acronym K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) for a number of your first caches and as your experience level increases, you will have the confidence to make them more elaborate.

Add a hint to the cache page.  Something like “knee high” or “ground” to help newbies and those of us who just can’t seem to find it.  Leave the hint blank for your future evil hides.  By all means read everything you can on hiding geocaches before you hide one, but know this; you will soon find out what you did wrong.  Probably the first 20 caches I hid, I had to go back and repair them.  Any large heavy duty plastic container will make a good geocache, just insert a heavy-duty freezer bag inside it to water-proof the contents.

Avoid any vitamin bottle, as they neck down, making it difficult to retrieve the log.  Remember that your geo-name will be associated with your hide and protect it by maintaining your geocache.  When you find a trackable, drop it in your own cache and you will see more activity.  The last thing I want to cover is don’t forget that geocaching is a game and by all means have fun.

Geocaching burn-out – it can happen

Geocaching burn-out – it can happen
By Bert Marshall (BaytownBert)
Southeast Texas Representative Texas Geocaching Association

“The old fire is gone, BB.  It just ain’t there no more.  I mean, I still love the game and all, but certain people have said certain stuff… and it hurts.  The events are all the same and I am weary of repairing the same old caches that keep getting muggled or destroyed and now it seems like no one is happy anymore.  Is there a remedy?”

I’ve heard this painful confession a number of times over the last year and I guess it’s time to address it.  Back 10 years or so, the game was played considerably different than it is now and some of the folks feeling this burn-out are the ones feeling it the most, as they’ve been at it the longest.  I know one couple that has 2000 finds they haven’t logged.   They are at a dark place.

Face it, Smart phone Apps have changed everything.  Some of it is good and it is indeed getting better, but initially it was quite a shock to see the online logs appear with nothing on them or published caches that were 150 feet off coords.  Smart phones and the digital age has allowed people to play the game with no more knowledge than the App they see on their tiny screen.

Many of us Vets were slow to embrace the dual technology of Smart phone Apps and our trusty GPSr’s.  Some actually resent the new technologies and those who have joined the game with no regard for old school protocol.  It is important here to note that the majority of newbies coming into the game are just as enthused as we were back 5-15 years ago and that brings us closer to solving the burn-out syndrome.

What has happened for many of us is we have forgot how exciting a FTF is, or discovering a trackable in a cache.  We’ve done it so many times; we simply log both and walk off.  The old “rush” we got is buried deep or forgotten.  A pathtag we find in a cache is pocketed and then discovered in the washing machine later.  We have become geocaching machines.

So, BB, what is the solution?  Quit caching?  Archive all of my caches and start bowling?   Join the Peace corps?  While these options are all honorable, why not simply re-fire?  Why not crank up the old enthusiasm?  Why not develop a plan to get back in the game?

Sounds great, but how?  That’s the ticket isn’t it?  Here is what I do.  I begin visiting my own geocaches and doing maintenance on them.  Believe it or not, I find this as fun as finding caches, I really do.  When I make these runs, I don’t just put a new log in them, I make a decision on whether to change the container to something better.  Sometimes I decide to archive that particular cache and place something new, so local cachers will have something new to look for.

It’s been my experience that when cachers meet too often, they become like families and eventually someone will say something offensive and then bitter feelings develop.  Avoid this at all costs, but if it has happened, put it behind you and move on.  If you’ve been caching a long time, you are a storehouse of knowledge on the game.  Consider hosting a geocaching 101 event.  I promise this is a fantastic way to energize not only you, but those who help you teach.  On top of that, when one of your students blasts off and becomes a productive geocacher, you will feel like a million pathtags!

Somewhere down the many cache trails, we forgot how fun the game can be.  The game IS fun.  It’s a LOT of fun and maybe we need to remind ourselves that those numbers mean nothing.  Bumping your total count by 1000 on a power trail may look impressive to others, but it is in the journey with friends that really make it special.  It’s the journey, not the numbers that count.

Find friends who enjoy your company and go caching together.  There is nothing like caching with friends to kindle the old fires and while we are at it, remember this is just a sweet game and remember to have a good time.