Is it time to overturn the wagon?

 I love to geocache. I fell in love with the idea of “treasure hunting” from my dad who loved to read Argosy Magazines in the 1960’s. They were full of adventure and pirate loot stories. He regularly had the Herter’s catalog delivered and I studied the hand-made fishing lures and the possibility of going into the wild just made the pictures that much more exciting.

In November of 2003 I was introduced to the “new” game of Geocaching by Sam Morrow (USMorrows). Sam was the superintendent of the Lab at the Chemical Plant we both worked for and we both recognized each other as computer nerds, something that was fairly odd at the time. In a Plant with 225 people, there were only a few of us that fit this distinction and Sam introduced me to the game. Sam was also one of the 5 original authors of the Texas Geocaching Association that is still active 18 years later. I served on the board for 2.5 years as the SETX Rep. HKK8W1


I want to build a little history here so folks who read my proposal won’t think I’m nuts or are attempting to pervert the game somehow. I will propose some changes Groundspeak could implement and another idea for those of us that actually hide and maintain our caches and I say this with kindness and much deliberation. I’m not particularly happy about the evolution of the game and feel some changes and restrictions would benefit those who play and improve the quality of the game.

Over the last 10 years I’ve either hosted an event, workshop, geocaching 101 class, or hid geocaches to the tune of over 650 caches/events. I’ve released possibly a hundred trackables also. A few months ago I archived the bulk of my caches, leaving only 42 active caches. I went from over 300 active to less than 50 - and NO one noticed. The reason is the huge majority of cachers had already found them. The second reason I believe is few were under a light pole skirt or easy to grab by newbies.

The advent of the Smartphone has caused this directly. Am I bashing technology? Nope, but it is what it is. Little invested, little returned and with a rash of newbies hiding low quality caches and then abandoning them has become almost a geocaching contagion. I cheered our reviewer (Vertighost) when I read a note on a cache they archived and it sated that because of abandonment and no maintenance, the ache was ineligible to be unarchived. Hoorah! Finally some sense.

Back in the day, it was the same message as the Bible in that we needed to populate the earth (with geocaches this time) and anyone could and still can publish a cache without finding one or becoming a premium member. What I am proposing is Groundspeak create a rule that only premium members can hide caches. We no longer need to seed the earth with caches. For the longest time I have advocated hiding a cache only after finding their first 50. I have suggested this many times in geocaching 101 classes and at events. Although most will deny it, but we as a whole have become number greedy to the point that if we don’t find about 30 in a few hours, we feel like we didn’t do so well. This is why many of us do not cache alone. I well remember the excitement of the old days when finding ONE was exciting and yes, being an alpha and not really too concerned, I cached alone. Trust me when I say this cuts way down on your finds and the amount of time at each cache.

I still cache alone for the most part and the old magic is still active.

Proof of number-running is in the multi’s and actual difficult T/D logs. They are dismal when these should be awesome challenges to cachers. Cachers for the most part pass them by (in my own cache experience) in favor of gaining more numbers. Geocaching has either become a social event or a power trail run and this is due to the mass spreading of weak low T/D rated caches.

As I’ve stated in the past, I think the geotours and the Adventure Labs have been ruinous to local geocachers who have many hides. Local cachers have found all my caches and new cachers walk past my caches to go directly to a GT or AL cache, log it, and then walk right past my cache and leave. This is why I archived so many of my caches (I actually check on them and maintain). I also shut down my Adventure Lab series. I am putting my money where my mouth is.

I wanted to see the impact archiving would have and it had - none. The good thing was I began hiding some new ones and sure enough, the veteran cachers responded.
So, my proposal is those of us that see the need to add new life into the game, archive many of our caches. It used to be a big deal to find a cache that was 10 years old. Now? Not so much, so archive them and open the area for new caches/cachers. Wait a few months and if no one takes up the calling, begin adding new improved and better caches. You will be rewarded. http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert/geocache.htm

Chasing Geotour Coins and Swag

 Back a few years ago, my mentor HoustonControl and I set forth to help launch the Baytown Texas Geotour GT7A. Our city has a very friendly tourism department and we are basically a tri-city area that consolidated years ago around the Goose Creek oil field. Our city has a lot of history the Geotour could exploit and the two of us archived our own caches in many cases to accommodate the history and the Geotour.

We were very excited about getting a Geotour and to this day, still support it. Often while the tourism department is away from the city, I maintain and repair the caches needing maintenance and/or restock the containers with city donated swag. In short, the Geotour is a wonderful addition to the +/-500 available caches in this town and surrounding area. We take pride on keeping our caches well maintained.

All of this was stated to bring to light an effect I did not see coming.

Experienced cachers only come to Baytown to do the Geotour, or lately a series of Lab caches whereby they get more swag. This has become so apparent in the last year that my 200+ active caches are almost completely ignored. Very close to one of the Geotour caches parking lot (400 feet) is a large container, letterbox hybrid, and Travel Bug hotel with (at the moment) 14 trackables - BB's HoustonControl Tribute Cache!  GC7Q27B. Very few make the short trek to log it.

The closest geotour cache has been logged 60+ times in 2018 and the TB motel 14 and 4 of those were Baytownians. Here is the crux of the biscuit, as Frank Zappa would say; are we becoming so obsessed with getting a geocoin that we rush past geocaches to earn one? If that is the case, think on this a bit. Where is our geocoin and trackable inventory stored? Mine is in a zippered bag in my closet and weighs about 10 pounds. Lately I’ve been thinking of dropping every single one of them in geocaches, as they have long lost their importance to me.

I spent 3 days in Brenham recently (Birthplace of Texas GeoTour (GT2F) )and concentrated on every geocache I encountered. Many were on the list of the geotour, but guess what? I still need a good number to get the coin. Maybe next year? Maybe not. I had fun and spent time with a number of the local cachers (SockMonkey69 & BlueStarsForever). I wanted to smell the roses in Washington County, not run myself into a Geocoin frenzy.

Am I trying to throw cold water on Geotours, lab caches, and trackable murals? No, I am not. What I am saying is maybe we are playing the game too fast. Maybe running a macro in GSAK to bypass everything to get to point A and B in the most efficient manner is a boo-boo. Should we pursue the Geotour? Yes, but is the coin really all that important to us? It’s not to me. I have a stack of unactivated trackables to give away at my events, but seeing there are so many events now in the Houston area (+/-30) a travel bug will hardly tempt anyone to attend an event 30 miles east of Houston.

I also understand that this appeal is less giggly happy of the usual fare for FTF Geocacher magazine and more food for thought than anything. If those of us who have played this game for many years stop and stare at why we are playing and remember how exciting it was in the beginning, I do believe we would be all be in agreement that chasing a geocoin doesn’t make all that much sense. Most of us when arriving at Geotour #1 are thinking only about #2, #3, #4 (etc) and not how cool the historic location is. Zipping through them like a chainsaw and getting the heck out of Dodge before the sun sets is our driving force. Our oft-published logs are evidence we thought the cache was quite unremarkable.

Am I right or am I wrong? In my city, the Geotour has almost stopped outsiders from hunting the local caches. Now with that said, I have changed tactics on my own cache hides. Right off the bat, I archived over 80 of my geocaches leaving me with 180+ active caches. I redid one series of 10 and another of 29 to kindle interest GC7ZM4V & GC2HQV6 – hopefully. One by one I need to figure out a way to lure people off the “hell bent for leather” attack on the Geotour and get them to look for one of mine or others while here in Baytown, Texas.

I’ve found that if I hide a cache like this one GC7KRVQ - BB's Zombie Head Trip cache! (truly unique and “evil”) – nobody will look for it. If I hide an easy multi, I get the same response. So, what I have to do is make my caches more accessible to newbie’s with low D/T ratings so they can see them with the free App and hope I will light a fire under them to step up. Once this happens, I can send them a note to look over my geocaching primer page: http://ourbaytown.com/baytownbert/geocache.htm

Am I saying I am going to place a slew of low quality LPC-type caches? Nope. I’ll hide them as best as possible, but I will include enough cryptic hints to spark excitement with new and old alike. Just like we did in the old days. No one has to look at the hint if they don’t want to, right?

If everything goes right, they just might become a geocaching powerhouse and I will have contributed to the game big time. Imagine the enjoyment both of us will experience!

.