I figured I'd start this thread since the Garmin GPS thread is a bit full.

Well thanks to that thread, I own a Garmin GPS V now and have gone on a few geocache hunts. It's been a ton of fun so far, and I've gotten 2 friends really hooked on the hunt. So far, I've done 3 completly, and am currently working on a multicache. Unfortunatly the last point is in the Pike National Forest, so I'll have to wait on it. The first 3 were all pretty easy, just the general go here and find it. This multicache one was a bit harder. The first point was a coordinate tag hidden very well if you don't look around carefully. The second one was in braille, so we wrote it down and headed to an ATM .

I've been taking my digital camera with me, and plan on posting pics whenever I finish a cache. It can be seen here: http://www.perilith.com/~drakino/geocache/gallery/

I hope to hit a few more this weekend with a friend or two. Might take a trip up north to see ones located around Denver. The wildfire situation right now sucks due to the amount of caches inaccessable, but it should still make for a fun fall activity.

Me and a buddy of mine tried one the other night, which wasnt the smartest thing to do, not only was it in the Noxubee Wildlife refuge, which if you havent been out there its about 80,000 acres of forest and lakes, and a few other things, well we pull up at as closest as we could get to it, and we dead end with what else, a graveyard, at 12:30 at night on a full moon. That just seemed to me a bad omen, but we carried on about 1/2 mile into the woods through the graveyard but with our one flashlight, it just wasnt workin so we had to turn around. Maybe next time we will wait for daylight and Im not goin to drink so much before we get there.

Cool, a geocache in a spooky graveyard in the middle of the woods. Does it get any better?

Make your return visit on Oct. 31 for maximum effect.

Betcha there's all sorts of spooky stuff in the canister.

I don't get it. What's a cache? And who put them there?

Dizzy boy, Google is your friend:

www.geocaching.com

Geocaching is defintely the coolest.

<rant>
Although recently I tried to hide a cache on Cape Cod in one of my favorite remote spots.
Beautiful view of the ocean and dunes, and a really nice walk to get there.
I submitted the coordinates to geocahing.com and got denied because apparently this location is part of the National Seashore.

Evidently the Dept of the Interior has banned geocaching on all goverment lands.
They dont want to endorse people going off the trails (which apparently is a fine-able offense - who knew) and they say that geocaching may involve "digging" which is definitely not allowed in the parks.
I think it sounds a little paranoid, but I guess thats the government for you.

I could think of a dozen places off the top of my head that would be perfect for Geocaches here in the North East but theyre all on park land. You wouldnt need to go off any trails or hurt any wildlife to find them, and there would certainly be no digging involved.

I used to work for the Park Service in Maine so I got to see first hand how bound up in red tape they are.
They've also had their budget raped so many times over the last couple of years that they are all walking around on eggshells, so I kind-of understand, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
</end rant>

Z~

I almost had a 'Dads Army' flashback then! I could just visualise you clipping him round the ear. If you'd said 'Stupid Boy' it would have been complete.

P.S. Don't know what Dads Army is, have a look at this

But he wasn't being stupid. So I wouldn't have called him that.

Sorry!

Damn, that's pretty cool. Now I'm gonna have to get a gps. What's the neatest thing y'all've found before?

this

But like mentioned above... this one's apparently off limits now. Good thing i went when i did. Pictures are up here.

Yeah, actually I found out that it gets a lot better, when I looked it back up on the site, it says its nothing but a swamp for a couple hundred yards, filled with snakes and spiders, then you get to cross over a creek on a moss covered log, not very scenic like Loren found but someone put some time and effort into putting this thing in the right spot

I think it sounds a little paranoid, but I guess thats the government for you.

Well, this doesn't sound like a case where anyone will be irreperably deprived of life, liberty and/or the pursuit of happiness if the government imposes a blanket policy while (with luck) they assess what the most reasonable policy is.

OTOH, I can think of some alpine meadows in the Olympics, Cascades and elsewhere that might be considered prime geocaching territory, but which are barely sustaining the current level of human activity, so a few of those might be protected from serious harm.

This is probably a policy that will be hard to apply on a case-by-case basis, so if the guvmint's initial policy reaction is a little severe, I think I understand a bit.

And, hell, I thought you could do *anything* in a National Forest!