Moab Memories - Saturday Morning

This last week my family and I headed down to Moab.  We were heading down to the Utah Geocachers Association fall meeting, and to spend some time in a place I have never been. 

Ok, I have to take the time to admit to the world that I am from Southern Utah.  I grew up two hours from Bryce Canyon national park, and I was only two and a half hours from Arches national park.  My high school used to compete with Moab in many sports.

Yet in all my life (well that I can recall) I have never been to Moab. We got close, every year we went to Lake Powell.  Also I saw a lot of red sandstone at my home.  So it was just never on my list of things to do.  As I got older, I just found other places to visit, many people took trips down there and I never did.  So it was about time.

I was exited when Moab came up as an option and I pushed for it for two reasons.  The first was the chance for me to go there, and the second was that UTAG had never had a meeting there.  It was time to go see another place.

I thought for a while I might be going alone, there was some waffling on the part of me and my family.  In the end we decided to go.  Actually it was pretty late, two days before we committed to go.  That also meant that we needed to reserve a room.

Gah, just for your information, do not try and get an inexpensive hotel room in a tourist town a few days before you plan on going.  So we found a place an hour away in Green River.

We headed down to Green River Friday night and crashed at the motel.  The kids went to the swimming pool and I crashed.  :P Long day, a few hour drive, some people love those things, i don't.

Dino Track

Goal #1 - Dino Tracks

I did not want to spend the entire day driving, so I tried to schedule things with a stop here and a stop there.  The geocaching event/lunch was not until noon, so we had some time.

The first stop on the adventure was to the Copper Ridge Dinosaur Tracks.  This was actually one of the early Earthcaches that were published in Utah.  I had seen it on a map for a number of weeks, and it was on my list.  Isn't a dinosaur track one of things every kid wants to see?

Well this was one that I was sure the kids would like. We left the highway and headed off road to the cache site.  We were in the car and it took a little bit of work to drive around the ruts in the sand from the recent rains, but we made our way to the trailhead.  The hike up to the cache site was pretty easy to make.

The kids got exited when we got to the site. You could find the actual tracks pretty simply.  People had taken small stones and surrounded the actual tracks.  They spent a lot of time poking around, and we walked a bit up the trail until we got the nice sign saying "Stay out of old mines, they are radioactive".  So we headed back.  It was a nice start to the day.

Wilsons Arch

Goal #2 San Juan County

San Juan county of course.   Actually not just the county but I needed to grab Wilsons Arch.    The arch is right by the side of the road.  Of course the trip to Moab from Green River is normally 45 Minutes.  We turned it into a three and half hour drive with the few stops. This was the first arch that we saw for the day, but it would not be the last of them.  I took a walk up into the hill nearby, then took a moment to snap some photos.  the light was not actually very good, but I got the information that I needed.

Goal #3 Virtual and a TraditionalMy Daughter waiting for us to return for the hunt through the weeds.

Yep I had to grab another cache while on the day. Actually a few caches.  The first was at a home that had been carved out of the canyon side.  At first I thought it would be stupid to build a home in the stone, until I thought how it may always keep it a little cooler than a house.  So to each their own.  The cache was called Holes N the Ground.   Then around the hill to a traditional cache.  That one did not turn out as well as I thought.  The walk was a ways through the weeds and I found the wrong way. 

Goal #4 - Event

My favorite part of most caching days is the event.  I am a social person that drives my kids nuts.  I took all the coins that I had mine and many that lyonden_ut had given me a while back. 

He gave me many of his coins on the condition that I made sure that I take them to events and share them with other people.  So here they came.  There were about 15 that were given to me from him, and I have about 150 to 180 coins by now, and I have a bunch of pathtags.  I seem to get one or two every month on average.  I need more containers to share them with, I have a few books that make them easy to share, they are far easier than the plastic sheets.  I used them and I seem to drop them all over and loose them.  So I moved to the other books, they hold them better.

That is it for the morning.  I will write up my arches trip all by itself.

The Washknight Interrogation

Oh the horror of it all

At the request of Washknight and his blog http://washknight.wordpress.com  I was asked to do a survey and answer a few questions.   So here I go.

1. When and how did you first get into geocaching? 

I wandered around finding the few in my neighborhood. Then i got more and more exited.  I dove in and went nuts.  Every little micro was a new adventure.  In fact i found 130 caches in my first month.  I think I had a dozen hides at that point as well.  Getting the logs from cachers was a bigger thrill than the find.   I still think so.  I hate with a passion the logs that are TFTC, and even more the ones that say "I will log more later".  I have 250 active hides, so I do not go through every cache page to read my logs.  I read every email i get with a log, so if they post something like what I mention above I do not go back and look.

2. Do you remember your first find? 

Yes It was a tenth of a mile from my house.  It is gone now, but I remember hunting two or three times for the cache that was hidden in a guardrail.  yep.  http://coord.info/GC17484 Who would have though that someone could hide something in such an amazing and original place.  At the start everything was cool.  I was using the piece of crap Magellan Triton.  Quite possibly the worst GPS ever made.  Ok, lets be honest.  It was the biggest POS that anyone ever thought of making.  Constantly crashing, it would freeze, and I had to unscrew the back, then pull the batteries, then put them back in.  It froze every hour, at least.  About one in twenty times, it would loose all the data it had when it rebooted.   What garbage.  I just started to like them again as a company until they fired a friend.  The guy that traveled the country and sold them to people at mega events.  So I hate them again.

3. What device(s) do you use for locating caches? 

Android phone and Garmin Oregon 400.  I only drag the Oregon out for bigger trips. I load all the caches in an area on my phone now.  So I do not usually use anything else.  I have used three or four apps.  My first app was c:geo.  Like so many I dove into that.  However I hated when groundspeak updated the site c:geo broke.  Not because of groundspeak, but because the writers of c:geo were to stubborn, and refused the use the API (the quick and easy groundspeak connection).  I found myself out and about and could not load the cache.  They blamed groundspeak, I knew better, and decided that they were crap.  So I jumped to geosphere, cachesense, and eventually found my way back to the official app.  I did not need all the bells and whistles.  Most apps were like jumping in a rental car, there are a thousand buttons, switches, safety features, but in the end i just need something that gets me from point A to point B. The extra stuff was stuff I did not care about.

4. Where do you live and what is your local area like for geocaching? (density / quality / setting etc)

The area is very cache heavy. 18000 caches with 100 miles of my home.  Tons of micros and a number of small power trails.  I love the variety.  There are a ton of Letterboxes, a number of wherigo, many puzzles of all types, challenges for those that want them, and very few multicaches.  Stupid multis, I hate them almost as much as I hate puzzles.  Early on in my reviewing someone accused me of cheating on a puzzle, every since then I have dispised them, it took the fun out of solving them. So I rarely do them anymore.

5. What has been your most memorable geocache to date, and why?

My most memorable is Freedom  Cache Page I took the drive myself and I hunted for the cache by myself and on a great day. The cache was a great surprise, and huge.  I love the work, and I was very impressed that he could drag it clear up the hill.  It had to have weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. 

6. List 3 essential things you take on a geocaching adventure excluding GPS, pen and swaps. 

Camelback backpack, crazy ideas, and the stupidity to get me into some horrible spots (see later description).  Actually I will change that last one, the intelligence to get me out of the horrible spots my stupidity got me into.

7. Other than geocaches and their contents, What is the weirdest thing you have discovered whilst out caching? 

A lady drowning in a river.  Provo Canyon Drive By

This one was an adventure. There was a police officer that just wrote a ticket next to it. I went over anyway and took care of it. Then as he drove off I could hear someone shouting down at the river. It got louder and louder before I realized it was some girl screaming help over and over. I ran off the hill over the tracks and scrambled bushwacking through the mess till i could see her. She had lost her tube and was hanging onto a fallen tree. She was cold, tired and in a panic. I went in and dragged her back to the bank. Just then her friends showed up, and were struggling to get from the other side of the river over to her. They had either been upstream or had walked up from below where they had waited for her. Mostly she was cold, tired and panicked. but it made for a wet day of caching.

or my next one... Slappa da Bass

You suck.. I hate this cache.. It was truly the spawn of some evil multi legged devil spawn and Satan. There were thistles about to poke my delicate skin. Evil little weeds that imbedded themselves in my sweet silky smooth socks, that would poke me and distract me from my search. Wire with rusty barbs to injure me as I performed my assigned task at this location.

Then As I was about to leave I rolled over the clever disguise that was camouflaging the container. The lid was slightly askew. As I removed the cache aaahhhhhhh, a spider fled from the confines of the wee container and ran up my arm. The container flew across the fence and into a nice patch of thistles. After I completed my "anti-spider dance" I began my quest to retrieve the container. In the process I spilled blood, was stabbed by vile sock weeds, and thistles, only to have to return across the devil wire fence that I mentioned above.

When I opened the container again.. Aaaaaaaaahhhh. It was full. Not of stamps and logs, but a spider home. Not just any spider home, but the spider home of momma spider (that obviously had fled). However inside that wee container was a conglomeration of webbing to protect the mass of wee spiders that proceeded to flee in all directions. By all directions I meant all over me. Masses of wee spiders crawling about my shirt, hands and gps.

Once again the anti spider dance was done in earnest. I took the wee container to the back of my truck and grabbed a handy brick to mash the spiders, pull out the log, stretch it out, clean off the webbing of the vile creature, and then clean out the cache that had previously been the home of the demon arachnids.

As I was carrying it back, a couple more spiders apparently had taken to hiding from my brick by going under the container. They now scattered up my arm, and once again the anti-spider dance was performed.

I know now that this was a trap, Cold1 had to have placed the spiders there breeding and multiplying, waiting for my eventual arrival. #*&$ you cold1, I will hunt you down, and gut you like a fish. Only you could have thought up something as devious as this. And all I have ever done is been kind to you.

Other than that, this is was an everyday simple cache.

8. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is I am obsessed by numbers and 10 is I am all about the experience and the quality of each individual cache. Where do you put yourself?

Shouldn't the higher number be obsessed about the numbers?  lol  I average in the middle, right now I am more about places and cool spots.  I found 1000 caches last year, I am guessing a few hundred this year.  I just have no desire to hunt for a bunch of micros .  A lot of it has to do with my vehicle. I have no real desire to drive a truck around and park in front of places, or on little pull outs to grab caches.  It is also just that I do not have as much interest in everyday caches.   I am hunting for stuff that interests me.

9. Describe one incident that best demonstrates the level of your geocaching obsession. 

Hunting for a cache multiple times.  I refused to get a hint because i thought it would me more satisfying if i found it on my own.  New people were finding it, I could not.  I finally caved in and asked another cacher for a hint.  I spent a year going through that.  I still feel foolish for asking.  I should have stayed strong.  I am weak, and a looser. I will be strong next time.

10. Have you picked up any caching injuries along the way? Scrapes and scratches. 

I sprained an ankle so bad, i was sure that I had broken it.  I was alone, and it hurt so bad it brought tears to my eyes on the 500 foot walk to the truck.  It hurt so bad my vision went black for a moment.  Good night that was awful.  I am having phantom pains just thinking of it.  I sometimes get phantom pains thinking of Cold1, I am sure everyone has heard of him.  He is a friend and a local nutter.  If he reads this.... stop following me, and i can see you outside in the bushes, don't make me have my dog attack you again. He is my biggest caching injury.

11. What annoys you most about other geocachers?

• Micro Logs
• Cache thieves
• Liars
• Fake logs
• People who complain about a cacher cheating then cheat themselves. 
• If you have found 5000 caches it does not mean you are better than the cacher with 500.
• Bad hair
• Crappy crappy containers.
• Not fixing caches when i warn them, then being mad when I archive them for not taking care of the cache in a month.
• Sending vulgarity laced emails.  It does not make me want to publish your cache when you call me a F^&*(*&  A$%&*()
• Those that cannot follow the rules, and then say, "never mind I will publish it on another caching site."  That is fine if you do not want any visitors, but i place my caches to be found. 
• Trackable hoarders
• Coin thieves
• The freaking moron that took my trackable, hauled it into a wilderness area and placed it in a new cache, got it denied for being well within a wilderness area, then refused to go pick up my trackable because he was mad at the reviewer.  What a douche.  Sorry, I am getting mad again typing this. 
• Stalkers
• People that make long lists about what annoys them

12. What is the dumbest thing you have done whilst out caching?

One of two things.  I was with Jac0b and we saw a cache only a half mile away.  We said "how hard could it be"  We had two water bottles.  Two hours later we finally found the cache, an hour after that we were so exhausted from climbing the mountain ridges we separated over a dispute of what would be easier to get back to the jeep, straight over the mountain, or down the draw (the correct answer was my way, it was the longer route through the draw)  we were out of water, and exhausted in the hot summer sun.  I thought my life was over, I saw the ending.  What a miserable walk back.

Second, was saying yes to groundspeak.  Proves i am not smart.  To make it worse I did it three times. See how dumb i am.  ok I do not regret my decision, but It was not the brightest thing.  "Hey would you like to review caches in Utah?  It will take an hour or two a night, not to mention maintenance checks."  Then later, "would you like to review EarthCaches?"  why of course i would, that would be lovely.  "Oh would you like to be a moderator in the forums"  ........How hard could it be.  It has been a great experience but a ton of work. I did get a plastic trackable paperweight/trophy for my five year anniversary of reviewing, ok, well it said it was for my five year anniversary, but they sent it a year early.

13. What do your non caching family and friends think of your hobby? 

They think I am nuts.  My 20 year old kids just think I am stupid.  However that may not have anything to do with caching, just that I am crazy.  I was not so bright and when I took them to their first cache it was a lamp post, and the second, and the third.  I should have stopped when I was ahead.

14. What is your default excuse you give to muggles who ask what you are up to or if you need help? 

I pretend I am taking pictures.  No one cares about that.   I often have my DSLR with me. Give someone a camera, and if it looks like they are doing artsy stuff people leave them alone.  I can also bring Cold1 with me.  He mumbles and twitches.  He is just crazy enough people stay away from him, or he chases them away and I have the area free.

15. What is your current geocaching goal, if you have one? 

• Stay alive.
• Don't fall over and pass out from exhaustion
• Avoid Cold1 more
• Publish more caches
• Review for at least 10 years
• Not make Jeremy or Bryan hate me. (sorry about beating you at bowling soo badly, of course no one noticed because there was food in the back) but I noticed.  I took a picture as proof, but it was fuzzy, honest I did win by a lot.
• Get a moun10bike version 1 coin, actually any would be good.  If he turns his head i will slip out the back with 001 if he is not looking.
• visit HQ
• say hi to all the Volunteer team that I annoy
• Get Challenges as a cache type.  I keep trying.
• Did I mention cold1?  Stop him from living under my porch, or in my bushes.
• Are these caching goals?  close enough
• Get a few other coins that mean something to me. Dhobby1, a few of the older lackey coins.

16. Do you have a nemesis cache that despite multiple attempts you have been unable to find?

Cold1, oh wait a cache not a cacher.  Yes, one near me.  I hate it, once again i refuse to have hints.  So I will not say what it is, someone will spoil it and give me a hint.

17. What 3 words or phrases best sum up what geocaching means to you. 

Adventure, sightseeing, friends.

18. What prompted you to start blogging about geocaching?

First was to vent, in a constructive way.  I was reviewing, and was frustrated with the cachers that never listened.  Hopefully someone learned someone.  Then to make me happy.  Oh to make fun of Cold1.  To record and share fun experiences.

19. Which of your own blog entries are you most proud of. 

/journal/2011/10/23/how-to-annoy-your-geocache-reviewer.html  is my favorite entry.  It is the common things people do to annoy their reviewer.  Some have no idea that they even do it.

The other is not really a blog page but a list of the oldest active caches, and a map people can use to zoom in on them, and see their location.  /oldest-active-geocaches/  it recieves about half of all the hits on my site.  I am always happy when i hit the forums and someone asks and someone else links to it.  It makes me feel that i am contributing.

20. Which other geocaching blogs do you enjoy reading? 

I followed more at one time. Most stop blogging, and  others drive me nuts.  I feel some are out there to toot their own horn, I guess some may say that of me, but if it is too bad I stop for a while. 

http://geocass.wordpress.com/ geocass is the one I read regularly, and the other is Udink udink.org  he is the single best photographer, cacher, hiker in my area.  I love to read of his adventures.  Less caching than he used to, but still a lot of fun to read and see his awesome pics. oh and groundspeaks blog.

Hopefully that works.

Kokopelli Caches

So we made our way to the kokopelli in southwestern utah.   It was a good day after the event, and fun.  We grabbed our group of 16 to start the day, and the trip and began the walk.  I am guessing 8-9 miles, but I could not be certain. 

The hike was good, and for fun I decided to have some fun with my logs.  Here they are.

The Book of TFTC - Chapter one
1 In the beginning was the search, and the search was good. The hunters did gather forth from the corners of the state to begin the search.
2 The search was began with sixteen souls. Sixteen brave souls did step forth in the the waist land, moving among the trees and cactuses to search for their glory in the desert.
3 On this day the sun was bright did beat down upon the cachers that did venture forth. The heat was light as they moved, the righteousness of their cause did lift them up and give them strength.
4 Verily the sixteen did move amongst the plants of the desert. Before the journey in a land far away commandments for the safety of the hunters were given. Thou shalt not wear shorts, for the plants of the desert shall cause thee great pains. Thou shalt avoid all plants, for the plants in this wasteland will cause you great damage, and harm. Thou shalt carry food and water for your trip. And thus where the commandments given, and shared amongst the travelers.
5 But some did ignore the commandments that were given, yea even as the trek did begin it was regarded that the commandment banning the shorts was broken. Many stood before the group, their white legs did shine forth in the afternoon sun, blinding all that did behold them. Yea, looking directly at the legs did bring great pain and agony to those that stood about.
6 Soon thereafter the second commandment was broken. Yea rootiesart did wander directly into the plants of the desert. Yea, and having ignored the first commandment she did fall amongst the plants, and did cause great damage and blood did gush forth from the legs that were not covered from the plants and sun that existed in the desert.
7 And we did travel forth unto the eye. We moved into the great center, or at least in that direction. For the eye did call us, but after finding the eye, and seeing ourselves within its gaze we did travel forth into the caches that were around us on all sides.
8 After the travails amongst the eye the party did once again travel through the desert waist land, and upon a great search did discover the next cache.
9 And Saint Desart raised the cache up on high, saying, 'Oh, Lord, bless this thy cache that with it thou mayest blow thy enemies to tiny bits,
in thy mercy.'
10 And the Lord did grin, and people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats. Yet they did travel forth accross the land in their quests.
11 And it came to pass after time I did cry forth unto my people. Yea the journey had been exceedingly easy, and had brought great delight amongst us. Yea it seemed unto me that it was far too easy of a journey for my people, so I did cry unto them to repent their wicked ways and leave the head and travel unto the flute. For the ways of the righteous are difficult and only through such trials can we know our own strengths.
12 And after a time they came to their point of decision, but there were wicked among them. Yea those that did not believe that did not think they they should continue down the flute. yea, hold to the iron flute and let it give strength. Yet they did look forth, and saw much swimming, eating and feasting in the great houses to the NE. Some did continue on determined to prove their strength and leave the head to the flute, while other did wander into the wilderness to perish in their unbelief.
13 And thus did the lords people travel forth. Depending upon the arm of the lord to give them strength in the desert. They did morn the passing of those that did leave unto the comforts of the wicked one.
14 And thus did nine travel south. Some visibly shaken to be left alone. The number dwindling, and many miles yet to be traveled. Yet those that traveled south were strong, and the song of the desert did give them courage.
15 Thus we did continue, diminished in number but strong in the force. Powerful we were, and who stumbled upon us would fear.
16 Thus we reached the end of the flute. Though we could have done more, our paths did need to leave the flute. For we needed to start the return, and it would be long.
17 And we did travel forth unto the sunny land of Nador we were forced to eat Robin's minstrels. And there was much rejoicing
18 A year passed. Winter changed into Spring. Spring changed into Summer. Summer changed back into Winter. And Winter gave Spring and Summer a miss and went straight on into Autumn. Until one day...
19 We did look for the cache, in many manners of location. We did find a ziplock under a small rock on a larger rock. We were discouraged by the wicked ways of others, thus we did shake our heads at those who had gone before. Thus we did determine to replace this cache with another, and there was again much rejoicing.
20 Though some continued in a silent pain, not sharing with others, we did move forth. It now appeared that we were making progress, and there was happiness amongst the people of the band.
21 And so we moved to the west. Looking towards the distance. Avoiding the dangerous plants, and problem that were in our path
21 The excitement of the band was growing, we were getting happy as we realized the northern trail was almost upon us.
22 And so we did arrive at our south western goals. The faces were brightened as they realized we would be turning north, to the vehicles.
23 We did move forth with a bounce in our step, onward and upward. Even the light uphill did not dampen our spirits and we rejoiced.
24 The lines of the hunters for the caches were stretching. Now a finder got to the cache and started signing it. However the cachers that finally caught up were left as we moved on. No rest for the wicked.
25 Thus we did move upwards, we had a celebratory dance as we approached the half way point today. We celebrated the joy of the day.
26 And the group of nine did travel north. We were working hard at making progress. Yea, but we were slowing, the power of the sun was driving us down.
27 Thus we were traveling to the north. slowly working at the upper part of the arm and body.
28 Thus we come to the end, we did cry forth to the youth that we were half way, bringing cheer to their miserable little lives.
29 We reached the end here, and people rejoiced as they realized we were as far west as we would make this trek. Thus we celebrated, and I enjoyed an apple.
30 And we did become less. We did chase for two more of the unbelievers from among us. Casting them forth into the desert to travel alone.
31 Thus did we become the group of seven. Our number dropped. Sadness fell upon us for those that were lost.
32 There was weeping at this point, the many younger of us were sad that we were returning to the east. They had not realized that we had not gotten those.
33 The weeping and wailing went on behind us as we traveled to the SE. Cries for the pain and sadness that overwhelmed them made it more vocal unto us and our travels.
34 Oh the pain, the sadness we crossed the deep wash in the wastes. but we gained strength as we went forward.
35 We did leave those behind us. The younger ones realized that though their elders moved forward they would need to return, as the caches they sought were now behind them.
36 And we were at the end, well the end of the southeast and the south. No more would we walk south, we were strong and did cheer for ourselves.
37 And we did walk far. Yea we now walked a half mile, the longest single non cache walk of the day. For we were now too far south and needing to head to the north
38 The arguments about the hair did continue and go on. This was getting close to where we had to make a decision. How do we not knowing the wisdom of the hider, determine how to do the hair.
39 We now did travel north to the tip of the hair. We did walk through the bush and heard a voice from the heavens or from behind us mocking us in our quest. We had passed this one, though it was not the goal.
40 Thus begins the end. We did see the pain. The younger ones would complain about the jumping back and forth in the hair.
41We Wept
42 Sobs were heard, some had great pains and bleeding feet, I myself had my knee begining to pain me. Lo the pains of the journey was wearing on us.
43 We know we were tired as people could not walk straight. Even Nickum walked into a Joshua tree. Slapping him and teaching him to break the commandments set forth at the start of the journey.
44 The wandering north and south was getting too much. Knees, feet, legs, of all were bringing sorrows to the crew.
45 Thus we did notice the sun did come forth from behind the clouds. The temperature rose from 70s to high 70's. Curses were muttered and we did murmur in our sufferings.
46 I had a view of the trail ahead. Many cried in their sufferings for the cars, but no sight of them could be seen.
47 The last puzzle on the list. I did not make it there, as I approached the others were completing and moving back towards me. Great cries of joy did spring forth from me as we moved forward.
48Truly we were rejoicing. This was on the way back.
49 We returned to the last few caches. And happy to arrive.

Crappy Swag, Stolen Geocoins, and the Micro Spew

Working in the forums I have seen two threads repeated over and over.  In every local geocaching group they pop up, and in discussions at times.

The older (I mean pre-2004) cachers sit down and start yearning for the old days.  Back in the days when all the containers were clean ammo cans or five gallon buckets.  The geocoins and trackables were lovingly cared for, followed, tracked, and hunted for.  And they were all filled with golden magical items, $20 bills, at the end of rainbows.

The Golden Age of Geocaching 2000-2004 (the first five years)

I was not around, but have talked to enough people, and followed enough threads to put a few things together.  Remember that GPS units in the first few years of geocaching were expensive.  The crappy ones that we take for granted now were expensive.  Few people had them, and maps were another expensive addition to the models sold.  Also, why did you have them?  Avid hunters, backwoods explorers, would get them to help them out.

So caching was in the hands of the well off, well to do (for the most part).  Few caches were out.  When they were placed they were planned out, well stocked and people traveled to them on purpose. When you arrived you brought something to trade, you knew how many caches you wanted to go to.  Each cache had to be put in by hand, usually off of a printout that you carried with you.  Downloading a Pocket Query into a GPS was unheard of. 

Trackables were carefully monitored.  There were not many caches at that point so it was rather simple.

Caches themselves were placed with care.  I want to take someone to a cool out of the way location. In fact I have heard from caches that tried to place micros, or caches in cities that were mocked and ridiculed by other cachers saying "that is not geocaching"

The Silver Age of Geocaching 2005-2009

you started to see a huge shift.  Low priced gps units started to appear.  And the flow of caches started to migrate to the cities.  Cachers could start to load multiple caches into their GPS units.  Paperless caching became the buzzword.  GPS units that could carry all of a cache page were being pushed by retailers, and others carried old Palm Pilots, or other handheld devices where they could load the Pocket Queries into.

It is during this period that caching really exploded.  The lower cost units started to bring in many cachers that before could not afford a GPS.  Better/cheap/free maps began to appear to allow people to track and follow their movements.  Groundspeak significantly improved its site and offerings. 

What happened?  Well micros boomed.  they were scattered hither and yon as times went on.  You could now find a cache during your lunch break, family visits, at a church or shopping mall near you.  More people were interested, and things literally exploded.

Trackables were starting to be carried to every horrible cache by people.   People would find a cache under a park bush and drop a trackable.  A cache that kids would easily find and steal.  So many travel bugs ended up in some kids dresser on in the trash.   Some coins were stolen, there are a number of cachers out there that started to hoard coins.  Stolen coins that were traveling that found their way into a collection.

The swag quality dropped.  Rather than trading nice things, you began to see the average cacher carry less, or cheap toys. People would take, and never replace.  So older caches began to be filled with poorer and poorer quality stuff. Basically if they were unmaintained, they were trash heaps.

Modern Age 2010-

Where are we now? Cell phones and free programs mean that just about everyone can cache.  Everyone that wants to try out this new thing can find a few.  That also means that people that have no idea what is going on, or what is considered polite, are out there finding caches. 

I have seen parents take kids to a cache and drain it of everything.  Take the trackables off chains and drop the chains back in the cache. Carry off coins not knowing what to do.  Things have changed.

Power trails have appeared in the last few years.  ET highway is the most notable.  People have started to travel great distances to accomplish challenges, trails, etc.  Geotourism is popular in some ares.  I see (in Utah) a large number that travel to accomplish their caching goals.  I have met a number of people coming to visit to grab all the caches they can.

Final Thoughts

Is it better? worse? In many ways both.  There are problems.  Some detest caching for what it has become, yet there is always something around.  I have found and walked away from others that were in trash heaps, and found some of the most creative caches.

There is no way to fix what is there.  Too many cachers that will go a few times and never again. It has always been that way.  Find a few caches and then move on.  Families, boy/girl scouts, people on vacation, people on business trips, that just raid something then move on.  Inconsiderate people will always be out there.

I would ask people to please take the time to think.  I still love it, and enjoy it.  There are problems, but I enjoy what is out there.  Some are challenges, others are not. Some can be grabbed as I drive by, and others with a ton of work.   I have been thinking about it more as I approach #3000.  I am looking for something special.  I don't know where/when but I will find something that I want to do.  I am guessing this month, so I do not have much time to hunt.

Update on 2012-04-11 17:01 by firennice

I forgot to Add

I think many of the things that I mentioned in the title are myths.  All couched in half truths.

Swag:  some never placed good stuff, or traded materials. 

Coin theft: Most vanish by new cachers that are not paying attention.

Micros:  They are out there.  Some love them.  At times I do, other times I dont.  I go in cycles.

In the end if you are playing the game for one of these reasons your foolish.  Geocaching has changed.  The dynamics and the groups playing have changed.  Pick what interests you. If you love the powertrail, then do the powertrail.  If you love the mountaintop, and have the physcial ability, then hike to the mountaintop. 

Update on 2013-03-05 19:34 by firennice

A few notes from 2013

As I have recived a few emails and a few notes, I thought I would post a few notes.

There were differences years ago.  We all know that.  There are a different crowd that hunt now.  Those that think that I am attacking families, I am not.  They have changed the game, of course.  Instead of the outdoorsman, we see families.  There are caches all around. 

Years ago most planned things out, now we have more casual people. That makes a difference.

I had someone mock me for eras.  How did I come up with them? 

The early time period were the years that there were few cache placments.  They were not all better.  In fact many of the rules were developed because of problems in that time period.   I called it the golden age because people like to talk about the "old days"

The next time period was in that explosion of caching, up to the point where phones came on the scene. 

The last was where phones took over.  Most of the cachers I know that used to cache regularly with their GPS, and never let it leave their side.  Now they use their phones, except if they go into the back country, or trips.