Geocaching

This last Sunday we went out via bicycle and went caching. We scored 3 for 5. The last one we did was a multi with three stages. Stage 1 was a small magnetic container with the coords inside. I missed it when I first looked, but she spotted it right away and pulled it out so I could enter to coordinates for the next stage in the GPSr. When Donna went to put it back, she realized the magnet had separated from the plastic container and had stayed attached where it was.

Our first thought was to just take it with us, then when we got home I’d epoxy the magnet back on and bring it back later in the evening, so I put it in Donna’s handlebar bag. Stage two coordinates led us to a section of split rail fence so we looked between all the rails and all along the ground near the posts with no success, I backed up about 50′ and made another run at GZ. This time I was about a dozen feet away from the first spot. We looked and looked everywhere, just as we were about to DNF it I reached under something and feeling nothing, I looked under there and AHA! there it was.

On the way to stage 3 we passed by a small pond where we had been warned to watch out for reptile activity. Didn’t see any snakes, but we did see a large spaniel prance across one section of the pond to get away from us. The GPSR pointed into a small patch of woods and Donna ducked in to look. In short order she called, “I got it.” It was a small camoed Lock ‘n’ Lock that for some reason was very wet inside. Our sharpie still managed to let us sign the log book as found, but when we got home we would have to let the cache owner know this one needed some looking after. Seeing as that was the case, the cache owner was going to have to do maintenance on this stage too, we just put the dysfunctional stage 1 container in the Lock ‘n’ Lock making one neat package.

When we got home I logged the find and then created a separate “Needs Maintenance” log. Later that night I noticed the CO had posted that they had just had surgery and would get to it as soon as they could. On Monday I emailed the cache owner and offered to fix the cache. We pass right by that park on our way to and from work everyday, so it wouldn’t be a problem. She gave the OK.

On the way home from work there were plenty of muggles about, so we just drove on by. Tuesday morning on the way in we grabbed it. It is our week to start work early, so it was a little after six and still dark went I popped in to the woods with a flashlight and retrieved the cache.

We wiped the inside of the Lock ‘n’ Lock dry and spread the contents out on a towel in the spare bedroom/recovery ward. We replaced the plastic bag the log was in and then the other one that was for the schwag. When I had the epoxy out to fix the Stage 1 container I also repaired a small rose pin that had come separated from its backing. The lettering on the piece of paper explaining geocaching and what it was people were holding in their hands was gone and the tape was peeling off. I’ll make up another one tomorrow at work and laminate it for some more permanence.

We will put everything back in its place early Saturday morning.

I received a couple of emails this evening that they are disabling a couple of my geocaches in Hitchcock Woods. I’m not the only one either, there were two other caches that got the same treatment.

The email cited a Hitchcock Woods Foundation rule that there only be three caches in the Woods. At the Aiken Horse Show this past spring I spoke to the Woods Superintendent and he knew of the rule. When I told him that there were already six or seven in place, he shrugged and said he didn’t mind and felt that there could even be more. He wants the woods to be used and geocaching was a good use. His only concern was that when they do controlled burns some caches could get ruined in the process. With out a direct denial that I couldn’t place any more caches in the Woods, I took that as permission to go ahead and do it, but don’t blame him if they got torched.

Cool I thought, as Captain Barbossa said, “The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”

Well, as it turns out in this case, the rules were just that, rules.

I’m saddened by this development because there are 2,000 acres of forest with plenty of room for more than just 3 caches, but the Woods are the property of the Hitchcock Foundation and they have the right to set rules and limits on the use of their land.

By my count there are currently eleven caches in the woods (my four, plus seven more.) So far there have only been 4 disabled (2 of mine), I hope this is done fairly, so four more are disabled, leaving only three. And the three that stay should be the 3 oldest, even though this means all 4 of the caches I’ve placed have to come out.