Reddog1 wrote:
This will probably come across as being negative, and that is not my intent. I have looked at geocaching several times in the past 10 years. I really do not understand the interest. As I understand it, you have longitude and latitude, and locate them on your GPS. I am stumped at the challenge. I have a laptop with Delorme Streets and also Topo. I also have a Delorme hand held. By entering in the longitude and latitude in any of these it shows the exact location, within 20 feet, depending on the satellites. It also gives detailed directions.
Again, I apologize if this sounds negative, but I am trying to understand the attraction to geocaching. Due to my ignorance on the subject. maybe I am missing something, please tell me what.
Wayne
no problem wayne, I don't view it as negative...just a question is all.
I can actually get to with in 6 feet with the gps on some of the caches. yet there are some I could not find. so on the website you can set that cache to a "watch" list. then I wait and see if someone else has found it or not. when someone does, I go back when I can to try again. in fact there is one about 5 miles away from my home that we looked and looked and came up empty. 3 days later someone found it. so I need to go back. sometimes its a challenge to look for it when there are no muggles (a muggle is a non geocache player) around to look for a cache. for example... a couple days ago I wanted to look for a cache but the area it was at was full of kids and parents in the park. it is a cache ill have to try to get later at night or very early in the morning.
I would guess I have about a 90% success rate on finding the caches I look for.
oh...some caches have puzzles that you have to figure out. some are very difficult puzzles.
mainly...caches are placed in areas of interest. like I mentioned earlier...I found a conservation area real close to my home that I never knew was there. I have lived off and on here for 30 years or so but still had no idea it was there. a while ago I found a very small stopping point that had indian painted rocks. there were no signs letting you know it was there, you just had to know. if it were not for looking for a cache there at that spot I would have never known it was there.
as mentioned earlier...some caches are micros...the size of the end of your pinky finger. even with a 6' radius that may not be easy to find.
mainly for me...its about finding new areas. I have already found so many new areas in my town because of the game. now imagine how many new areas I could find nation wide.
hope that might give some insight. if we lived closer to each other I would invite you to go do some geocaching with me so you could get a better idea on it.
on edit: I forgot to mention there are challenges with in the game too. like there is one that starts today at 9 am pacific in the Washington state parks. they are placing 100 caches in 100 state parks. there is a passport you get... then when you find each cache, there (from what I understand) is a stamp you stamp your passport in the cache or something that you take back to the ranger or host to get a stamp. when you get 50 finds you can get a limited edition coin. all 100 finds...you get a different coin.
my family has started the dam challenge here in Washington. we started at grand coulee dam and need to go to a two other dams in the region to complete that challenge. the 3 dams have 3 caches each to find. you find them, answer the questions and take that info back to the visitors center. they then stamp your passport and give you a prize. complete all 3 dams and you get a very cool patch.
