Geocaching, Anyone?

I use a GPSMap60CS for geocaching. It even has a geocache function on it. The WAAS capability is good in wide open caches and winter caching but no advantage during heavy tree cover summer-time caching.

I've been geocaching since August of 2005. I currently have 2336 finds and 30 hides.

If you plan to geocache I'd highly recommend creating an account at geocaching.com. The new Garmin site is just starting out and I fear it's going to cause a lot of problems for geocaching as people who are new to the hobby go there and we end up with caches on top of caches due to the multiple sites.

If you do create an account at geocaching.com you can either be a regular member or a paying member. I pay and it's well worth it. I can do pocket queries for places I want to geocache and for the types of caches I want to look for.

I'd also highly recommend that you check out GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) as it's the most useful geocaching aid around. It's free to use but, after a while, it will start to nag you. I paid for that as well and, again, it was well worth the cost.

I really wish this sort of thing was around when my kids were young. It would have been a wonderful thing to do as a family.

EDITED TO ADD:

I should have mentioned that I also use GSAK with a free macro that sends geocaches to my nüvi 760. I get the full cache page listing and can route right to the cache. If I don't have my 78S with me I can hold my finger over the indicator bar on the upper left of the 760 screen and get into the satellite screen. It's not as easy as using the arrow on my 78S but I can find geocaches by matching coordinates with the nüvi.

Thrak

GSAK Rules for managing caches
Geocaching.com is the best for the sport (IMO). Paying member (ClanStan).

Glad to see a few cachers on this site.

I cache under the name Thrak.

The stupid new Garmin geocaching site has given someone else that name. It's enough to really annoy me badly. I really don't like the idea of someone else placing geocaches under the name I've been using for more than 5 years. With my luck they'll turn out to be some irresponsible bozo and I'll get the blame for their poor caches and bad behavior.

Pet peeve time.

It's geocaching or Geocaching.

It is not:

geocashing

geo-cashing

geo-caching

Geo-Caching

Geo Caching

(fill in any other arrangement that isn't correct)

There is no money involved. No "cash". It's a cache. There is no space or hyphen in the name.

Thank you.

No geocaches or geocachers have been harmed while making this post.

Using a unit like the 76CS, 60CS, 60CSx, etc. (I used a 76CSx for years but I finally bounced it off the road one too many times after leaving it on the hood of my truck) you can edit or delete caches right on the unit.

The nüvi and the newer geocaching units like the 78S, 62S, Dakota, Colorado, etc. that do paperless caching won't let you do that. You have to connect those units to your computer for cache manipulation.

I want to add to the number of states I've cached in, so I'm planning a three state run this spring to add to the 21 states I already have.

Geocaching is so much more fun when you take your kids. It's a great family activity!

I've geocached only a few times over the years, but found it a lot of fun. Have done it in several different states.

I've only cached in 9 states so far. Hopefully I'll get more states collected one of these days. At this point I've found caches in California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming.

Lots of states un-cached - not to mention the rest of the world.

A brief cut and paste from the geocaching.com web site gives the following statistics:

Geocaching Statistics

There are 1,262,227 active caches and an estimated 4-5 million geocachers worldwide. In the last 30 days, there have been 1,900,050 new logs submitted.

Ive been into geocaching just over a year and have used a couple of combinations. My first was a Tom Tom 130 for car use and a small Garmin eTrex Legend for the field work while getting data off my Blackberry. Just as it sounds, it got too cumbersome and I purchased a Garmin Colorado 400t for paperless caching. My newest addition is a Oregon 550 which I got for the nifty camera feature for Waymarking.

Garmin sells a Chrip that is like an information geocache. Certain Garmin devices read short text messages from Chirp when within 30 meeters. The Chirp rebroadcasts every 2 sec. I figure a car could be going by at 5 mph and pick up the location. Could be a safety hazard on the open highway unless used like something like a safety bonus if you truck driver stopped long enough to check tires and stretch...near the chirp. Brake check spots would be a great spot I just thought of! Here is what I sent Garmin today:

Category Or Device: OpenCaching
Problem Description: To be really useful in an "open Market" sense of the phrase, a user might want to know how many devices that can detect and communicate with a Chirp are in use? Production / sales figures along with demographics are what I want. This information is essential to the utility of my Oregon. Is there a registry of Chirp locations and uses? How many Chirps have been made? Is there public information on the planned product life cycle?

New zealand was the first place in the world to have a cache outside of the good old USA. Placed by Peter McKellar near Rotorua on the 12th May 2000. We use the Nuvi 3706t, we used to use a 660 for navigation to get us close then use our yellow Garmin eTrexH to get the actual cache. We have found a half dozen caches with the 3760 we used the predestrian mode and it worked very well.

On 1 MAY 2000, President Clinton announced that the US Department of Defence would disable Selective Availability on the Global Positioning System. This meant that civilian (as opposed to military) GPS units would see the error drop from 100's of metres down to around 5m. This meant that overnight a consumer GPS could be used to repeatedly return to the same co-ordinates (previously you could have been a couple of hundred metres out).

Two days later, Dave Ulmer in Oregon, USA went out and placed the first GPS stash - as they were called initially. Dave then went on to post a message to the sci.geo.satellite-nav newsgroup

I became familiar with GPS circa 1995 while I was working for the BLM in Butte Montana. We were using Trimble equipment.

In 2004 a friend received a Garmin Etrex from her son and she asked me to help her learn use it “to do geocaching”.

The little Etrex intrigued me and although it was nothing like the Trimble units that cost thousands of dollars, I figured I could use it for several purposes.

I had not heard of geocaching so I looked it up, joined geocaching.com and showed her how to download geocache locations and put them into her Etrex. I made several field trips with her while she was getting the hang of using the Etrex and finding the geocaches. She went on to find a lot of caches locally and in several other states.

I never did become a very serious geocache enthusiast but I still look up some to seek while I am hiking in the Black Hills. Finding the locations has taken me to some very nice scenic areas that I may not have seen otherwise.

My Etrex Venture has some special geocaching features but I have not made much use of them. Mostly I just teach others how to use the features when they come to me for help.