A Night at the Amphitheater: The Event That Never Was

We were to host our very first event: A night at the Amphitheater.   It was not published and I am posting the rational used down below.  I am not looking here for ideas or comments on how to find a loophole, as I already thought about a few.  The thing is, I don’t wanna go there.  I just want your thoughts on the situation itself, on that particular rule, and how it really applies here.  So here it goes….

The intention was to bring geocachers out for a night of winter camping.  This was the listing:

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Since this is the first event we are hosting, we figured we would make it a bit difficult so that it doesn’t turn into a mega. As the title states, this event is literally a night at the amphitheatre!

Good ol’ winter/early spring camping for the hardcore geocachers. Here’s the twist. In order to get a smiley for this one you need to “earn” it (no park and greets here!). You can certainly drop by and say “hi” but this smiley can only be earned by actually bringing or making shelter and staying the whole night. Log book will only be out for breakfast in the morning. Trying to claim a smiley on this one without meeting the requirements will result in a deleted log. Please note: we ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE for anyone and each participant is responsible for their appropriate gear, food, technical skills and safety. Dress up appropriately, in layers, be safe and be mindful of the time of the year and hypothermia!

We were hoping to avoid a mega but hopefully we won’t be creating a nano!

Here is the plan.

We would meet at the little bridge right before the Abbey for 2pm, heading out for the Amphitheatre no later than 2:30pm. We would park cars in a single file along that dirt road.

For directions, to the abbey, parking spot, and to the amphitheatre, check out the descriptions of GC1HMHC A hike for digger1952 (Up the Friar’s Nose) and for the Amphitheater itself GCVVPH Parlee Brook Natural Amphitheatre

The walk to the amphitheater is approximately 1-1.5hrs walk.  Nemo has never been to the amphitheater, but he went to the Friar’s nose at this time of year last year and later in the day as the snow warmed up snowshoes would have been useful.  To each his/her own on bringing snow shoes or not. Nemo & Didi plan to.

The sun sets around 7:30ish at this time of year, so perhaps if the group wants, we should have time for a pit stop on top of the Friar nose on our way to the amphitheater. We can all decide that when we meet.  We plan on pitching the tents a few hundred meters from GC1J9TQ  -A Hike for Ynds(The bubble tree). We would be sheltered from the wind and there is water from the brook. This is crown land/Irving’s, as long as we use “leave no trace” etiquette, we shouldn’t have any problems. Didi did wintercamping on top of the cliff, way back when she was iceclimbing, but at this time of the year we do not want anyone to venture near the cliff’s edge, and avalanche is not a good thing, so we will make camp at a safe spot.

So if you’re up for it, fill your backpack with your winter camping gear and join us.

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The event was denied on the basis that we cannot ask people to stay there for the night as this is extra requirements.  This is what we got “On April 03, 2009 there was a revision to the Listing Guidelines for geocaches that involve “Additional Logging Requirements”. Please read this at (visit link) but in short, cache owners are no longer allowed to force people to do extra things in order to have a valid log entry. Within your listing is this “Good ol’ winter/early spring camping for the hardcore geocachers. Here’s the twist. In order to get a smiley for this event you need to “earn” it (no park and greets here!). You can certainly drop by and say “hi” but this smiley can only be earned by actually bringing or making (Igloo?) shelter and staying the WHOLE night. The log book will only be out for breakfast in the morning. Trying to claim a smiley on this one without meeting the requirements will result in a deleted log.” which prevents it from being published”

We are fine with that.  I mean there are rules and if we are not folloing the rules, well then suck it up Nemodidi.  But the whole idea was to make it fun where only the “real” ones having stayed for the whole night in their shelter could have logged the cache.  To us, you find a container (traditional), this is the find.  Here, you need to attend the night of camping, then you can log the cache.  I guess our interpretation is different and that is fine.  We just archived the event.

Absolutely no hard feelings towards any of the reviewers or that rule or the interpretation thereoff, but I posted it just to get a sence of what other people think.  Did we make sense here with your plan or not?  Just curious to see what others think, good or bad.  Hit us.