Caches In Trouble
I was walking down a trail with Jim52 a couple of weeks ago, and he was reminiscing about how caching and the local community has evolved. And not just the cachers have evolved, but the caches themselves as well. More and more I find myself pouring water out and repairing containers. There is a ton of soaked log books and tons of geojunk in the containers. Old moldy swag, dated calling cards, lots of mould. Caches placed by cachers that have stepped away from the sport. I don’t mind doing the maintenance when it’s a great location, a clever multi, or a creative cache that took a lot of though, planning, and work.
But after a dozen years of containers in the woods and many cachers who have come and gone, there is a lot of geojunk out there. Maybe we could list here the caches and series that either need maintenance, or should be removed altogether. Yes, we log Maintenance logs and Archive requests, but there is no public record of caches that we should just avoid. Case in point is the “Glow” caches that army.of.two wanted to do. I’m glad that this cache was talked about in the Chat window. Perfect, I now know to stay away from that one.
I for one, would like to know which caches and series to avoid. Also, I’m sure that some cache hiders would like a reminder of which hides need a little TLC (some couldn’t care less). Maybe a little CICO (Cache In Cache out) is in order.
Don’t hold back, I feel that it’s time to do a good cleanup and free up some space.
And kudos to Zonker. I believe that he archives his troublesome caches. I’ve never seen a Zonker cache in trouble, not one wet log.
If only we would remove our Geo-Litter when archiving caches… but, I digress.
This has come up so many times before and many people are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to offend someone or they don’t want to look like a know it all complainer. I have mentioned names in the past and will in the future, I am not calling that person, evil, stupid or any other demeaning or offensive thing all I am saying is this person is not maintaining their caches due to various reasons. That is not a slight on that person other than they are not being responsible with their caches, they may be good people. We all know the half dozen around here causing the problems and those people are making no effort to fix it so as responsible cachers we have the right and obligation to do something about it when we find something that is no longer a geocache. The way I see it is if I was bringing out someone for the first time would not want them to find a cache that is broken, moldy, rotten, missing firetacks, in a poor location or any other reason to be embarrassed with the find. I am responsible for dozens of archivals because the owner won’t do it themselves and will continue to do so as long as it is necessary. The problem is cacher that put out dozens or hundreds and up and quits and the awesome slew of one hit wonders that keep getting hides approved with little or no experience.
Agreed, Rev. At this point, I’m not looking to point fingers, you’re right, we know the usual suspects. But’d I’d like to see here a list we could compile of active caches that we should avoid for one reason or another.
And I know that your heart is where the heart of most cachers is. It’s not about singling people out, it’s about having a province full of quality caches. I hope folks will understand that.
I’ll have no trouble with pointing out those caches….when I spot one soon enough.
I have no problem singling people out if they deserve it. If they are worried about what people think they should do something about it.
My problem with this is that there is no definition of who DESERVES IT. It it the number of caches in trouble? Is there a group decision on singling people out? What if the person pointing fingers is not as bright as Rev and starts singling out people who dont deserve it.
BTW I know (or at least I hope) people are not singling us out. We have a ton of caches out there and do our best to do maintenance. (We checked on 5 this week). A lot of our caches have been out a long time and therefore many of those do not get logged often. When they do get logged and there is a problem, we do our best to get out to it. But other caching tasks could have a priority.
Anyhow, I really do not like to snglle people out, at least not in print.
Pa, we have had this discussion before and I know how you feel, I feel differently although I won’t talk about someone personally but only if they have multiple caches that need to be removed not just archived and left there. If they want to come on here and call me on it they can but they made their bed with their actions or in-actions and they must lie in it. I have made my own bookmark list of caches that should be archived as the owners are not doing anything about their old caches that need to be cleaned up. I check it every once and a while to see if anything has been done to any of them.
Maybe we could set up a public book mark list of caches that are not going to be removed anytime soon and then we could make an effort to removes caches that need to be removed. This would help to keep the trash out of the woods and the owners can either do maintenance or let the rest of us clean it up. If one of my caches ends up on the list so be it but most of us know who is responsible and who isn’t. If we all work together than it would make things easier and be a deterrent to some to not end up on the list. When you hide a cache you agree to terms and conditions which includes maintenance but many of the problem caches are from people who don’t cache at all anymore and many of the newer cachers have no idea who these people even are. I won’t mention the names 🙂
I have been one of those guys, I admit it…I was hiding a bunch of cache and not taking responsibilty for it. I stopped caching since 2008. I plan to go check the archived cache I have and remove them from the woods as soon as I can. I have decided to start geo caching again and this time mt cache will be close to home and I don’t plan to have more than 5 active cache and I will be sure to take good care of them. Me and Rev-Slippery have talked a bit and he made a few comment of my inexperience in caching when I started and I took the critic from him instead of beating the shit out of him ahahahaha. Just kidding Ken! But seriously if anymone needs tips on geocaching become friend with Rev_Slippery, this guy is very dedicated to geocaching, a good person to have feedback from.
PS* Sunday me and my wife are going to hide a 5 caches serie close to home and I am very excited about having a few out there.
Georider, we have an event coming up on the 12th about hiding, you should wait and come to the event first because if your new caches are not hidden well I will find you and kick your butt!
ahahahaha ok, I will do my best to go #scaredshitofRevSlippery
“Maybe we could set up a public book mark list of caches that are not going to be removed anytime soon and then we could make an effort to removes caches that need to be removed.” – Rev
This is exactly what I think is the purpose of this thread. Rev, share your bookmarks!
I disagree with removing caches that do not belong to me as I feel that this is the job of the reviewer. We do however monitor the caches here on the Miramichi that belong to cachers who have not been active for quite a while.
Since we started caching we have systematically visited the caches and placed maintenance logs on those needing work. We also monitor the ones which we (and others) have been unable to find by requesting a check by the owner in a maintenace log as a warning to visitors that there could be problems. We also email the owners for confirmation that the cache is still present.
In one recent incident we were going to Escuminac and we read about a cache that others said was washed away in a flood. There was numerious DNF’s over a substantial period of time as well so we checked the owner activity and that particular geocacher had not logged on since 2008. We obviously skipped that cache and posted a needs achieving log stating the details to the reviewer. Within two days the cache was diabled.
I know there have been some lively discussions on the use of maintenance logs but posting one of these logs is always our first step in dealing with delinquent cache owners. An obvious pattern of neglect has always been picked up by the reviewers in our area and quite a few caches have been archieved in the last year. When we take the time to post an honest log (& a maintenace one if it is required) then ‘bad caches’ will no longer exist.
The reality is, it depends on where you are and what you are comfortable with.
I think the biggest issue that’s being discussed here, and has been discussed MANY times before, is the fact that there is a considerable amount of caches out there that have NM logs on them, or are just plain garbage, and the owners do nothing about them. They ignore the logs and ignore the emails, and the geo-trash sits in the woods and nothing is done about it.
If someone puts an NM log on one of mine, I try and get out as soon as I can. But like CG said, many have come and gone and their caches remain and need to be removed because they are just piles of garbage sitting in the woods.
Something else that should be noted is that the “obvious pattern of neglect” is definitely NOT always picked up by the reviewers, at least in some areas anyway. An NM log is only flagged to the owner, not the local reviewer, so the reviewer has no idea if a cache has received an NM log or not.
And to be perfectly blunt, there have been caches in the Moncton area that have been missing for 1+ YEARS with multiple NM logs on them and they still sat there. A few of them had messages from reviewers warning them that their cache would be archived but then months would go by and nothing. It wasn’t until someone tagged them as NA that they actually got archived.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the reviewers. They do what they can when they have time but it really shouldn’t fall to them to take care of what the CO’s should be doing. If the CO’s won’t do what needs done then the locals need to take action, and that’s kind of what we’ve been seeing lately. People for a long time were scared of logging an NA on a cache because they didn’t want to offend anyone, but people are now starting to get the fact that if a cache needs to be archived, GET IT ARCHIVED! Don’t let it sit around and rot and make things worse.
If a cache owner gets mad because someone tagged their cache as garbage or missing and that cache owner has not done the necessary maintenance or has ignored emails, then it’s their own fault for being in that situation and they really have no right to get mad about it. If the owner was doing what they were supposed to, and taking care of their caches accordingly, their caches would not be tagged as NA, or need removed. They may not like being called out in that regard but if their caches are garbage, they need to do something about it. That’s the plain and simple truth.
I should also add that this actually sort of happened to me when I started caching. I hid a cache in an AWFUL location and another local cacher called me out on it. I didn’t know him at the time, and really, I wasn’t too happy about it, but he was absolutely right, so I moved my cache and it was FAR better than it was before. I may not have liked it but he was right.
If the cache itself had been complete garbage and someone had removed it and said that the cache needed archived because of the lack of maintenance (had that been an issue), I would not have been happy about it, but it would be my fault for letting it get to that point.
I have always felt that if you can’t maintain the caches you have, then you should give them up for adoption or archive them. I know that other cachers help with maintenance, but it should never be expected. That’s the biggest reason why I archived my Story Teller series. Too many caches with crappy containers that I just didn’t have time to maintain. I archived all 101 of those caches and I feel a LOT better knowing that they aren’t out there anymore.
The reviewers do not remove garbage from the woods! They can archive a cache but if the person is not caching anymore I think we should be proactive and remove it if it needs to be removed and then let the reviewer archive it. Leaving it there is not the answer. Like Zor says the reviewers DO NOT see needs maintenance logs so they don’t know about problems until it gets a needs archived log.
I don’t know the local cacher you’re talking about, but I bet he’s incredibly handsome
I don’t think anyone’s talking about anyone in particular (though there are several cachers who have retired or moved away from Moncton), but quit calling yourself handsome, Paul!
And I 110% agree that we should just remove the junk, then post a NA note. I’m glad that quite a bit of that has been going on here lately.
And I want to add that maybe this a good time to have this conversation again, as the community has many ‘newer’ cachers who have not been in on the previous chatter ;).
Cableguy1, I’ve done that a few times for caches in Bathurst. There was one cache in particular that still hadn’t had maintenance done a full year after I found it, so I returned, removed the cache, and posted a “needs archiving” log. I did my research before doing this and found the owner hadn’t logged a find in over two years. A day later, the cache was archived (not removed), with a note saying “I don’t live in the area anymore so I’m not doing maintenance”. Now, when I find caches by this person and they are in rough shape, I remove them. I won’t apologize for doing so.
I don’t personally see a problem with other people removing inactive caches as long as great discretion is used in doing so. I wouldn’t consider 2 or 3 DNFs or a single maintenance log as grounds for removal, but if a cache has literally been a problem for a year or more and cacher after cacher points it out in the logs, I’d say it’s out of the CO’s hands. I would say however if someone does decide to remove a cache that has yet to be archived but is deserving, leave a note saying you did so.
If the cache is trash and the cache owner is no longer active, it’s gone. Simple as that to me. I have been caching almost 2 1/2 years so I know who is active and who isn’t. Unless the cache is in a really nice spot to bring people to, I have no problem removing something I know will be archived and left in the woods. Maybe if it is a really old cache with some history I may fix it up. I won’t have it archived just to place another in the same spot.
But I will not leave something that will get archived by the next cacher to find it because I was too lazy to take it or afraid to hurt another cachers feelings. If they are no longer active in the game they are no longer a cacher, and their geojunk is mine for the taking.
I found it, I logged it, I took it.
There are a few times when I have retrieved caches that I had already found, just because they got archived and the junk was left behind. The CO was not going to get it and neither was anyone else. So I did my own cito for my own reasons. Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or does. This is how I do things.
Too bad I cannot give more than one thumb up for this one, as anyone here may already know, this is sooooooooooooooooo how I feel. Would you have alien power to read my mind EBE51 aka the only one here who has a cool icon for the shoutbox? Wanna trade for an arrow?