Holiday Geoswag

I ended up having a good haul this Christmas for geocaching items. I got a car travel bug sticker, Cache at Night geocoin, a flashlight/laser pointer/UV light, as well as a headlamp, a bison tube and a travel bug.  Can't wait to get out on the field and use them!

Meanwhile I got a few geocaches over the holidays. Sharon12 and I ended up doing a letterbox cache and an Earth cache in order to get further in the Ontario Public Holiday Challenge.

Did anyone else get some good geoswag this holiday? Find any caches in this chilly weather?

Editorial: Winter Blues,,,

Let me start off by saying this: I'm NOT a fan of winter. My love of Geocaching is not helping that. Winter means it's cold (so you don't want to Geocache), it snows (traveling is harder and so is finding caches) and the days are shorter (meaning less time to Geocache). Overall winter is sort of a Geocachers nightmare, there's been a total of 3 new caches in my area and with the Holidays coming full swing I doubt there will be many more (thus ending my FTF month streak).

And you can see the effects winter is having in my stats, I currently have a total of 7 caches. Compare this to my lowest month July 44(other than when I started Geocaching in mid-March at 42).

Right now I find myself reading Geocaching blogs (Fermentums GeoBlog is a great new one) and the GC.com Forums.

So what gets you through the Winter months? Any tips for Geocachers on the hunt in winter (besides the obvious don't get yourself killed tips)?

Geocaching.com Updates INCOMING!

Recently announced by several sources are a number of large updates coming to geocaching.com (GC). The first is stats, which have been done outside of GC by GSAK, mycachingprofile.com and CacheStats. GC acquired mycachingprofile.com and will now be fully featured on profiles.

Also big news is the new Favourite system. This will likely be a Members only feature where depending on the number of caches you have, you get a certain number of Favourite Points. These points can be given to caches of your choice (not your own hopefully). I think this idea is far better than most DIY geocache rating systems on the internet.

Finally and biggest of all is this...



Yes on screen that is every geocache in EUROPE! Also notice the differences in icons, it make you wonder what other goodies they have tucked in there.

Theses updates are supposedly going to be implemented before Christmas! More details will be coming soon I'm sure.

OpenCaching.com... Competition or Plan B?

There's been a lot of buzz surrounding OpenCaching.com, and rightly so. GPSr manufacturing juggernaut Garmin opening it's own geocaching website is huge. Garmin directly competing against GeoCaching.com seems almost like an attack on a site that has practically built geocaching (and sold a lot of Garmin products in the process).

And that's not going to go without controversy. Delorme and Magellan have both backed Geocaching.com Of course no one expected otherwise. But the question that needs to be answered: Why is Garmin doing this at all?

Market share is a part of it. But the real issue: Stability. Let's face it, car navigation systems are on the way out. Cell phones are quickly adapting to GPS and people don't want to buy a GPSr if they don't need it. So who is going to buy Garmin GPSrs? Geocachers, that's who.

Geocaching is unique in that there's really only one source, that being geocaching.com. Garmin knows that relying solely on geocaching.com is dangerous. Terracaching.com is closing and that took a lot of people by surprise. Anything could happen, Groundspeak could be breaking some tax law you and I have never heard of and be shut down. It could be hacked or have a DOS attack, who knows? This is the Internet and things happen. So what would Garmin do then? What would YOU do then?

If this were really about promoting Garmin products, why are other GPSrs allowed? In fact I don't see any mention of Garmin GPSr products on the site, even the "GPS Devices". People can go on all day about competition and how it advances things. But really the win here is that not only Garmin, but the Geocaching community as a whole has a back-up to geocaching.com. Opencaching.com might just keep our community alive and, at least for now, sleep a little better at night.

Geocache Top 10: Las Vegas Caches

Here are a list of my personal Top 10 Favourite Las Vegas Geocaches:

1. The Presidential Suite - This virtual in the Flamingo casino garden, a beautiful spot I'd have never seen
2. Is it real... or just a Mirage? - This was a standard hide but a magnificent view. A must see.
3. Lighting the way to the Barbary Coast - Great nano on the strip, really should be done at night
4. Into the Belly of the Beast - The Belly of the Beast is a must do virtual
5. Dead Ant (Bad Joke 1) - (Private Member Only) Fun cache with unique container
6. The 4 Corners Cache - A webcam cache is kind of rare, kind of a pain in the but, and totally unique.
7. Watch That First Step... - Really like the stipulation for this cache, the view is great too
8. "Say Goodnight, Gracie..." - This was a challenging one for me, lots of different levels and stairways
9. Eiffel Tower - Over 4000 people have done this cache, maybe Paris should give Groundspeak a cut?
10. The Gates that won't close - This was a clever cache to do when the fountains are on, everyone's looking away

I did over 40 caches in Las Vegas so this wasn't an easy list to make, there were a lot of great normal caches out there too.  Honorable mentions go to Sign of the Times Badly Done and Welcome to Las Vegas.

GPSr Review: Magellan Triton 500

The Triton 500 is a fine piece of hardware. It's very accurate and easy to use. It has tons of features for geocaching, trails, and way points. In fact the only big problem with the 500 is its supporting software, Vantagepoint.

When I first installed Vantagepoint several days before I got my 500, I was excited. It looked similar to Google Earth and felt like iTunes. Then I started adding in the geocaches and it worked beautifully! Using the file system I quickly had them sorted out into cities and then regions within cities and then specific trails and dense areas.

"THIS IS GREAT!" I thought, just being able to select a file and throw it on your GPSr and have all the geocaches in town? Brilliant. And with them saved on your computer you'd be able to add them to your GPSr offline! So where could we go wrong?

Then the Triton came in. I went in to upload the caches in my area and was greeted with a list of the 500 caches I had in Vantagepoint. What? You can't just select a folder to add? WHY BOTHER WITH THE FOLDERS AT ALL THEN!? WHAT A TEASE!

Now let's get to the other problems. The base map that the Triton comes with should be something standard right? Wrong. The base map for the Triton 500 is HORRIBLE! You'd think it would be something akin to a Google map, with roads and such. But no, it only shows highways and those are mostly off too. I get that Magellan wants to make money by selling maps, but holy crap, its $200+ GPSr with a blank screen. And your asking me to shell out $100+ just so I can use it?

Luckily you have the option to find maps online and it's lucky that there's a decent community behind the Triton. So I added a whole bunch of Ontario maps which work out pretty well. Unfortunately to do this you have to go through VantagePoint, which brings us to our next problem: Freezing. Vantagepoint freezes, a lot. Trying to add maps? Freeze. Trying to add geocaches? Freeze. Then there's blue screens. Yes plugging in the Triton 500 to my computer cause Blue Screens of Death too. If someone knows how to fix this please let me know. But really? It's inexcusable. The Triton also has issues where it shuts down too.

Now if this is sounding like a rant I apologize. Its not. I actually love my "Maggie", 99% of the time it's been right on target. The breadcrumbs system gives you a reference from which you can orientate yourself. The compass tools, Geocache descriptions and hints work well too. And although I've been told batteries don't hold up well, in my field use, the batteries have stood for me a good 20 hours. Which is usually two good long geocaching days at least.

In conclusion, the Triton 500 is a great GPSr hobbled by its supporting software. Think of VantagePoint as the Annie Wilkes and Paul Sheldon as the Triton. Am I going to throw this GPSr away or sell it? No, I like it too much. But the problems with VantagePoint will definitely make me look at a cell phone GPSr or Garmin next time.

Find of the Month

My personal find of the month is a puzzle cache located in Hamilton, Ontario. The cache title only states a couple words and a number which is the clue. The cache was newly released so my geocaching partner and I went off in search of an FTF (new caches are becoming more scarce as winter begins to roll in). Upon our arrival we could not find anything at the GZ that would would point us in the direction of the cache. We even tried several times to add the number of a local by-law off a street sign to the number in the title of the cache. To no avail of course.

Finally I went inside the building by the GZ (a library/recreation center) and it hit me. The number was a Dewey decimal! Of course the library wasn't open until 10 am, so we had to wait it out (similar to something on the Amazing Race). Luckily no one else came and we made the FTF (6 month streak now). It was a great cache and my first FTF puzzle cache.

Got any stories to share?
*Note I'm not naming the cache because it could spoil it for others

Debate: Virtuals...They're Baaaaaaack

Virtuals are a contentious issue in the geocaching community.  The problem, they aren't really caches. The good thing? They're still a lot of fun. 

Virtuals were grandfathered (disabled from being made) for quite some time. Waymarking, a sister site of Geocaching is the uncle of Virtuals. Waymarking is what a lot of people point to when virtuals are brought up. But there's a couple problems with it: 

1. The site itself! I mean look at it, this is what's known in the web design community as a mess. There's tabs everywhere. Compare this to the geocaching site. There’s a simple side bar, sign in, introduction and geocache search. Let me just say, it doesn’t get easier as you navigate the Waymarking site.
2. They aren’t interesting. Here’s an example. Geocaching this is not. Compare this to a virtual, like The Other End of the Trail where you see the end of the Bruce Trail and also get history in the area. In fact, of the 17 virtuals I’ve done I can say not one of them were boring. I could just sit at my computer for the next hour and log waymarks.

There is a problem with virtuals though. Namely, why can’t this be made into a stage for a multi cache or puzzle cache? They’re a pain: You have to take a picture or write down information, then e-mail the owner, then log the cache. E-mailing the owner is especially a hassle.

Benefits of virtuals? They’re pretty much permanent. They get lots of user participation and are usually a lot of fun. Look at this Las Vegas virtual. HOLY CRAP! Seriously look at it! Almost 2500 logs and almost 250 pictures. For something that hassles people more than normal caches, geocachers love them.

So if you couldn’t tell from the title, they’re coming back. How? Well that’s not really clear yet. So that’s the real question.

The first thing that should be addressed is the requirements. They shouldn’t be eliminated, but be made easier to submit. On the log page of a virtual, you should be able to submit your answer or picture with the log, which would be seen by only the owner.

What about standards though? It should probably be left up to the cache moderators. Guidelines about relevancy and requirements should be given to the moderators and they should be pretty strict about what’s allowed.

So what do you think? How should they be brought back? Should there be qualifications for virtuals? What would they be? Tell me what you think.

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