Iowa DNR posts geocaching rules and permit form

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has just posted a web page outlining its geocaching "rules and regulations." (I always love that term. It makes me think, "Which ones are the rules and which ones are the regulations?") Anyway, after a couple years of informal geocaching policy which instructed geocachers to obtain permission from the local DNR manager before placing a geocache on DNR-managed land, there is now a formal process. From what I can tell, there are three major changes:
1. The process now includes a permit application (available at the DNR web site linked above).
2. All permits expire annually on March 31.
3. The cache container must be clearly marked on the outside with "Geocache" in block letters no smaller than one half inch in size and the name of the geocache.

One very nice aspect of the new DNR web page is that they include a link to Staff Contact Information: Park E-Mail and Phone List -- a very helpful tool for geocachers seeking information on placing a cache.

How will these changes affect my review process for caches on DNR-managed land? For the past few years I have asked geocachers who submit such caches whether they obtained permission from the local DNR land manager, and if so, to post the name and contact information for that person in either the description or in a reviewer note on their cache page. From now on, I am going to ask if you have obtained the required DNR permit. I may also refer you to the DNR web page to make sure you're aware of the March 31 expiration date.

Once they are approved, I will not be policing these caches annually to enforce the March 31 expiration date. That's an Iowa DNR rule and not part of the geocaching.com guidelines, so the annual expiration and removal of these caches will be a matter left up to the DNR and the cache owner. I couldn't enforce that rule if I wanted to. It would simply be too much for one non-paid person to keep track of.

It will be interesting to see what effect this formal policy will have on geocache hiding on DNR-managed land. Will it encourage more caches there, or will it discourage them? And what effect will the annual March 31 expiration have? Will cache hiding tail off in the first quarter of each year and then explode with pent-up placements after March 31? I'd like to know what you think. How will this change affect you?

The Caches of Madison County

Here's information about geocaching in Pammel Park in Madison County. (And for those of my readers who live outside Iowa, yes, it's THAT Madison County.) My thanks to Barheet for giving me permission to publish his email here.

Date: Mon, 5 May 2008
To: IowaAdmin
Subject: Barheet contacting IowaAdmin from Geocaching.com

Hey there. I recently submitted 3 caches for approval in Pammel Park, near Winterset. I wasn't aware that I needed the director's approval before placing caches there. I contacted the local director who said not to place anything there. Here are the reasons he gave me:

1. They don't know what people would place inside the caches and don't want any inappropriate items in the parks.

2. They want to place their own caches for educational purposes.

He said they wanted to be able to control what was in the caches. I'm not sure how they'd do that, unless they made it just a local scavenger hunt or something. He also says Pammel is not a state park anymore and is managed by the county.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know what happened for future reference. I will remove the caches and archive the listings. Thanks!

Barheet

Degree Confluence Project

Anyone else own a Degree Confluence first posting? Here's mine.

Change to cache adoption

My thanks to fellow reviewer WisKid for letting me borrow his explanation. Actually, I never asked him, but it's easier to beg forgiveness after the fact. :)

There's been a slight change in Groundspeak's rules for adopting caches. First, Groundspeak will no longer process "forced" adoptions except in very unusual circumstances. They haven't really delineated what constitutes unusual, but assume that we will not be able to allow you to adopt someone's cache without permission. We can still try, but it is not likely to be approved. The only specific exception discussed involves the death of a cacher with permission of the family.

Second, we have been instructed NOT to unarchive caches to allow someone else to adopt them, even with permission. If you want someone to adopt your listings, I would suggest you post to the (IGO) forums to ask for volunteers. We can still unarchive if you archive by mistake, change your mind, etc., but not specifically for the purpose of adoption.

Of course, you can still do your own adoptions when both sides are agreeable at www.geocaching.com/adopt.

Thanks, WisKid, for letting me rip off your quote. Anyhoo, I also want to add that you can also use the above link to transfer ownership of travel bugs and trackable geocoins.

Waterlogged event cache is published

My event cache is set for May 24. (Thanks to the reviewer for approving it so quickly!)
Check it out by going to the listing on geocaching.com for GC1B6CP.
Please post your "will attend" log if you're planning to be there so I have an idea of how many to expect.

Water logged

I have an idea of hosting a 5-star terrain event cache. The event would be held in such a place (think famous NW Iowa lake) that special equipment would be required to get there (think watercraft). As incentive for geocachers to attend, I would offer special prizes -- Groundspeak's trackable 2008 Volunteer Geocoin for the first, say, six or eight geocachers who show up at the coordinates at the designated time, which would probably be mid-morning the Saturday before Memorial Day. There would also be a special FTF prize -- a Groundspeak Lackeys 2007 trackable geocoin. What do you think? Would anyone show up?

More about mobility

On a few occassions in the past I have blogged about reveiwing geocaches while "on the road" at exotic locations such as Cozumel, The Bahamas and Dyersville. I did the reviewing by packing along my notebook computer, a Dell Inspiron and finding a wifi hotspot. Sometimes I used my wife's notebook, because she has nationwide broadband coverage. While this has worked fine for the most part, my computer is not the most convenient thing to lug around. It has a large screen and, as notebooks go, is not the most trim PC you could own. Well today I tried something new. For the first time I reviewed (and approved) a geocache using a mobile phone. Recently my wife upgraded her cell phone to get one with more bells and whistles so her old phone -- a Cingular 8125 -- was going unused. Even though I don't use it for phone service, I decided to charge up her old phone to see if I could use it to access the Internet via our home wifi. I logged into geocaching.com and reviewed a new cache called Drake Bulldogs Madness (GC1A395). Now I have a pocket-sized way to access the Internet, provided I'm in a free wifi hotspot. I'm looking forward to trying this out "on the road" sometime because it means I may not be lugging around my computer or relying on borrowing time on my wife's computer. Besides, it's fun to be geeky with gadgets.

How to know if your new cache is 528 ft from others

After I couldn’t immediately approve his cache last week, a geocacher asked how he’s supposed to know if there are multicache waypoints that are too close to the new cache he just placed and submitted.

There are two ways to find out. First, you could find all the nearby multis within two miles and keep a record of the coordinates for each waypoint. The reason I say two miles is because that’s the maximum distance that waypoints of multicaches and puzzle caches are supposed to be from the original listed coordinates on the cache page. If there are a lot of geocaches in the same area as your new cache, and if a lot of those are multis or mystery caches, there’s a good chance that your geocache is closer than 528 ft. from one of the waypoints. And if those waypoints are actual physical caches, then they need to be at least 528 ft. away from your cache.

A second and easier method is to record the coordinates of your proposed new cache location and submit them on a new cache page. But be sure to write a reviewer note stating that the cache is not yet in place and that you just want to see if this location is available. That way I can easily check it against the Geocaching.com database and let you know if that spot is OK. If it’s not, I can suggest which direction you may want to move it, or if it might be better to choose a new location all together.

Family strata

This evening as I was reviewing new geocaches, I was pleasantly surprised to see a photo of a rock that I immediately recognized. (OK, I can hear you snickering out there. Yes, it's true. I recognized a rock.) It's called the Gwynne Rock and it's located on the Iowa State campus. It's actually a boulder, and it is featured in a new geocache placed by called LCC 50th--Hitaga Sand Prairie Big Rock (GC19KX7) , a cache by Linn County Conservation and jimmygps. I have several "connections" with this rock. First of all, I'm an ISU alum and I walked and rode past that rock hundreds of times. Secondly, the rock is named after the late Dr. Charles Gwynne, a former professor of geology at ISU and my great uncle. Thirdly, several years after my graduation from ISU, I lived in Marion for seven years and one of my favorite places to go hiking, biking and cross-country skiing was Squaw Creek Park, where the rock was discovered before being moved to the Iowa State campus. Read more about Dr. Gywnne and the rock here.

What do Iowans think about ... that word?

Today an Iowa geocacher submitted a geocache with the word "sucks" in it. I was born and raised in Iowa, and I was taught that this word is not used by polite people in public settings. I asked the geocacher to change the name of his cache, which he did. (Thank you.)

Then I got to thinking about it and I checked to see how many other geocaches are out there with that word in their names. Turns out there are quite a few. So in the interests of fairness, I wrote to the geocacher and told him he could change the name back if he wanted to. I added this note: "But I hope you don't."

Iowans, what do you think? Is "sucks" an offensive word we want to keep out of our geocache names, or does it not bother you at all? I'd really like to know.

Mystery at Gray's Lake

Over the years, I've seen several geocaches placed near Gray's Lake in Des Moines. In reading the logs for those caches, it seems as though strange things like to happen in that area. Caches disappear. Geocachers trip across the homesteads of homeless people. And now another unusual situation -- a geocache and a waymark that both lead to a hidden compartment behind a door in a tree. I first heard about it when Team Signal posted about it in their blog. You can read about in this story from the Des Moines Register.
Creative weirdness abounds.

Ever heard of Crabtown?

I hadn't, but now I have because there's a geocache there (GC195FC). It's one of several submitted in the area by plumberbutt. If you're a FTF hound who feels compelled to rush out tonight, be careful out there in the snow.

Stats very interesting

What do New Hampshire and Iowa have in common? If you answered “first in the nation” status, you are correct. But I’m not talking about the presidential campaign process. Instead, I’m referring to the world-wide rankings of geocaching regions.

One of my fellow reviewers who goes by the user name Riviouveur and who reviews caches for France, likes to collect geocache statistics. He graciously consented to let me publish some of the data he collected from the www.geocaching.com site.

One stat that I find especially interesting is that, for the period from May 30, 2007 to January 27, 2008, of all the states in the U.S., only New Hampshire had a greater percentage increase in its number of geocaches (42.8%) than Iowa (42.2%). During those eight months, Iowa went from having 2,943 geocaches to 4,184 – an increase of 1,241 caches. That equates to approximately 155 new caches per month since last May.

According to Riviouver’s calculations, Iowa now has 28.7 caches per 1,000 square kilometers, which equates to roughly .011 per geocaches per square mile (if my math is correct). That puts us 51st out of 143 regions (countries and states) worldwide in terms of cache density. So Iowa is not a cache-barren land. In fact, we’re closer to the top of the list than the bottom.

In terms of population, we currently have 140.4 caches per 100,000 population, which ranks us 28th on the list of 143 worldwide regions. That means Iowans like to hide geocaches more than average.

Another factoid, the numbers included in the spreadsheet are ACTIVE cache figures. Reviewers have actually reviewed more caches than those numbers indicate. The numbers that appear here are the net of total caches submitted minus those that have been archived and minus those that were not approved for listing.

Some additional trivia from Riviouver:
- Five US states hit 10,000 active caches in the last two months.
- The numbers are growing substantially faster outside the U.S. than within the U.S.

Away for a bit

Just a heads-up that I'll be taking a break from reviewing for one week beginning this Saturday. During my absence, the Iowa review queue will once again be managed by my very capable fellow reviewer, Electric Mouse.

I wanted to let those of you who read this blog know in case you or someone you know sends me an email about a cache and you don't hear from me for a few days.

Ken

Technology and nature on the road

A footnote to my posting about last week's trip to Grandma's house...
When we ran into bad driving conditions along Hwy 20 in eastern Iowa, I checked my GPS for nearest lodging and found a couple of them seven miles ahead. I punched the button for more details and got the phone number for the Super 8. We called ahead to see if they had any rooms available and we reserved two of them, telling the manager we would be there in a few minutes. We were also able to check the road conditions and the current weather radar while driving because my wife has a Verizon broadband card and account (for her work) on her laptop computer. Once at the hotel, I used her computer to go online and review geocaches. It's all pretty heady stuff when you consider how far connectivity has come in just the past few years.

Just so you don't think I'm a total geek, I "unplugged" for awhile this afternoon to take some photos of the winter scenes brought to us by the recent sticky snowfall. Here are a few selected pictures from today.

Over the river and through the woods...

...to Grandmother's house we go. Or at least we tried to go today. We're on our way to Grandma's for Christmas but because of the blowing snow and icy roads, we're spending the night in a hotel in Dysersville, Ia. Not what we had in mind when we left home this morning, but all in all, not a bad place to be considering what it was like out there on the highways today. We'll continue our travels during the daylight hours tomorrow and, hopefully, make it the rest of the way to western Iowa. And yes, I did check to see if there are any geocaches around here. It turns out there is one less than .1 mile from our hotel. But it's kinda chilly out there right now -- something like 5 degrees with a wind chill well below zero, so I think I'll stay right where I am and watch Sunday Night Football with my family. Merry Christmas to you and yours. I hope everyone you care about is safe and warm tonight.

Elf dance

It's that time of year

Wrist camera - GoProCamera

A couple of months ago I saw an ad in Sea Kayaker magazine for a small waterproof camera call the GoPro Digital Hero 3. It looked like it would be great for all sorts of outdoor activities, so I did some online research including checking out the company's Web site. I ended up purchasing the Digital Hero 3 and so far I have used it for kayaking, scuba diving and yesterday for geocaching in the snow (see video below). It's a great little camera that shoots both still photos and digital video. Recently I sent some video footage that I shot on our latest scuba dive trip to GoProCamera. This morning I discovered that they are featuring my footage on their home page. How cool is that?

Edit: Jan. 4: It looks like GoProCamera has replaced my video with someone else's, but you can still view mine here.

The best geocache creator? Here's my nomination

I don't know of any other geocacher who creates more ingenious and fun geocaches. Quite simply, he is the best geocache creator I know of. So this is a challenge to all my readers: Look at Iowa Tom's geocaches and see if you can nominate another geocacher who has a better portfolio of caches.

Winter is here

Sometimes I think I can tell what the weather is like without venturing outside, looking out the window or looking at a radar image. All I have to do is check the review queue to see how many new geocaches have been submitted. So far today, for example, there were only four new caches submitted (only one of which could be approved so far, pending a couple of issues that need to be fixed for the others). The reason for this relatively low number is most likely the snow storm that's sweeping the upper Midwest. Pretty easy to understand that people don't want to place caches during inclement weather. Most people, anyway. I think we all know at least a couple of geocachers who don't let a little thing like Mother Nature slow them down.

Away for the week

I'll be away from computers and cell phones for the next week, so that means no work (which I won't miss) and no geocache reviewing (which I will miss). Filling in with reviewing responsibilities for Iowa will be Electric Mouse, who is one of the volunteer reviewers for Illinois. Some of you may remember that Electric Mouse used to be the reviewer for the Dakotas and Nebraska. Have a great Thanksgiving week everyone!

51 caches approved -- TODAY

This is probably my record for number of cache approvals in a a day -- 51 -- and it's not yet 1 p.m. But I knew there were going to be a ton of them today because of several event caches that were held yesterday. Organizers of those events (WWFM - Ice Cream Style, November Des Moines Geo Breakfast, and WWFM @ Green Square Park) had submitted lots of geocaches over the past couple of weeks for me to pre-review and then disable until after their event. While this does require me to, in effect, review each one of them twice, it seems to be a good way for event organizers to put out a bunch of caches for an event and give me time to review them ahead of time to make sure they are likely to be approvable at their selected locations.

Nike+ My newest outdoor gadget

This doesn't have much to do with geocaching other than the fact that it's another cool outdoor gadget (which I know all you geocachers can appreciate). Have you heard of Nike+? It's a system that consists of a sensor/transmitter that fits into the sole of your running shoe, a receiver that connects with your iPod Nanno, and the software that runs the system. Then when you run, a voice gives you feedback about how fast you're going, how far and for how long you've gone. The iPod records your running data, which then uploads to the Nike+ web site when you plug it into your computer and the web site plots a graph of your run. And all this while you listen to your favorite running songs! After trying it today for the first time, I have to say it's pretty darn cool! Here's my graph from today's run. (By the way, my wife is laughing at my extreme geekiness as I write this.)

Geocache series in the Upper Mississippi River Refuge

For some time now, geocaches have not been permitted to be placed in the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife Refuge (at the request of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). This weekend as I was checking the location of two recently submitted geocaches to see if they were inside boundaries of the Refuge, I went to the UMR Wildlife Refuge web site to check the maps that show the boundaries, and I discovered that Fish & Wildlife staff have create their own series of virtural geocaches there. You can check out this fun and informative series here. To make this series available to geocachers who may not be aware of it, I wrote to the F&WL staff today to see if they're interested in having their series listed as a multicache, with the final physical cache located at their office in Winona. I received a reply from Cindy Samples this evening, so we'll be discussing how she can set up the series as a multicache. Meanwhile, you can get a head start on this series by checking out the Upper Mississippi web site.

fire hydrants

Over the past couple of days I reviewed three different caches (submitted by two different geocachers) that were magnetic key holders stuck to fire hydrants. My initial thought was that this is not a good idea because hydrants are part of the local fire departments' emergency equipment. To see if Groundspeak has an official position on this, I posted a note in the reviewers' forum and asked, and the response from Groundspeak confirmed my suspicion that fire hydrant caches are not allowed. This is not to say that you won't find some out there. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I have approved some myself without knowing they were on fire hydrants. But, as the guidelines clearly state:

There is no precedent for placing caches. This means that the past listing of a similar cache in and of itself is not a valid justification for the listing of a new cache.

Other reviewers cited examples of geocachers who tried to unscrew caps from hydrants in their zeal to find a hidden cache. And it is, of course, illegal to tamper with fire hydrants, just as it is to tamper with U.S. Postal Service mail boxes.

Sundown

One of the nice things about having a blog is that I get to share experiences and opinions with fellow geocachers -- and anyone else who happens to stumble into this site. It also means I get to post whatever I want even though I said this blog would be about geoache reviewing. Well, I can digress once in awhile, right? In that vein, here's a photo taken last evening as I prepared for a little moonlight kayaking on Lake Michigan out of Kenosha harbor. There were thunderstorms earlier in the evening but they were moving to the east over Michigan by the time we launched from the beach and watched the moon rise over the lake. Evenings like this one make you appreciate being outdoors while most people are inside in front of the TV.

WGA picnic event

On Saturday I attended the annual Wisconsin Geocaching Association picnic -- carpooling with fellow reviewer WGA2, who also goes by great ID of Should've_Bought_Him_The_Tie. (If you don't know the story behind that ID, he'd be happy to tell you.) These WGA events are always well-organized -- ever since I helped organize the first one in 2001. :) The 2007 picnic was held at Wildcat Mountain State Park in western Wisconsin, which is not far from the famous Elroy-Sparta bicycle trail. The rolling hills in this park provided some very steep up and down trails for the 90 or so geocachers who attended. "Tie" and I brought our mountain bikes along and got quite the workouts on those hills.

Interview on Podcacher.com is posted

I didn't realize it until I read Bumanfam's comment here on yesterday's blog post, but Podcacher.com has posted its latest weekly podcast and it includes the interview I recorded with them earlier this summer at the Midwest Geobash. Thanks, Sonny & Sandy, for including me in your show!

The holiday is over

I received an e-mail today from a geocacher writing to make sure it was the recent Labor Day weekend and not a health problem on my part that prevented his geocaches from getting reviewed. So, before I dive back into the review queue, here's a quick note to Iowa geocachers to let you know I'm back on the job after being away from the Internet for a couple of days. No illness or injuries here. Thanks for your concern!

Kayakers' paradise

We returned on Sunday from our week-long vacation in the Apostle Islands. As it turned out, two of the places where we stayed had wifi so I was able to keep up with the cache reviews until last week Thursday. The final place, DePerry's on Lake Superior, which is about 4 miles north of Bayfield, Wis., did not have wifi, but we agreed it was our favorite place to stay during the trip. The weather was ideal and it was a great experience. Some stats:

• 7 days of paddling
• 88 miles
• 9 islands landed on
• 3 lighthouses toured
• 1 bear encounter (nothing serious; he/she ran away after we stared each other down)
• Many bald eagles, loons, mergansers, pelicans
• Many sea caves entered

I had our GPSr with us to record each day's track, then imported the tracks into Google Earth. Here's the satellite view:And here are a few shots from water level:

Greetings from an island in Lake Superior

I found a wifi hotspot here in the northlands of Wisconsin, so I was able to review about 20 caches yesterdya and another 10 caches this evening. But the real story is the beauty of this place -- the Apostle Islands. If you've never been, get yourself up here to this beautiful area. More later, including photos.

A week in the Apostle Islands

Mary and I are looking forward to our upcoming vacation in the Apostle Islands next week. We leave Saturday morning and will spend the week kayaking in this beautiful area of northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior. I'll take my notebook computer along to review geocaches whenever I can get to a wifi hotspot. So far, the only hotspot I know of is at the Ashland library. However, there may be one or more in Bayfield that I don't yet know about. So please be forewarned that it might take a little longer than normal for your cache to be reviewed next week.

Not sure if your hiding place is too close to existing geocaches?

Today I received email from a geocacher who sent me a set of coordinates and asked me to check to make sure this proposed location for a geocache was not too close to existing geoaches and waypoints of multicaches. I'm not sure how other reviewers prefer to handle these requests, but here's how I handle it. I asked that he go ahead and

"Create a geocache listing to submit a cache at these coordinates. Include a reviewer note on the page that the cache is not yet placed, and that you just want me to check the coordinates. That way your coordinates are entered into the geocaching.com database and I can easily check the maps to tell if there are any others nearby. I'll let you know and will then disable the listing so you can reactivate it after you place the cache and the page is ready for final review."

Midwest Geobash 2007

After work this past Friday (OK, maybe before work officially ended) I left for Kendalville, Indiana to attend the 2007 version of the Midwest Geobash, or MWGB. This was a fun time because I got to see some geocaching friends from Iowa and Wisconsin and meet many geocachers.

It was held on the Noble Country fairgrounds, and there was plenty of room for all the hundreds of campers -- everything from huge RVs down to my small tent. I arrived after dark on Friday night, so after getting some directions from the helpful volunteers at the gate, I drove in to look for a campsite. I ended up at the very far fringe of the campers, which was fine with me because I figured it would be a quiet spot. Well, that would have been the case if it wasn't for the trains. After setting up my tent, I walked the campground looking for familiar faces. I found a group of geocachers from Wisconsin that I knew -- well, I knew one of them: zuma! -- so I sat at their campfire and enjoyed a beer with them before heading back to my tent and calling it a night. Indiana calls itself the Crossroads of America, so Kendalville must be the railroad crossing of Indiana. I swear that trains must have passed by at least every 10 minutes. Finally, sometime after 2 a.m. the trains decided to give the camping geocachers a break for awhile. Saturday morning I awakened at 6:30 and decided to walk around and check out the fairgrounds in the daylight. There wasn't another soul stirring. Everyone must have stayed up a lot later than I did. I ate breakfast at my campsite, then fired up my notebook computer because I heard there was a wifi network at the fairgrounds. Sure enough, I got a strong signal at my campsite so I logged in and reviewed 21 Iowa caches that morning. Later, when I saw the tasty looking pancakes being served by the Noble County Farm Bureau in one of the barns, I decided a second breakfast wouldn't hurt me.

The rest of the day included a presentation by Sonny & Sandy, hosts of the weekly podcacher.com podcast. They emailed me a few weeks earlier and asked if I'd be willing to sit for an interview for an upcoming show, so we found a quiet spot to do the interview. Listen for it on an upcoming show. After the interview, I went geocaching with 7 other friends I met at the event and enjoyed seeing more of Kendalville and the surrounding countryside. We got back just in time for a panel discussion featuring a panel of geocaching.com reviewers. Trippy1976, who organized the panel, said he needed another body willing to sit on the panel, so I found myself volunteered. I'm glad I did. It was fun to help out with the event, and it was a good way for me to meet even more geocachers as quite a few of them who now recognized me as a reviewer stopped by to chat after the panel discussion. By late Saturday afternoon it was time for me to head home. I would have enjoyed staying a second night, but Mary is going to be gone on business most of the coming week so I wanted to get home and spend Sunday with her.

Heading to MWGB

Later today I'm heading out to attend the Midwest GeoBash in northern Indiana. Looks like it will be a fun event. They're expecting somewhere around 1,000 geocachers. I'm especially interested because they have not hidden a bunch of temporary caches to occupy the time. Instead, it will be a time to get acquainted with and learn from fellow geocachers. I'll file a report here after the weekend.

Add those attributes

For some time now the attributes feature has been available to cache owners after they create a cache listing on geocaching.com. Owners can use it to let other geocachers know if, among other things, the cache can be hunted at night, whether or not dogs are allowed in the area, whether special equipment is required to find the cache, and so on. One of the most important attributes is whether the cache is wheelchair accessible. Many of my fellow reviewers have long posted reviewer notes to cache owners whenever the owner submits a new cache but has not selected any attributes. Well, I think that's a good idea so I've started to do so too. When you submit a new cache without attributes, here's the note you may see from me to encourage you to use the "edit attributes" feature:

Please go to the edit page for your cache (and any other caches of yours that don't have attributes) and use the "edit attributes" feature to add them -- especially the one that indicates whether this geocache is wheelchair accessible. Thanks.

More about power trails

There certainly are a few passionate people who don't want to let go of power trail caches. Some of them seem to think this is all about MY decision. I don't see it that way. It's a Groudspeak thing. [Please see the guidelines.] It would be pointless for me to weigh in officially on the arguments that a few geocachers have voiced, because I'm not the one making the rules. Groundspeak has voiced its displeasure and preference about having power trails approved. As a volunteer reviewer, I am required to abide by Groundspeak's guidelines. And when you click the "agree" button on their web site, so are you.

However, I will say that personally [emphasis on PERSONALLY], I don't see why requiring a series of power trail caches to be set up as a multicache takes anything away from the sport. That way, geocachers still have a bunch of new caches to find and new and interesting locations to view. Plus, there's the added benefit that if it's a multicache, the trail isn't "locked up" by one geocacher's power trail because of the 528-ft. spacing guideline. Therefore, the trail is open to cache placement by future geocachers. That leaves room for the growth of our sport instead of an entire stretch of trail being monopolized by one geocacher.

Okoboji 2007

We spent Memorial Day weekend at our annual family reunion on West Lake Okoboji. The weather was good overall. Most of our outdoor time was spent in kayaks, but we also took time to walk over to a nearby geocache called Venice, Iowa by Davy Duck, which we found fairly quickly.

Arggggh! Not another power trail, please

The phenomenon of so-called "power trail" caches began within the past year, and now this invasive cache type has found it's way to Iowa. Power trails are when a geocacher hides caches every 528 feet or slightly more along a trail -- just far enough to meet the .1 mile cache separation requirement. The guidelines don't prohibit power trails, but they do comment on them:

The reviewers use a rule of thumb that caches placed within .10 miles (528 feet or 161 metres) of another cache may not be published on the site. This is an arbitrary distance and is just a guideline, but the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of caches hidden in a particular area and to reduce confusion that might otherwise result when one cache is found while looking for another. On the same note, don't go cache crazy and hide a cache every 600 feet just because you can. If you want to create a series of caches (sometimes called a “Power Trail”), the reviewer may require you to create a multi-cache, if the waypoints are close together. A series of caches that are generally intended to be found as a group are good candidates for submission as a single multicache.

We didn't have any power trails in Iowa until a few weeks ago when I approved the LOBRI Trails in Muscatine, after geocachers LOBRI wrote to me to request that their series be approved so they could "draw attention to geocaching" in Muscatine in advance of an upcoming geocaching event and so they could take a local newspaper reporter on a cache hunt. Even though Grounspeak discourages power trails (see the guideline excerpt above) I decided to approve this series. Evidently that power trail or others outside of Iowa inspired other geocachers to create their own power trails. Now several more have been submitted.

Because of what's written in the guidelines, I'm going to begin questioning geocachers who submit power trails -- asking why they can't be set up as multi-caches instead. If there is no good reason, they can expect that their power trail cache will not be approved.

Less-than-helpful hints

I always look at the hints written by cache owners when they submit a new cache. For the most part, geocachers seem to understand the purpose of the hint. However, I do see an occasional less-than-useful hint. For example:
"This is one of my favorite parks."
"Be sure to bring along a piece of metal tied to a string at least 2 feet long."
"Your best approach is from the north."

If I see that a hint doesn't fulfill the intended purpose -- giving geocachers a last resort clue that they can decrypt at ground zero -- before I publish the cache, I think it's due primarily to inexperience. I send them a note with my recommendation for changing their hint and why. In most cases, they seem happy to oblige. They simply haven't thought things through and put themselves in the shoes of people who will be hunting for their cache.

Getting a second opinion

One thing that I stress when writing to or talking with geocachers is that I, as a reviewer, don't make the rules. My role as a volunteer reviewer is to enforce the guidelines that have been put in place by Groundspeak. However, because of the ever-evolving creativity of geocachers, situations often arise that require interpretation to see if they comply with the guidelines or may pose problems or dangers that the guideline writers had not previously thought of. In situations like those, I like to ask my fellow reviewers for their opinions about the cache. Groundspeak has a special online forum for reviewers with a topic called "What do you think of this cache?" There we can post a link to these speical situations and ask if anyone else has encountered this type of cache before. It's a great resource that helps keep all of the reviewers worldwide in touch with each other and consistent in how we review new geocache submissions.

213 new caches in April

I just did a rough count (I could be off by a few) and I reviewed and approved about 213 new caches in Iowa during the month of April. That's a lot! Oh yeah, there were also a ton of notes and emails exchanged about caches, some caches to archive, a CITO event attended, and even a few geocaches that I found myself. While the pace has been fast and furious, it's been fun working with you. I know from reading posts from fellow reviewers who review other regions that Iowa geocachers are, overall, more polite and understanding than some of the geocachers I hear about from other parts of the country and world. So if you're an Iowa geocacher... thanks. Keep up the good attitude and the great caches.

It's spring and the geocaches are in bloom

It was a busy day for geocache hiders in Iowa! Today I reviewed 25 cache listings -- and I'm guessing more may be submitted yet this evening. The warmer weather must be giving people the urge to get out into the great outdoors. Some of the new ones that I approved this evening look especially interesting, including one outside of Ames called Simon & Garfunkel. I graduated from Iowa State but I never knew about this area. It looks like a great place to take a hike.

Cedar Rapids CITO

This past Friday evening I started thinking about how I was going to spend my Saturday. Mary was going to be gone all day to attend a bridal shower for a neice, so that left me to fend for myself. Since there were a number of Cache In, Trash Out (CITO) events listed on the geocaching.com calendar all over the country in honor of Earth Day, I decided that I'd take part in one of them. Then I remembered that I had been invited by AB-n-AP to attend their event in Cedar Rapids -- so I knew my destination. I always like visiting Cedar Rapids because I lived there for seven years back in the '80s and it's where my son was born. It was also great to meet a number of geocachers from that area and discuss geocaching, geocache reviewing, and other topics as we picked up trash. After more than two hours of bending over to pick up bottles, papers, cardboard, fast food containers and even a hub cap, I can still feel the muscles in the backs of my legs. But it was worth it. We got that stretch of parkway along the freeway looking a lot better than it did before. My thanks to AB-n-AP for organizing this, and especially to everyone who came out to help.

Greetings from down south

Mary and I are on Cozumel, but I've been keeping in touch with the geocaching.com review queue, thanks to wifi in the hotel lobby. Technology is pretty damn amazing these days.

Acceptance of additional waypoints feature

Since early 2006, I've been encouraging geocachers to use the "add/edit waypoints" feature found on the edit pages for their caches to enter coordinates for multicaches and mystery/puzzle caches. At first I posted a lot of "reviewer notes" to inform or remind geocachers about this. Recently I don't seem to need to remind geocachers as much because most are already aware of this and doing it on their own. Of course, I can't take all the credit for this (or even most of the credit) because geocaching.com has now made it part of the latest version of the geocaching.com guidelines for hiding a multicache.

The Blizzard

Geocaching activity came to a virtual standstill in many parts of Iowa during the first weekend of March and for days afterward, and understandably so because of the blizzard that hit much of the state. Some amazing stories are being told about week-long power outages in town such as Beaman in the north-central part of the state. Check out more blizzard photos at this Iowa DOT site.

How long to approve a cache?

I just read a couple of posts in the geocaching.com forums. The relatively new geocacher (a "newbie" in geocaching parlance) asked how long it should take to have his new multi-cache approved. He was answered by several posters, but the most complete and accurate answer that I saw so far comes from a geocacher who goes by the handle of WebChimp. Here's what WebChimp wrote:

As far as listing process goes, I know the reviewers want to see each stage (even if there's no container there) listed as a waypoint, with a description of what goes on at that stage. Leave a nice, clear note for the reviewer in the logs, explaining anything that's even slightly unusual. Pretend you didn't write the listing, read over the note for the reviewer, and make sure it makes complete sense.

As far as the reviewing process goes, the previous answers have good advice. Patience is a virtue, especially when waiting for a cache to be reviewed. GC guideleines say to drop your reviewer an email if nothing's happened after 72 hours. That's an okay idea, but just remember that the 72 hour thing is a guideline. Some reviewers have ample free time to get multi or complicated caches reviewed and make a reply to the hider inside 72 hours. Other reviewers have full work loads or family obligations, and assessing a multi or complicated cache may just take longer. In any case, remember that the reviewer is not going to reach an opinion about the cache and not share it with you. Just be patient. The answer will come...

I would suggest if the listing involves code, or some complex method of deriving coordinates, give all that info to your reviewer.

I think the biggest time-consumer in reviewing these caches is trying to decipher what the hider has actually done, and ANYTHING you can tell the reviewer (via a note in the logs) to make it easier to understand and visualize on a map will help them process the listing more quickly.

Also remember that your reviewer is probably reviewing numerous other caches at the same time, and that makes things difficult on his or her end, as well.

Again, just be patient. One really polite email after four or five days is probably all it takes to get a reading on what's going on.

Good luck on your hide, it's a lot of fun to see that FTF log on a new cache.

Happy trails............

WebChimp

That's sage advice, coming from a geocacher who's only been in the game for 14 months, according to his profile.

Cedar Rapids cave

Yesterday I reviewed and listed a new cache in Cedar Rapids that really has me thinking because of what the owner wrote about the location in his description. The cache is called Mosquito Cave and in his description, AB-n-AP says:

After the Civil War, a gang of horse thieves used to run their stolen horses through what is now known as Horsethief Cave. The thieves would enter the cave, located a few miles north of Mosquito Cave, and not emerge until they reached Anamosa - 23 miles away!

I lived in Cedar Rapids for seven years and I never heard about this cave. I wish I would have because I would have loved to explore this. It's hard for me to imagine that horse thieves could fit horses through a labrinth of caves that extended for 23 miles, and it's right there under the Cedar River all the way to Anamosa. If it's true -- and I don't have any reason to doubt AB-n-AP -- that's pretty amazing.

Podcast geocaches

This morning I reviewed a newly submitted geocache that wasn't really a geocache. There was a downloadable wav file which users could listen to on their MP3 players to hear turn-by-turn directions to the final location of the cache container. However, Groundspeak has notified reviewers not to accept podcast geocaches.

Quoting from the guidelines: "GPS usage is an essential element of geocaching. Therefore, although it is possible to find a cache without a GPS, the option of using accurate GPS coordinates as an integral part of the cache hunt must be demonstrated for all physical cache submissions."

If you would still like to provide geocachers the option of using your home-made podcast for turn-by-turn directions to get to a cache, you must:

1. Provide the coordinates of the final location on the cache page, or in the case of a puzzle or multi, provide a method to obtain the final coordinates.

AND...

2. Provide a warning on the cache page that says "Downloading files from the internet is not always safe and you download the files at your own risk."

AND...

3. Provide an alternate way such as a printout of the podcast text that you can print from the web page and read along as you go.

I realize that these rules are not posted in the guidelines, but I have been assured they will be posted in the next iteration. Meanwhile, Groundspeak has suggested that we refer geocachers to this clause in the guidelines: "Groundspeak may change, suspend, or discontinue any portion of the Site, or any service offered on the Site, at any time, including but not limited to any feature, database, application, or content. Groundspeak may also impose limits on certain features offered on the Site with or without notice."

A list of Iowa's land policies

I happened to run across the following posting that I sent to geocaching.com some time ago when they asked for a region-by-region response from each of their reviewers. I realize the IGO web site has a more detailed, and probably more up-to-date list by county, but here's a bunch of info on one page. If you see errors here, please let me know.
-----------
Iowa

STATEWIDE

For all Iowa State Parks and other land administered by The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), permission from the local land manager is required. No permit system is in place (that I know of) so geocachers need to state in their submission that they have received permission.

The Nature Conservancy in Iowa protects over thirty parcels of land throughout the state. Many of these sites are also classified as preserves. Requests for placing caches may be directed to Mr. Neal Humke, Land Steward for The Nature Conservancy in Iowa, at PO Box 1411, Muscatine, IA 52761. Please provide a detailed description of the proposed cache location (what trail, distance from trailhead, distance from trail, etc.), a description of the proposed container, and the distance from any features that might be considered threatened were a cache placed too close by. This information is dated 11 January 2004.


CEDAR RAPIDS

The Indian Creek Nature Center wants geocaches okayed by the Land Steward, Jean Wiedenheft. Ms Weidenheft may be reached via the information on this page. The Center is concerned about "... keeping caches away from high erosion areas (steep hills, gullies), and ... wild flower patches...". This information is dated 11 January 2004.

The City of Cedar Rapids Parks Department wants geocaches okayed by the City Parks Director, Dave Kramer. Mr. Kramer may be reached at the City Parks Department office. This information is dated 11 January 2004.

CORALVILLE

At a meeting 23 February 2004, the Coralville Parks and Recreation Commission unanimously approved a motion to permit Geocaching within city parks with approved locations and guidelines generally following those of the Story County Conservation Board (see below). The minutes of the meeting incorporating the approval may be found at this link. The guidelines and permit application PDF file will be found on the Coralville website.

DES MOINES

This Groundspeak forum posting dated 13 June 2004, advises that permission must be received from park management before hiding any caches in Jester Park.

JOHNSON COUNTY

The Johnson County Conservation Board has issued their Geocache Placement Permit application. This document is in MS Word format, undated.

We have received correspondence dated 11 September 2004 with the following information:
The Macbride Nature Center (located along the Coralville Reservoir near Lake Macbride State Park) is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers but is leased to, and managed by the University of Iowa Division of Recreational Services.
The University does not have an official, written policy regarding geocaching but asks that they be contacted prior to placing any caches. The nature center does have some sensitive areas to protect, and they say that their lease could be jepordized by unauthorized activities.
The contact is:
Wayne Fett
Assoc. Director, Outdoor Trip Programs
Macbride Nature Recreation Area Coord.
Ph. 319-335-9290
wayne-fett a t uiowa d o t edu


STORY COUNTY

The Story County Conservation Board has issued Geocache Placement Site Guidelines and a Geocache Placement Permit application. Both documents are undated and in Microsoft Word format.

VINTON

The City of Vinton Parks and Recreation Department wants a letter or telephone call requesting permission to place caches within Vinton parks. Requests may be sent to Duane Randall, Head of the Parks and Recreation Department, at 7014 East A Street, Vinton, IA 52349, or telephone (319) 472-4164. This information is dated 11 January 2004.

WASHINGTON COUNTY

A geocacher submitted the following excerpt from a letter written to him by Steve Anderson, Director of the Washington County Conservation Board (WCCB) dated 11 July 2003. The excerpt follows:

The Board decided to allow geocaches in our properties provided that our director first approves the site, that they cannot be placed in environmentally sensitive areas, and that they are not allowed in Brinton Timber or Hayes Timber.

Geocachers applying for permission to place a cache on WCCB land may reach Mr. Anderson at the Conservation Education Center. Contact information for the Education Center may be found on the WCCB web page at the above link.

WINNEBAGO COUNTY

The Winnebago County Conservation Board has developed a set of Geocache Placement Site Guidelines and a Geocache Placement Permit application. Our understanding as of the date of submission (29 April 2004) is that no areas have yet been classified as "Category 1" (virtual caches only). The documents are in Microsoft Word format, undated.

WORTH COUNTY

The Worth County Conservation Board has developed a Geocache Registration Form that should be submitted after a cache is physically hidden, but BEFORE it is submitted to geocaching.com. The form may be mailed to Worth County Conservation Board, 503 1st Avenue N, Northwood, Iowa 50459, but it appears the Board will also accept this information over the telephone at (641) 324-1524 (ask for Shane or Dan). Please read the cache placement guidelines on the registration form before placing your cache. Once approved by the Board, make certain your online cache description contains the required information described in the registration form as well. The form is in Microsoft Word format, undated.

UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

The Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge is off limits to geocaching, as per rules of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Boundaries can be viewed here.

Fake bolts in road signs: Is it vandalism?

Geocacher welch has asked another good question for this blog. Citing a discussion thread in the geocaching.com forums, welch asks:

"...it is vandalism to have seekers take a bolt out of a sign... Like 'if they removed a sign bolt to replace with a fake one then it would be vandalism, but if they filled a hole that was already open it wouldn't be'...
What would be your reply to that thread? How about if the bolt hole theading was stripped out so the bolt could be pulled out (by hand), allowing the sign to swing away, and a cache was hidden underneath?
What about if the bolt was just a hollowed out and magnetized bolt head that onlystuck to a sign so it looked real, but was just 'hanging' there?"

In general, these sections of the guidelines apply to the questions about roadsign bolts:
"Caches that deface public or private property, whether a natural or man-made object, in order to provide a clue or a logging method." and... "For all cache types please be sensible when choosing your location for cache placement. Please be aware of what may be a perceived to a non-geocacher as dangerous or questionable behavior."

If a real bolt is removed to insert a cache disguised as a fake bolt, this would reduce the structural integrity of the sign's attachment to its mounting, so it would not be an approvable cache, IMHO. But even if a hole already exists in the sign and a fake bolt is inserted, I still don't like it. It's not good to have muggles and law enforcement see geocachers messing around with street signs. However, if the geocache owner makes a point of obtaining permission from the local police chief to place such a cache, and then states that permission in a note to the reviewer or on the cache page, this could result in the cache being approved, provided there aren't other circumstances that also need to be addressed.

What a December!

I don't know why it's happening, but this has been a crazy month for new caches. I have already approved more than 130 new cache listings in Iowa during December, in addition to a number that have been archived, plus lots of contact with geocachers about one thing or another. Maybe it's because we haven't had much snow yet combined with the annual Christmas surge of new GPS units in the hands of newbies. Whatevever the reason, there's been no let up during the past few weeks. I hope you're enjoying new cache finds in your area.

Thoughts about sharks

Please excuse another non-geocache-reviewing post. I've corresponded with a few of my fellow geocachers about our recent dive trip to the Bahamas and our shark dives, so here are a few photos. It was a truly amazing experience. What I learned: Sharks are not evil. They are beautiful creatures and unlike what we landlubbers are led to believe by Hollywood, they don't automatically eat humans whenever they encounter them in the water.

Thanks for the help

If you had a cache approved in Iowa last week, did you notice that the reviewer was Electric Mouse instead of IowaAdmin? My thanks to reviewer Electric Mouse for filling in for me while my wife and I took a week-long vacation away from the Internet and email connections.

Reviewers have several options for handling vacation time. I think most of us choose to continue our reviewing duties while on vacation because of the increasing availability of Internet connections. However, in my most recent case, we were out of the country in a hotel that didn't have Internet in the rooms, so I wrote to Electric Mouse ahead of time to ask for her very capable assistance. Things must have gone smoothly because I didn't have anyone write to say "Boy, am I glad that you're back!"

Just kidding. I didn't really expect that.

Anything to make a buck

I was just now viewing some of the ways people try to make a buck off of geocachers by selling all sorts of geocaching stuff on eBay. You can view some of their ideas here. Some of these items are very clever. Some are just plain foolish and even dangerous. Example: magnetic electrical coverplate microcaches. The description states "This cache can be placed on any flat metal surface such as a electrical box, AC unit, metal lightposts, etc." True, it can be attached, but if the reviewer is aware that it's bee placed on electrical equipment, it shouldn't be approved for listing on geocaching.com. Before you spend your money on these types of caches, please review the guidelines and think twice about where you may be encouraging geocachers and their family members to look for caches.

Under woodchips. so is it buried?

Yesterday I received the following email from IGO member Welch:
-------
Actually, while I'm emailing you I have a question about the guidelines (and something you can put in your blog if you like). Can caches be buried in 'soft' materials?
When the topic comes up in the gc.com, some people point that if a cache were buried in sand then no tools/point objects would be needed to hide or find the cache. Which is what the guidelines say, "Caches that are buried. If a shovel, trowel or other “pointy” object is used to dig, whether in order to hide or to find the cache, then it is not appropriate." So assuming I could get land owner permission to bury a cache, would it be listable? (I doubt any parks would let me bury anything, but the idea has me thinking of parks that have small streams with sandy bottoms/shores that are otherwise well mowed...)

Also a few weeks back I ran across a cache that had been buried in the mulch around one of those big wooden park signs. And no I don't mean they layed it on and top and piled loose mulch/chips over, it was like 5" deep. Though even the bottom was mulch too so I guess maybe it wasn't really had to dig all being mulch. Let me explain... the person got short lenght of 4" pvc and buried it vertical so the end was flush with the ground, then they put a fake drain cover over it. And then down inside the tube they put a small fake valve handle (so it looks kinda like a water shut off valve). The valve was of course not really, and if you pull up it comes up to reveal a pill bottom. I don't have any pictures of this thing, but its sorta similar to this thing on ebay
so since no tools were apperently used to hide the cache, it was ok right?
welch
-----
Before answering welch (which I'm doing here), I did a little "digging" of my own in the files of the reviewers' online forum, where we ask each other questions about whether a certain cache should be approved (and sometimes just shoot the bull). There, I found opinions relevant to the two questions posed by welch, and they matched what I have been assuming.

As welch points out, the geocaching.com guidelines say that a cache should never be buried. The tricky part comes in trying to define "buried." To shed light on this, Geocaching.com guidelines further state: "If a shovel, trowel or other 'pointy' object is used to dig, whether in order to hide or to find the cache, then it is not appropriate."

First, regarding the first cache example from welch, I think this would probably be OK. When geocachers search for this cache in a sandy river bottom area, they're going to be pushing sand around to look for it. The litmus test that I would use is, does their moving sand cause harm to the area or look like suspicious activity? I'd say probably not.

Regarding the second example, since this is in a more travelled area, it might cause attention and suspicion -- not to mention damage to the landscaping -- when geocachers start moving wood chips around to find the geocache. However, if the cache page description clearly states that the cache container is in plain view and no moving wood chips is required, then it might be approvable.

Why geocaches are discouraged under bridges

We have a number of geocaches placed under bridges in Iowa. Of the ones I approved, it's because the owner has assured me that the bridge is part of a hiking/biking trail or it is in a rural area that doesn't see much traffic. However, as a general rule, caches under bridges are discouraged because bridges could be possible terrorist targets. If you need more convincing, here's an article that points out what can happen. (Thanks to fellow reviewer Hemlock for bringing this article to my attention.)

Questions about changing multicache waypoints

Here's an email I received on Sunday, followed by my response.
-------------
I was just curious how something works. If someone has a multi cache out there, what are the guideline for changing the coords for stages other than stage one? Does the cacher need to have the cache re-approved? What if they are leaving the first stage the same, but only changing the next stages? Also, Do you see when multi stages are updated or just if they update the waypoints? Just curious!
---------------
If you need to change coordinates for a stage of a multicache, you don't necessarily have to it reapproved. You have the ability to enter new coordinates as long as they are not more than a certain distance from the old coordinates. I haven't tested it, but I've been told the maximum distance you can move them yourself is about 100 feet. You use a link on the Edit page for your cache to change coordinates. If you need to move them more than what is allowed through that link, you can email me with the new coordinates and I will review.

As far as I know, I don't get an automatic notice when intermediate waypoints are moved, like I do with the "main" coordinates are moved by the owner.

I hope this answers your questions.

Ken
IowaAdmin
--------------
Thanks for your prompt response. That was the answer I needed!!!

Questions from CC8C4

Here's an email I received yesterday...

IowaAdmin,
Thank you so much for your work approving caches! All of the new caches in eastern Iowa must be keeping you busy! The web site advises that it could take 72 hours for a cache to get reviewed. Of my 13 to date, you have had them all published within two! Some questions for your blog,
How many hours a week do you have to spend reviewing caches?
What are the top 10 reasons a cache is disapproved, or requires more work?
How did you get the honor/curse of becoming IowaAdmin?
How long have you been approving caches?
Larry, Cindy, and Becca Darling (CC8C4)
Tipton, IA.

Thanks, Larry. Here are some answers...
How many hours a week do you have to spend reviewing caches?
It varies by season. In the dead of winter, it might be as low as 2 hours per week. In the warm days of summer, it can range from 5 to 12 hours or so.

What are the top 10 reasons a cache is disapproved, or requires more work?
Wow. Do I have really have to come up with 10 reasons? :) Here are some of the reasons, not necessarily in order of "topness." Placed on DNR-managed land without permission. Didn't use the "add/edit waypoints" feature on a multicache to enter all the waypoints. Placed too close (less than 528 feet) to an existing geocache. Placed in a cemetary without permission from the caretaker or owner. Placed on or near electrical equipment. Placed in the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife Refuge (geocaching is not allowed there). Placed in one of several counties or municipalities where a geocaching permit is required. Those are the biggies.

How did you get the honor/curse of becoming IowaAdmin?
I lived in Iowa for the first 32 years of my life. I now live in Wisconsin but I am in Iowa frequently to visit relatives and for business. My reviewing stemmed from my association with the Wisconsin Geocaching Association, which I helped found. Back in the "old days," Jeremy and the rest of the Groundspeak crew decided to designate geographic areas to reviewers. Prior to that, I was helping review caches all over the country. Groundspeak asked two other Wisconsin reviewers to review Wisconsin, and since I have Iowa roots and connections, I was asked to review for Iowa. I started out using the ID WGA2, but now another reviewer is using that for approving caches in Wisconsin so I started a new ID: IowaAdmin. My "regular" IDs are kbraband (for solo geocaching) and active2gether (for caches I find with my wife). While some reviewers believe in hiding their true identities, I don't do that. I believe that by working together with fellow cachers to get caches approved according to the gc.com guidelines, there should be no reason to keep my ID. secret.

How long have you been approving caches?
I've been geocaching since Feb. 2001, and reviewing since some time in 2003.

Thanks for the questions, Larry.

Maggie Potts

It's been nice to see geocachers step up and adopt several of Maggie Potts' geocaches, after her unfortunate passing away. The IGO board asked how might be the best way to handle the adoptions, and we agreed to archive her old ones and create new listings with the same names. This give geocachers added incentive to revisit these caches.

"Vacation" caches

It happened again this morning. I had to archive a new cache submitted for approval because the owner who placed it does not live nearby. In this case he lives more than 2,000 miles away!

One of the recurring reasons for someone's new submitted geocache to not receive approval is that the owner does not live in the area of the cache. This circumstance falls under the so-called vacation cache guideline, which Geocaching.com frowns on because these caches are often difficult for the owner to maintain. However, exceptions can be made if the owner states -- either in a note to the reviewer or in the description on on their cache page -- how they will be able to maintain this cache. The most common exceptions are when the owner has a relative who lives near the cache who will provide maintenance, or if the owner regularly gets back to the area, say at least once a month or so.

A note about "notes to the reviewer"

Today I had emails from two different geocachers -- mostly routine stuff about getting their caches ready to list -- and both of them asked me to delete my "note to the reviewer" so that geocachers don't see it once the cache is approved and listed. So, I thought I'd offer here a little insight about how "notes to the reviewer" work. When a cache is published and goes online, notes to the reviewer are automatically erased from view. However, they are still viewable to the reviewers if we click on a link called "view archived logs." This is a handy feature because it allows reviewers to save correspondence from the owner on the cache page, such as notes about how the cache is hidden, or the contact information for the park manager who granted approval, etc.

More discussion about electric box geocaches

Yesterday I enjoyed an email discussion with a geocacher who
asked me to clarify and discuss further why her geocache that is made out of a former electric utility box (but is no longer hooked up) could not be approved. In my response, I sent her this link to a forum post by a geocacher who works for a power utility. It's expert advice from someone who knows firsthand the dangers of conditioning geocachers to look inside or around electric equipment. Quoting from his post:

I am asking in behalf as a Safety Professional and Geocacher please not to hide caches on or around electrical equipment and not to even look for a cache that may be on or around any electrical equipment. If you believe that it is in a hazardous zone please contact the person who placed the geocache. If that is not a successful route please contact the person who approved it. Most of the time the approver of a geocache is not aware that it is in a dangerous zone. Let’s look out for each other.

For these reasons and others mentioned previously in this blog, these types of caches are not a good idea. I know some have been approved in other states, but I don't know why because it's doubtful that the business or utility company that owns the electrical equipment granted permission for the cache to be there.

Here's the reply from the geocacher with whom I was having the email discussion:

Thanks for the reply. I understand completely. It is good to get an explanation sometimes.

Those Jeep travel bugs

Windchill wrote to me today and suggested that I post an update on what I know about this summer's Jeep travel bug distribution. So, here's what I know. Groundspeak (the company that runs geocaching.com) has posted a note in the Reviewer's forum saying that any reviewer who wants to distribute Jeeps to geocachers in their areas should let them know. I didn't see the post until recently so I put in a request for about 60 to 80 Jeeps because that's what I received in past years. Another more recent post says that the first round of shipments have been mailed out, with another round coming soon.

Additionally, this year there was a mail-in request form process to give everyone an equal chance to receive a Jeep Travel Bug directly from Groundspeak. All you had to do was fill out a form and mail it in. Anyone who did so within the first two weeks (approx) of the sign-up period "will definitely get one" according to Groundspeak (despite what the form says). I've heard that some individual geocachers are already receiving theirs directly from Groundspeak.

If I wasn't too late to get me request in and I do get a shipment this year, I'll forward them to IGO board members for distribution to Iowa geocachers.

Another nice note

I received this nice note from an Iowa geocacher. Thanks. Comments like this serve as a reminder that the purpose of reviewing geocaches is a service -- to keep the sport fun for the most people possible.
-------------------
Good Grief! Ref: Kaboom That was quick!
Thanks a lot. You do such a great job for all of us out here in cache land. We really appreciate you!
LoBri

Our Canadian experience

A friend and fellow geocaching "old-timer," jvechinski, wrote that I should blog about my recent trip to Whistler, British Columbia, where I bagged a few geocaches (of course) in addition to doing zip lines, white water rafting, mountain biking, hiking, dancing and dining... (lots of dining). So by popular request, and even though they have nothing to do with reviewing geocaches, here are some photos. (Yikes, this is awful layout design. Oh well.)

A nice trip followed by kind words

This past weekend my wife and I and two other couples rented a houseboat out of McGregor, IA and boated the Mississippi River for 3 days. It was great! I was planning to take my laptop along and find wifi hotspots to review caches a couple of times, but at the last minute I decided to "disconnect" for the weekend. I thought this might cause a few geocachers to wonder if their new caches were EVER going to be reviewed. My apologies to those of you who waited patiently. I guess not everyone is ticked off, because here's a very nice email received today.
------------------------

IowaAdmin:

Hi! We are relatively new to geocaching & have recently placed 3 caches in the Ames area (all of which were approved quickly).

Just wanted to take a minute & thank you for the time you spend reviewing & publishing caches. I'm sure it's very time consuming & we appreciate your volunteer spirit!

Thanks also for your blog, I just took some time & read through all the past posts & they were very informative. Lots of good information for placing future caches.

Thanks again for your time & dedication!
Angie B
RedheadBasset
Ames, IA