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.