tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2917070195539372703.post3996554930223258266..comments2023-08-17T03:00:52.327-07:00Comments on Electronic Breadcrumbs: Cache hidingKimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11292161628164366386noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2917070195539372703.post-66773645370253214962010-07-28T10:21:19.458-07:002010-07-28T10:21:19.458-07:00We go back as far as you do in caching, give or ta...We go back as far as you do in caching, give or take a month, so this whole discourse brings back some interesting memories. We didn't hide our first cache until more than a year after our first find. That was Ojai... Oh! (GC989C), a simple two-step offset multi. We pulled it after more than four years; it was still in good shape (it was a heavy plastic box), but the area it was hiding in had gotten really overgrown, and folks were having trouble getting to it.<br /><br />As it is, we almost didn't hide it. We had the cache ready, but hadn't found a good spot; we just sort of stumbled across where we hid it on the way home from something else. But we had been pushed by a couple of cachers we knew; they encouraged us to hide one for every ten that we had found. Of course, back then, caches were still pretty rare, and urban micros were unheard of. But there's no way that anyone could keep to that 10% goal nowadays.<br /><br />Amazingly, in that year-and-a-half between our first Find and our first Hide, we only had 35 Finds :-o And I don't think we ever got to that 10% threshold. We're barely over 3% now.<br /><br />"I don't know how people who have 100 or so hides active do it unless they shirk that part of their caching responsibility. Nothing's worse in my opinion than coming across a cache site, not finding a cache and then checking the cache page and finding a string of DNFs dating back several months. That just shows that the cache owner doesn't care about their cache." <br /><br />Talk about being cut to the quick :-o We own 198 caches, of which 127 are active, with four of them being officially disabled. 22 of the total were adopted from cachers who moved out of the area. I don't know how we keep up with them, either. A lot of it is in choosing places that are very unlikely to be muggled, and to do the best I can to keep critters from getting to them. Granted, I have more free time, but there are several caches that are not disabled that I really need to check up on. I probably won't get to them for a while, though, as summer heat will keep me (and everyone else) away.<br /><br />Cache maintenance is a royal pain, and there are at least five caches that I am likely to just archive rather than replace, as they are too awkward to get to. I never archive a cache without looking for it, but if it takes me that long to get to it to check, it'll be that much harder to replace it if it goes missing again. <br /><br />To be honest, I oftentimes have the opposite feeling about our caches that I do about our geocoin collection. I love to have people discover our geocoins, but the fewer people who go after our caches, the better it often is from a maintenance PoV, as it likely means that visitors of any type to the area are probably rare.<br /><br />Unfortunately (sort of), I do enjoy hiding caches. I would love to set up one of those large series like the Big Smiley. I enjoy doing big sets, and I think it would be awesome to set one up. But the maintenance issue would be a nightmare. Gasoline isn't getting any cheaper, and driving out to the Mojave (the only area around here suited to that sort of thing) to replace a missing cache would get onerous very quickly. But the idea is still very tempting :-)chaosmanorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14993881344467616773noreply@blogger.com