Great Lakes Seaway Trail

We recently finished the Great Lakes Seaway Trail Geo Trail. We capped a week in New York state with a visit to the Niagara Falls Visitor Center on Saturday afternoon. It was a super trail. There were five sections and five coins. Each section got a little better heading West to East.

This trail is about the history of the trail and the areas where it passes. For me, it was all about the water and the wonderful places to see. If your a lighthouse fan, you won't regret doing this trail. The trail is getting a little old and is probably nearing its last days, but it was an awesome adventure for us. We spread the trail over almost two years of journeys. The images below move you from west in Erie County Pennsylvania to the eastern end of our journey at the Saint Lawrence.

1867 Erie Land Light - Erie, Pennsylvania

Barcelona Lighthouse and a cold Barcelona Beach - Barcelona, New York

Beach and sunset west of Buffalo, New York

Caching Buffalo

Hiking the Gorge at Niagara Falls

Sailboats Racing Off Shore in Wilson, New York

The park at Bear Creek Harbor

Stream Near Beechwood State Park

Sodus Point

Chimney Bluffs State Park

Fillmore Glen State Park

Phoenix Bridgehouse

Sandy Island State Park

Tibbets Point

Cedar Point State Park

Keewaydin State Park and Glacial Grooves

Basford Falls

Harper's Falls

Visiting the Eisenhower Lock

The Algoma Spirit enters the lock.

Rising in the Lock

At the top of the Lock

Leaving the Lock

Cache Guardian

If you have been caching for any length of time, chances are good you have either heard about or completed a cache requiring you to bring or find a quantity of water to float the cache container out of a tube. We found another of these today. We were in luck with empty soda bottles in the geomobile and a river nearby to provide a plentiful water source.

All went as expected until I started to add the third container of water. The cache popped out of the tube with a frog on top. I thought that's cute; the cache owner put a fake frog on top of the container. Wait a minute. This frog is BREATHING. Yep, it was a real live cache guardian. It was completely unfazed by us. It sat on the cache container bobbing in the filled tube. It let me take picture. It let Ali lift the cache out of the tube. We finally brought it to the ground where Ali gently moved it to a log. It sat on the log until we had signed the cache log and replaced the container. After that, it was off into the woods with one long hop.

It was a memorable cache that will get a favorite vote from us for an event no one else will probably ever experience at this cache. What a perfect way to start the day.

Five Years

I recently marked my fifth anniversary as a Volunteer Reviewer for Groundspeak. To mark the occasion, Groundspeak sent the really outstanding trackable shown in the image below.

The game has changed a lot since I started reviewing. To me, some of the bigger changes have been:

the elimination of the power trail section of the guideline. Now there are huge trails throughout the world and adventerous cachers with numbers in mind can log 2000 finds in a weekend.

the growth of micros. Love them or hate them, micros have taken over the game.

paperless caching with gps units. When I started reviewing, Ali had a Garmin 60CsX. I still think it is the most accurate handheld ever made for geocaching, but at 1000 caches and no paperless capabilities, it required a PDA or a lot of printed pages. Now you can load as many as 10,000 caches and have the complete page information with you for each journey.

smart phones. They have opened the game up to so many players who never owned a hand held gps. Unfortunately, they have given the rest of us a world of coordinates as much as 2000 feet off from the actual cache. I really enjoy the luxury of checking the smart phone for a rest stop cache when I am traveling long distances, but I remain eternally happy with the accuracy of a handheld unit.

the elimination of Additional Logging Requirements. These were quite popular when permitted and had quite a following in some geographic areas. I don't miss them.

the growth in popularity of Challenge Caches. DeLorme and state challenges existed five years ago, but there was nowhere near the diversity of challenge caches that are now available. The existance of 366 challenges created a caching frenzy this year as Leap Day approached and everyone made plans to find caches on the one day they could only get every four years.

the addition of geocaching challenges. While these have been ignored by a lot of cachers, there are a group of loyal followers who participate in this part of the site. We've posted and completed a number of these with our player account.

geotrails have become a part of the caching landscape. I was thrilled to be the reviewer for the Allegheny GeoTrail, one of the first geotrails to be published. Since then, I've been involved with reviewing a number of these fun trails including the North Country Trail Geo Trail and the recent Clearfield County Geotrail. Within the last month I was able to publish the Athens County Geotrail. For me as a player, these trails are fun and exciting and get me to explore places I might have missed without the trails pointing the way.

I publish a lot more caches now than when I first started reviewing. This year will be double that first year. When I first started, the winter months were quiet for new cache listings in our snowy territory. Over the years, the big winter dip has become less prominent with a lot of year-round cachers and hiders.

The first five years have been mostly fun. The time to review has reduced the number of caches we have time to find, but we still go out frequently. It is always interesting to find caches I published. The other volunteers and the Groundspeak staff are great people. My life has been better for having the opportunity to meet the team and become friends with them.

If you wish to discover this trackable and add a unique icon to your collection, please contact me.

First Find in Mexico

I will be in Mexico about five times this year. This was my first visit and really had me thinking about the chance to add another country to our found map. With all the violence there, I was a bit hesitant about the thought of geocaching. This cache was almost on top of the hotel and begged for a find. The cache has a strange history of logs. The page description says it is a nano. It hadn't been found since November 2011. Before that, it hadn't been logged as found since October 2010 with a string of dnf's. There's a note from October by another cacher who claimed to have left a micro in place of the nano last October. I looked three different times and had all but given up when I finally spotted something odd. It was a nano at just about ground zero. I am assuming it was the original hide safe and sound in a nice hiding spot. The hunt was interesting. One attempt was thwarted by a truck with Federales and a mounted machine gun parked less than 200 feet away. I held off on a second attempt when I realized there was a meeting taking place with two cars about fifty feet from the hide location.

There aren't many caches in the Apodaca area, but with four more trips this year, I am tempted to hunt for the nearby travel bug hotel.

New Year - New Goals

It's that time of year for a couple of enginerds (us) to think about geocaching numbers for the new year, but first last years...

Caching in Oregon for the first time.

8500 finds -> yes... this was a surprise. The stars aligned and we cached a lot.
850 3+ terrain finds -> no... We were close at 828, but didn't cache as much in PA.
500 multi finds -> no... We were close again at 484.
500 puzzle finds -> yes... A week in CA helped as we finished with 509.
900 New York caches found -> yes... work travel and a little vacation helped.
275 US Counties with finds -> yes... a lot of travel and we ended the year with 306.
28 states with caches found - yes... Two trips in the fall to California left us at 29.
130 caches hidden -> yes... GeoWoodstock inspired us to hide more caches than we had in years. We ended with 147 caches hidden.

We visited Watkins Glen for the first time in years.

There were lots of great memories with those goals. We got to see a few new places and visit some old places we hadn't seen in years. With the new year comes a new set of goals. We'll see how we do and hope as always to have fun. For this year we decided on...

2011 was our first year for caching in California

10000 finds -> This will actually be tough for us. 2011 was a strange year the most finds we've had since becoming reviewers (yes reviewing does take a lot of time). It's a challenging goal for us.
950 3+ terrain finds
550 multi finds There aren't too many around either home base.
600 puzzle finds
1000 New York caches found -> Finally... I think this is doable.
3000 Pennsylvania finds -> I don't think this can be done. We need over 400 finds.
34 states with caches found -> We may end up with just one state. We may get 35. We'll see.
160 caches hidden -> This is a more likely number for us.
366 days of caches found -> I don't think we're the only cachers trying for this. There will be a lot of found and attended logs on February 29.

Geo-Wedding

I had the privilege recently of publishing an upcoming geo-wedding. The bride and the groom later contacted me to ask if there had been other geo-weddings before. I went back and looked at old events and this is what I found.

The first geo-wedding event was published in 2003 and was held in Montana.

There have been thirteen geo-wedding events held with ten of those in the US (MT, PA, WA, WI(2), IN, CA, MO, and VA(2)).

The upcoming one will be the first in Ohio.

Except for 2005, there's been one or two geo-weddings each year. The upcoming one will be the first for 2012. Since this is a published event, it is open to all geocachers. I think no control over the "guest" list has limited the number of these published. You have to be really close to your fellow cachers to invite everyone to your wedding. I wonder if there will ever be a mega geo-wedding...

Here's to much happiness for the couple. May their finds be plenty and their dnf's few.

How Well Do You Know Your Attributes?

This should help us all better use attributes. :-)

Favorites... They've Been Here Awhile

It's the holidays and I have a small bit of time to be a numbers geek. We have gathered a lot of favorite points from our finds and long ago figured out that a bookmark list naming 1 out of every 20-25 finds was a good ratio for us. We have given a lot of favorite votes and have a lot never awarded. Favorites have now been out for a while so I thought I would play a bit. I started by looking at the numbers for our caches. Our top five caches with the most favorite votes are:

AGT-Warren-Irvine at Night 33 Favorites

Bang, Bang! Snip, Snip! 10 Favorites

AGT-Warren-Blueberry Fields Forever 7 Favorites

Don't Be Takin' Me Lucky Stones 6 Favorites

AGT-Warren-Warren & Tidioute Railway Company 6 Favorites

Okay, so our caches aren't going to win to many favorite contests. Still, 33 favorite votes for the night cache visited by a lot of GeoWoodstock attendees is pretty nice. For the percentages of favorites, our top five looked like this:

Arboretum Stroll 30% Favorites

Waymarking Bingo Challenge 30% Favorites

Don't Be Takin' Me Lucky Stones 25% Favorites

Here, There, and Beyond 24% Favorites

Set Plan, Rogue! 17% Favorites

What does any of this mean? It really seems to say our caches don't get visited too often, but cachers that do visit them seem to like them.

As a comparison, I looked at caches we've found to see which have the greatest votes and which have the higest percentages. The top five favorite vote getters are:

Original Stash Tribute Plaque 983 Favorites

Groundspeak Headquarters 827 Favorites

Mission 9: Tunnel of Light 760 Favorites

Un-Original Stash 291 Favorites

The Iron Horse Express 227 Favorites

The highest favorite percents of caches we found are a little different.

The Spot 35% Favorite (195 Favorite Votes)

Mission 9: Tunnel of Light 34% Favorites (760 Favorite Votes)

Auto Art 32% Favorites (115 Favorite Votes)

Groundspeak Headquarters 27% Favorites (827 Favorite Votes)

Octopus Garden 20% Favorites (110 Favorite Votes)

Stone Wall Stash 20% Favorites (74 Favorite Votes)

Excalibur 19% Favorites (83 Favorite Votes)

ancient lake 19% Favorites (72 Favorite Votes)

State Game Lands #109 17% Favorites (105 Favorite Votes)

So based on this sample, how can your cache become a big winner in the favorite votes?

Be located in Washington or Oregon near the Triad.
Be near a GeoWoodstock.
Be near a mega, even better if it is a recurring mega.
Be an old cache.
Be a traditional hide - one mystery and one virtual made this really short list.
(Groundspeak Headquarters doesn't count - its not really a puzzle.)
Don't require special equipment like a boat.

The one odd cache on the list above is Excalibur. It wasn't a really old cache (2006). It wasn't really close to any mega events, but it was really popular. The Spot is almost an exception too, but it was a destination for many GeoWoodstock IX visitors. Our list is missing one other cache doesn't really fit the above suggestions. The Thousand Steps Cache is one we haven't visited. It has 140 votes and a 29% favorite rating which puts it in the same ball park as The Spot being a tough terrain cache that hasn't had a huge bump from nearby megas. It is a fairly old cache having been published in 2002.

I must admit surprise at some of the things which didn't guarantee big favorite numbers. I expected virtuals and earthcaches would have big followings. They seem to pull a consistent level of favorite votes, but not as much as I expected. The lone exception is Auto Art which gets the nod for being near a Geowoodstock.

One thing is certain. There aren't many popular caches with favorite percents in the teens and above. If you see a cache with more than 15% favorites, it has really won over other cachers. We really enjoy the favorites feature and will continue to use it.

More than anything, this post says sunset is near five every evening, and it's too cold to go caching. ;-) Happy New Year. May your caches get favorite votes and may you find caches you want to favorite.

Invisible Shield

Friends told us about Invisible Shield a number of years ago. Ali has used the material to protect the screen of her 60CsX for a few years. It's a cut above most screen protectors and really durable. Ali likes it better than the product I was buying because it cuts glare when navigating. Usually a pre-cut Invisible Shield costs about $15 for one gps. I recently spotted a three pack of sheets at the local Target for about $18. If you don't mind cutting your own template for your gps, you can save 60% of the cost of each protector. For gps units with smaller screens like the ETrex and Vista Garmins or the Magellan GC, you can cut six shields from each three-pack. From two sheets of one three-pack, I was able to cut protectors for my Vista HcX, my Magellan GC and two digital cameras.

Merry Christmas

May all your caching dreams come true.

Jasmer

We finally finished the Jasmer Challenge. We've always tried to find older caches when traveling, but the stars aligned this year, and we were able to pull off the last five months (May, June, July, August, and November).

We hoped to find three months on a trip out west in late May. Our hope for two in one day in Oregon fell by the wayside with a couple of signs posted at the edge of the forest.

Not to be deterred, we still had hopes for one grab in Washington before heading east. Snow and an avalanche at lower elevations put the hope of trying to get high enough for the Washington 2000 cache to rest.

We were able to grab an October 2000 cache on the trip west. We didn't need Iron Horse for the Jasmer, but it was an amazing hike to find a cache originally placed by Jeremy.

The middle of August brought another opportunity to grab one of the elusive months. The Spot in New York is a May 2000 beauty. It was a super cache and brought the number to four.

Our vacation in the south finished our quest. We started it off with a visit to the super cache Rock Town to claim a find for October 2000. We didn't need the month, but it was a good hike through some really big rocks. We loved the walk and the wildflowers.

Our November 2000 find came a couple days later at Yellow River Stash in Yellow River Park. It was an easy walk in the woods at a scenic park.

June of 2000 was Tour of Stone Mountain at Stone Mountain. It took hours to finish the multi. We did much of it on foot and got distracted with a bunch of other caches in the park, but enjoyed making a nice memory.

Our Jasmer journey ended successfully with two finds on Lake Lanier. Lake Lanier gave us an August 2000 cache while Marooned gave us a July 2000 find. We rented a boat with friends and spent the day island hopping and caching.

Enjoying the Journey

It was quite a journey. We logged our first year 2000 find in 2006 with State Game Lands #109, and finished with a find in each month in October of this year. We found fourteen year 2000 caches over the five-year hunt. We'll keep hunting older caches. If it wasn't winter, and I wasn't tired from work travel, we would take a road trip to Beverly to retrieve on of our travel bugs which just got dropped there. Some day...