Groundspeak dropped a bombshell today with the announcement of a moratorium on challenge caches.

I know not everyone is a fan of challenges, but I really don't understand this announcement. I have to think it stems from complaints from the select few geocachers that hate them. This is a mentality I've never understood. I'm not a fan of multi-caches, but I don't think we should do away with them. For those that complain there are ones close to home they don't qualify for, well, that's just the way it goes. I don't worry about the ones I don't qualify for. GC31HNC is 23 miles from home, in an area I frequently cache. Odds are good I'll never qualify in my lifetime, but I'm not going to lose any sleep at night over never finding it. That's a part of the game. If there is a cache you don't like, or cannot do for any number of reasons (special equipment, physical limitations, etc), then just move on. 

I've personally always loved challenges because they gave me additional goals in geocaching. They also got me to do caches I might not have otherwise done. I've been working on GC47J91 for two years now. I'm now just under 150 away from achieving that goal. Ask anyone that knows me, and you'll find out that's outside my comfort zone! GC43JTY had me stopping in places I wouldn't have seen otherwise in my quest to qualify for it. That cache is actually one of the most rewarding challenges I've ever completed. My point is, these gave me some new experiences in geocaching I might not have gotten otherwise.

I admit there is the occasional convoluted and strange challenge out there. However, in my experience in finding well over 100 challenges across multiple states, these are in the minority. The vast majority of the challenges I have done have required very little homework to figure out if one qualified or not. The same goes for the challenge caches I have hidden, most of them require only a quick glance at your stats page.

I cannot speak for how much trouble reviewers actually have with people submitting challenge caches, but I can say, in my numerous discussions with many different reviewers over the years, I cannot recall a one saying they are the absolute bane of their reviewing existence. I always heard more about clueless newbies, illegal placements and saturation issues.

Whether you like challenges or not, I have a greater concern. That they intend to do away with challenges completely and grandfather all the existing challenges out there. 

Why do I think they'll do that? Firstly, because it seems unnecessary to stop the flow of new caches while they make up a new framework of rules. Make up these new rules and announce them when appropriate. That's what they did the last time they changed them.

There's also the fact that Groundspeak, unfortunately, has a history of simply doing away with things that cause them any sort of a headache. They did it with virtuals. They did it with additional logging requirements. (For the  record, I like the elimination of silly ALRs that had nothing to do with caching) They completely wiped out the existence of the strange "pseudo-challenges", even after many racked up hundreds of the things.

For the record, I love Groundspeak and Geocaching.com, but can't help but become frustrated when they continually ignore the user base and keep throwing these unexpected surprises at us. I'm no business major, but it's not the way I would run a business. If they eliminate challenges, what's next on the chopping block after that? At some point you have to work with your customers and give them what they want or you risk losing them. 

Groundspeak says in their official statement they will be taking user feedback on this issue soon. I certainly hope that's the case, but they've also been taking user feedback for years. In the process of doing so, I've heard about many "future features" that have never reached fruition. I remember them actually promising a new icon for challenge caches some five years ago.

I love the creativity and the additional fun side games challenges bring to the table. I don't want challenges to go the way of the virtual cache. Please don't kill the challenge cache Groundspeak. 

A week ago, I had the distinct pleasure of going to Hell. Quite literally. 

Yes, there really is a town in Michigan called Hell, and there's a helluva lot of puns to go along with visiting the place. (see what I did there? insert snicker here) 

"Hell" isn't a very big place. On one end you have a gift shop crammed with Halloween decorations and T-shirts that proudly proclaim slogans such as: "Hell....it's safer than Detroit!" and on the other side you have an ice cream shop with a post office so you can send postcards postmarked from Hell. Someone recognized the potential for tourism to this spot and was definitely cashing in. Indeed, Hell was a very busy place while I was there. 

Still, as corny as it all was, I loved it. Ever since I was very young, I've loved visiting these types of places. It's something that continues for me to this day. Yes, I couldn't help myself and pulled off of 75 north once to see the "Man Eating Clam" and yes, I once couldn't help myself and plunked down $7 for Saint Ignace's "Mystery Spot" even though I knew it was all a manufactured illusion. 

I know these places are just out to make a buck, but there's just something I really enjoy about these little pieces of Americana. Sometimes I'll buy a souvenir, most of the time I don't. It's just the visiting of the place that makes the experience for me. 

My favorite locations are often the ones based on local history or legend. The crazier the story, the better. As was the case with the "Mothman Museum" in Point Pleasant, WV.  Where else can you go to see a 7 ft winged man with red eyes hanging from the ceiling?

Some of these places just use plain old brute force to get you in the door. If you've ever driven through South Dakota, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The signs for Wall Drug literally dot the sides of the highway all the way across the state. The signs proclaim all the wonders of Wall Drug: dinosaurs, free ice water, souvenirs, family fun fun fun!!!

Because I'm weird, I'll even place tourist traps on my bucket list of places to visit. Places like the Abita Mystery House and "The Thing" have been on my radar for some time. Just waiting for the opportunity to stop in for a visit.  I don't think I can really pin down any one reason why I enjoy these corny "Clark Griswald" type locations so much. I guess I'm just a sucker for anything roadside America. 

The places above are some of my favorite tourist traps, are there any notable ones I've missed? Let me know in the comments or via Twitter. 

In all my years in the outdoors hunting, fishing, geocaching and all the other outdoor activities I take part in, somehow sighting bears has always been extremely difficult. I've always wanted to see one up close. (within 50 yards at least) and get some nice photos of one.

I've been out "West" three times in states that hold bears. States like Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, California, Oregon. I've seen hundreds of buffalo, elk, deer, and pronghorn antelope. I've been to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons twice. My last trip there, I saw and photographed my first three moose and three wolves as well. 

I've also spent a great deal of time camping in "Bear Country" in Michigan, whether that may be the Upper Peninsula, or the northern lower areas. I figure that I should have seen one by accident by now right?

Nope, zero, zilch, nada. 

When I finally went back to Yellowstone, nearly 20 years after I first visited it. I made it a goal to see a bear in the wild. 

I did research ahead of time, and learned that Hayden Valley in Yellowstone is considered a prime location.  My mom and I had two days there to see one, so one evening we headed out to Hayden Valley. If you have never been to Yellowstone before, it is always easy to tell where wildlife is hanging out because there will be 20 vehicles parked by the side of the road and tons of gawking tourists. 

On this particular evening, we got near a pull-off in Hayden Valley and saw something like 30 cars all in this one location. I figured "Ok, this can't be just another buffalo or elk, there's way too many vehicles." I get out and walk up to a woman standing close by holding binoculars and excitedly ask her: "Is it a bear?!? Is it a bear?!?" She turns to me and responds: "Oh, I don't know anything about any bears, I'm watching this beautiful Sandhill Crane down here." 

Are you kidding me? 

I can see Sandhill Cranes by the dozen at home in Michigan, who cares about a stupid crane? (I didn't say that, but I wanted to) There was also a handful of buffalo in the valley below, that's what most of the people were stopped for. 

Frustrated, we continued down the road and saw another congregation of vehicles. This one much smaller. But, we had to stop and see what everyone was looking at. As soon as we stepped out, I knew we made the right choice when I heard someone say: "Yeah, see the cubs there next to her?" 

Finally!

Yes, there was indeed a sow Grizzly and her two cubs at this location, but they were more than a mile away foraging in a field. To the naked eye, they appeared to be little more than dots. See my photo:

See them? Those three dark dots in the center of the photo near where the shadow is being cast off the hill?

Thankfully, there was a guy nearby with a spotting scope who let us have a closer look at them through that. I was thankful to have finally seen some bears in the wild, but I really, really wanted to get a closer look at one.

The rest of the trip, despite our searching, we saw no more bears.

I haven't been out west in a while, but I have been up to northern Michigan a few times. Every time I have made it a point to keep an eye out for bears. Every time I've come up empty. 

This past weekend, I was in northern Michigan again for the annual "Geocacher Enough" road rally event. While the primary focus of the trip was geocaching, I always keep a close eye out for bears when I'm up here. Especially since other cachers at this event have mentioned seeing them in the past. In the course of running around that afternoon, I was thrilled when our group ran across a porcupine. (an animal I've never seen in the wild before) We even got charged momentarily by it when we (stupidly) cornered it. I ended up getting a few nice photos. 

So that was the real highlight of the day. I was so excited I decided to post about it on Twitter. I opened up my Twitter app only to see this tweet appear as one of the newest on my timeline:

Ugh, what a way to suck away some of the excitement of seeing the porcupine! Of course, my group had already been to the "Sticks and Stones" cache. Go figure... My hunt for a close-up bear sighting continues...

Recently, Groundspeak decided to rehash the cache submission pages on their site. Prior to this past week, I had only submitted a few event pages this year and had not had the chance to try out the new submission pages just yet. Previously, you could choose to submit caches using the simple, old form that had you inputting all the cache information on one page, or you could use the new cache submission form that guided you through the process in depth. I always preferred the "single page" submission form since that's how I've always done it. Now, you have no choice. You MUST navigate through several pages of "hand-holding" in order to process the same information.

The graphics are very nice, and I have no doubt someone spent a lot of time making them and programming all of this. However, I've been caching for nine years now. I've submitted over 200 caches the old way. To suddenly have to jump through about 6 pages of hoops per cache just to get to the page editor I prefer is annoying.  I don't need someone to hold my hand and give me visual representations of the types of information I should be providing in each field. 

Not that I hate everything in the new submission process. I don't want anyone to think I totally hate them. I think the pages are great, especially the map preview that will automatically reject a location that is unavailable. (At least in regards to traditional caches) And I do like that the graphics actually show newer cachers what cache sizes are generally supposed to be. (I've been seeing way too many keyholders and pill bottles listed as "smalls" lately.) Indeed, this submission page should probably be required for someone that is hiding their first cache. At least once anyway. My real annoyance is the fact that this is now the ONLY way to submit caches.

At an event I was at yesterday, someone we were actually discussing this subject. Some others mentioned they do like the new pages because of the fancy HTML editor you get when you first submit a page. I can understand that. Not everyone wants to learn or use HTML. Or, as pairomedicchick put it: "HTML and I do not get along." These same people expressed some frustrations that you only get this editor when first submitting a page. It is a bit puzzling you can't use these tools later on. 

Another frustration for me is the forcing of the posting of a reviewer note. I normally do not need to post one. For a cache I hid the other day that didn't require one, I simply put "Please hold" in the note because I wasn't ready to submit the page yet. (I didn't have coordinates, I was making up a placeholder page) When I did get the coordinates, and got the cache submitted, I totally forgot about that note. As a result, the reviewer reviewed it and then placed it on hold waiting for my OK. I had to post another reviewer note to let him know that everything was good to go and I had simply forgotten to delete the note! Annoying. 

But really, my biggest frustration with these new pages is simply because they completely took away the option of doing it the old way. With just a single form.  I guess I just don't understand the logic in completely removing the ability to submit caches the old way and not giving us the option of which method of submission we prefer. I hid six caches today, and it took me easily twice as long to submit as it usually would. 

The new cache submission process is great for new cachers, but annoying for those of us who liked the old way. I highly doubt Groundspeak will read this, but if someone does, one of your long-time customers politely requests the return of the ability to use the old "one page" cache submission form.  Please and thank you!

Travis 
aka: "Tsmola"
Caching since 2005

I’ve heard the complaints before… “That’s not real caching!” “The people that place those are lazy cache owners, who never do maintenance, and have no creativity.” “Those are for lazy cachers who only care about the numbers.” I’ve heard it all before, and I’ve talked to many cachers who flat-out refuse to cache like that.

I think some cachers are missing out.

I’m willing to grant this: There are good powertrails, and there are bad ones. I won’t point out the ones I did that I don’t like, just so I don't upset some cache owners that may run across the blog... I do like to believe that when it comes to my trail…I got it right though. 

I tend not to hide micros. It is not that I dislike micros. It is simply because I have to do a LOT less maintenance on well-hidden regular-sized caches. So why did I decide to hide 70 micros along a river? Simply put, to create a whole new and memorable experience and to do something that had not really been done before. I was really into hiding kayak caches before I put out my river trail. The problem was, I was the only one that was into them. Some of these remote island caches I was hiding were getting hit once, maybe twice a year if I was lucky. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t drum up interest in the local caching community. I knew I had to do something different if I wanted to get my friends as involved in kayak caching as I was. The idea hit me while biking the Kal-Haven trail that connects Kalamazoo and South Haven. The trail has probably a couple hundred caches on it. Riding the trail for these caches is extremely popular. Like it or not, geocachers just can’t ignore a huge string like that. So I thought to myself, “If it works for a bike trail, why not a river?”

So I did my research, and I looked at powertrails I had done in the past. I saw what worked, and what didn’t. I looked for the little things that make all the difference: putting the numbers first in the name so they don't get cut off in the GPS description, having something at ground zero to signal you are at the right location. (I used firetacks on the trees) I ended up breaking my trail into two distinct sections and in mid-April of 2012, I hid 72 river caches along the relatively straight, and gentle Dowagiac River close to home. 

Above is what 70+ DNA tubes look like when I'm doing maintenance on this series. 

Here’s where I break a misconception about powertrails. The misconception being that these are lazy cache placements. My plan was to hang DNA tubes from tree limbs that you could grab from your kayak. (I’m willing to admit these are a crummy container, but on a river, nothing will stay dry forever, so I elected to go with something cheap to replace) So, I had to not only cut and insert logs in each container, I also had to cut and attached a length of wire to each one. Between the plotting out of my trail, the preparation of 70+ containers, the making of 70 caches pages I probably had just under 80 hours of work in. That’s BEFORE even getting in the kayak with the GPS mind you!

When I did finally get out in the water, it took me 4 trips to finish placing all 72 caches. At an average of about 6 hrs of hiding trip out, that’s an additional 24 hours of work put in. I didn’t just throw these caches out there. I carefully selected each location on the river, I averaged out the coordinates AND wrote down a hint for every cache.

THEN, I had to go home and enter the coordinates and hints in each of the 72 pre-made up pages I had. A process that took an additional 4+ hours because I double-checked every cache to be sure the coordinates were correct and on the river.  

In case you lost count, that’s approximately 108 hours of work that I put into the series! Does that sound like a lazy cache owner to you? I know that I quickly earned a LOT of respect for the placers of the “E.T.” and “Route 66” series of caches. These are series that are often called out as being “lame, stupid or lazy.”

As is to be expected, things can easily go wrong when placing 70+ caches all at once. First off, I made the mistake of wiring the containers, but just sitting the caches in the wire loop. This meant that many immediately fell out of their wire holders and were swept away to parts unknown. I’m sure some have made their way to Illinois and Wisconsin by now! My second problem was when the farmers chopped up the brush along the creek in the shorter section of caches. Roughly half of the 25 caches in that section went missing before they were even found! This meant another 6 hour trip to the river to make necessary repairs.

After the caches were published, there were some people that reacted with a bit of frustration. Most in the area did not own kayaks. However, the trail did exactly what I had hoped it would do, it spurred people into action. They couldn’t ignore 70 caches like they could the 5 or 6 kayak caches I had hidden before. It wasn’t until late summer of 2012 that a big group finally got together to tackle the river. It ended up being an awesome day. The group consisted of 15+ cachers from two states spending an entire day kayaking down the river. Thankfully, they invited me along. It wasn't until this day that I finally got the big payoff from hiding all these caches. Don't take my word for it, check the photos:

Just look at the smiles, need I say more? Sure these cachers got 70+ terrain 5 caches in a day because of this, but I don't think that's what they enjoyed most about the experience. In fact, I know it wasn't. The laughs I heard all day long confirmed that for me. When we finally got off the water, we all headed off for dinner where the laughs and smiles continued. 

In 2013, a lot more local cachers finally got kayaks of their own and since that original trip, I've accompanied a few other groups down the river as they worked on my series of caches. Each new trip seems to create a new memory. Several of these memories have caused me to create nicknames for specific areas of the river: "AddHam's Snag","Tom Kat's Folly" and "Badger's River Den" are a few of these. As you can guess, there are great stories to go along with each of these. Stories that are too long to tell here.

Not every powertrail is perfect, I'll be the first to admit that. But I do feel it is pretty unfair to lump them all under the "lame" or "stupid" category that some cachers do. I like to think mine is an exception to that stereotype. (At least I hope it is!) I think what people get the most out of my kayak series is memories, even more so than numbers. In the end, isn't that what it's all about anyway?

About a month ago I first had the chance to try one of the “Frog’s” newest experiments in Lab caches. 

Lab caches aren’t entirely new. They were introduced at last year’s Block Party in Seattle. Immediately following the announcement, there seemed to be quite a bit of confusion about them. I ended up posting about it on the Pathtags forums asking others their opinions about it. A few, including myself were immediately reminded of the “Challenges” thing that was meant to replace virtuals caches a few years ago. Of course, as you’ll recall, that crashed and burned quite spectacularly. 

But when they announced these new “Lab” caches, it was really confusing.  If you don’t believe me, just read Groundspeak’s Frequently Asked Questions page on them. Clear as mud, right? In one part of the page it says they are the solution to temporary caches at “MEGA” events. In another part, it says that this new cache type is for Groundspeak’s “R&D” department where they experiment with new cache ideas. Ok, so which is it? Temporary caches or experimental caches? I later heard reports that the caches at Block Party took people on a tour to different bars or restaurants in the downtown Seattle area. Interesting idea, but it seems like the kind of thing that could already be done with regular caches. 

Then in February, Groundspeak announced that Premium members could hide their own Lab caches. Unfortunately, this was when Michigan was still right in the middle of a second ice age, and I had no interest in getting out to cache. (I found 2 caches all month and one was an event) So again, I missed out on them. It seemed kind of silly though, anyone could hide one, but only one person could go and find it. The hider had to put a code word into the cache that the finder would then use to log the find. I decided to wait and reserve judgment until MOGA 2014 in Athens Ohio. It was advertised this new cache type would be there for everyone to try out. 

So, I headed down to Athens Ohio with Team Geochef, Moldslug, kalkavekkian and The Wandering Wierdos as part of our annual MOGA trip tradition. We made sure to leave time in our schedule to attend the “Spies Like Us” event where we would finally get to experience these lab caches first hand. We got to the event just in time for the briefing on these strange new caches. We were handed a sheet that had the coordinates and hints for 10 caches on it. Seems pretty straight-forward so far right? You’ve probably done this at an event before. The sheet also contained a link to where you could log these new caches. (Lab caches don’t have typical cache pages) The sheet contained a short description with a hint contained within it. It also contained a blank spot for the individual cache “code word”

However, before we left, it was also mentioned that there was a final “Impossible” cache. (to go along with the Mission Impossible theme) There was a guy walking around dressed like a spy, with a briefcase that supposedly contained the coordinates to this cache. Now, I misunderstood this originally. I left the briefing under the impression that in order to get the lab icon (the only thing I really cared about) we would have to find all 10 caches on the sheet, AND solve the puzzle, give this guy the “code word” for him to open the briefcase to get the final coordinates, AND also find the final cache before we would be awarded the icon.

I’m not a puzzle guy, so it seemed like a lot of work for one cache. But, we loaded in the coordinates anyway for the 10 caches on the sheet. We had to at least see what was involved right? Well, when we did find our first Lab cache on the list, it cleared things up a little. 

First off, each individual Lab cache is loggable. So we ended up getting 10 Lab caches. Each one had a specific code word in the lid. This code word was individual to that cache and that cache only. (We initially suspected the code meant nothing, and you could put anything in the code word field and log it. An experiment of just typing gibberish into that field showed we were wrong however.) They really did go to the trouble of coding specific code words for each cache, so kudos for that. Basically, to log the caches you went to the web address specified on the information sheet handed out with the cache and input the code in that part of the site. Bam! Lab cache found, and I had the icon. 

On another note, kudos again to Groundspeak for making it possible to log these caches with a computer and not just a smart phone. I later heard that was a complaint at the Block Party, that they could only be done on smart phone there. It is nice to know they are listening sometimes.

As it turns out, the guy with the briefcase, and the additional puzzles they had talked about seemed to just be a bonus. Each cache had multiple small slips of paper with additional small puzzles on them. The one puzzle I DID solve simply asked for the frequencies that civilian GPS signal operates on. No one in this group was a real puzzle guy, so we never did finish the bonus part. I’m not sure if we missed something special or not with that. I have to imagine however that the bonus was just for fun. After all, lab caches are just temporary caches. They certainly could not base a permanent puzzle cache off them because the Lab caches would be gone a few days after the event. 

So, since I don’t know anything more about the bonus puzzle, I’ll tell you what I can about the Lab caches themselves. since as far as I know, they were the only caches in relation to the lab caches you could earn a find on. 

Sadly, I was a bit disappointed in the lab caches themselves. Not that they were horrible caches, (I’ve found way, way worse caches!) but they were simply ordinary. From the way Groundspeak talked them up in their blog posts and at the event itself, they made it sound like something new and refreshing. Ultimately though, these were just normal caches. The only difference was in the use of code words and the fact that you can’t add a log entry for them. 

All of the Lab caches we found were simple lock and locks. Most were located at local businesses. A few were located near the old Athens “Lunatic” Asylum, one was at a library. But other than that, there wasn’t much special about them, location or container. They were easily forgettable, except for the fact that they give you a new icon. 

Another interesting thing about this new cache type is the fact that logging them gives you credit for a find, but these caches don’t register on Groundspeak’s “Statistics” page. Likewise, they don’t register with Project-gc.com either. I would have to imagine they are a pain to get to appear on GSAK as well. I don’t use that program anymore, so I can’t say for sure. More than once since I’ve logged them though, I’ve looked at my stats page and have been thrown off by the discrepancy in finds. It honestly does not bother me too much, I heard they plan to fix this issue in the future. I just hope it doesn’t get thrown by the wayside like the addition of country-specific souvenirs and countless other promised features that haven’t been added yet. 

I suppose only time will tell if Groundspeak branches this new cache type out some more so that it more closely fits the “Lab” icon and description as an experimental cache type. As of right now, they just appear to be a loggable type of temporary cache that can only be set up by Groundspeak. This could be interesting, I just hope they intend to see this project through. Don't let this become Challenges part 2!