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!