How to maintain the geo-cache?

After you hide your cache and it appears in the database, your work isn’t over yet. You now have the responsibility of maintaining the cache. This means visiting the cache every now and then to verify that it’s there and in a good state of repair. You may even need to restock it with some trinkets if the supply is running low. During your visits, check that the area around the cache isn’t being extremely impacted by people searching for the cache. If the site is being disturbed, consider either moving the cache to a new location or pulling the cache entirely. (If you decide to temporarily or permanently remove a cache, be sure to post a log entry to let other geocachers know when they look up information about the cache. Also, let the Geocaching.com administrators know so they can update their database.)
In addition to physically checking the cache, you should also check your cache online and read the comments posted from people who have visited the cache. These comments can alert you when it’s time to make a maintenance call to the cache. Patience, Grasshopper! Sometimes it can take a while for someone to first find your cache and post about it.

The Oregon Hell Hole

It all started in June when Croaker posted a message in a Geocaching.com Web forum, asking about something called The Oregon Hell Hole. He remembered seeing a public television show about it several years back. The Hell Hole was considered such a dangerous place that the U.S. Forest Service didn’t want anyone to know where it was located.
A geocacher named Moun10Bike mentioned that he had an old newspaper article that described a 200-foot-deep rift in the forest floor somewhere in the Willamette National Forest, above the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River. The location had been deliberately kept out of tourist books and omitted from government maps since the 1930s,and there were ominous quotes from a Forest Service geologist about how easy it would be for someone to get killed because of the crumbling rock around the deep hole. Geocachers are by nature very curious people, and the thought of a spectacular geologic formation that was being covered up by the government got the forum all riled up. Soon there were posts from people examining aerial photographs (some conspiracy theorists offered that likely even aerial photos had been doctored), visiting university libraries in search of old maps, asking relatives employed by the Forest Service for information, and trying to find a copy of the TV show to see whether it might offer any clues to the location of the secretive Hell Hole. Thirteen days after Croaker’s original post, Navdog solved the mystery when he located a videotape of the TV show at the library.
By pausing the video at a key point where a map and aerial photograph were shown, like Sherlock Holmes, Navdog put these and other clues together and posted a series of maps where he believed the Hell Hole was located. A few hours later, Uplink confirmed Navdog’s hypothesis, posting a scanned map from 1937 that had the words Hell Hole printed exactly where Navdog thought the rift was.
There was much discussion about getting a group of geocachers together to visit the place — not to descend into the Hell Hole but just to see what it was like. Almost everyone agreed that placing a cache there wouldn’t be a good idea. (Most geocachers are sensitive to their sport being potentially overly regulated by federal land managers, and if the Forest Service had been trying to keep the Hell Hole secret for all these years, it would be like thumbing your nose at them by advertising a cache there.)
After several failed attempts by others, Grin’n’ Bearit and Lef-t made it to the Hell Hole on July 19. After about five hours of searching and bushwhacking, the geocachers found the Hell Hole and left a cache there.
The cache’s listing in the database generated a storm of controversy in the forum, with fears about safety and getting the Forest Service angry about their once secret place now revealed to the world. There was a heated debate, as each side weighed in with their opinions. In the end, Grin’n’Bearit returned to the Hell Hole. Instead of the tangle of underbrush he initially encountered, he found a new path from a different road. It was a three-minute walk from where he parked to the edge of the Hell Hole. He reported well-used trails, all leading to the hole. He moved the cache to a safer spot and changed the description in the database.
The story of the Oregon Hell Hole is a testament to the ingenuity, creativity, and community spirit of geocachers as well as the struggles involved in trying to do the right thing for their sport. Although perhaps not as dramatic, lesser versions of this story happen every day.

Where you shouldn’t put your geo-cache?

After you figure out the land ownership issues, the next step is to ensure that your cache appears in the Geocaching.com database. The site has a series of common-sense criteria that a cache must meet to be added to its database. Generally a cache can’t be

• Buried: Covering it with braches or leaves is okay, but no digging, please.
• Placed in environmentally sensitive areas: This includes archaeological and historic sites.
• Placed in national parks or designated wilderness areas: This is a no-no. Sorry; them’s the rules.
• Placed within 150 feet of railroad tracks: Umm, this is for safety reasons.
• Placed anywhere that might cause concerns about possible terrorist activities: Use your post-9/11 brain. This includes areas near airports, tunnels, military facilities, municipal water supplies, and government buildings or bridges.
• Placed within one-tenth of a mile of another cache: This is a rule for adding a cache to the Geocaching.com database as well as simple geocaching etiquette.
• Of a commercial, political, or religious nature: Keep it neutral; don’t cache something promoting some business or cause.

The geocaching community polices itself fairly well. If you put a cache where it shouldn’t be, a cacher will probably let the Geocaching.com administrators know about it, and the cache will be removed from the database. After you select a good general location to put the cache, visit the area to figure out exactly where you’re going to hide the cache. Use your creativity to find a challenging hiding place: in a tree hollow, underneath bushes, wedged in rocks, and so on. The more experience you have finding caches, the more ideas you’ll have for good hiding places.
After you find your secret hiding spot, you need to determine the cache’s coordinates as precisely as possible. (Use the WGS 84 datum) This can be challenging because ofless-than-perfect satellite coverage. You might find the location’s coordinates changing on your GPS receiver every few seconds. Many GPS units have an averaging feature that compares coordinates at a single spot over a period of time and then averages the result. If your receiver does do averaging, get it as close to the cache as possible, let it sit for five or ten minutes, and then copy down the cache coordinates and enter them as a waypoint.
A manual approach to averaging is to set a waypoint for the cache location, walk away, and then come back and set another waypoint. Repeat this until you have 6–12 dozen waypoints; then examine the list of waypoints, and pick the one that looks the most accurate (generally the value in the middle of the list).

Location is everything

Just like in real estate or retail sales, location is everything when it comes to placing a cache. After you select a container, figure out where to put it. The location of your cache usually defines its success and popularity. I recommend doing some initial research to locate a general area to hide your cache. For many geocachers, visiting a new place with some unique feature, incredible scenery, or just gorgeous view is every bit as important as finding a cache. Keep this in mind as you use maps, travel guides, or memories from your own explorations to help you select a good cache location. An important part of your homework is discovering where caches are and are not permitted. The geocaching community tends to be very aware that the continued growth and success of the sport depends on good relationships with landowners.
If you want to place a cache on private property, always first ask the owner’s permission. Because geocaching is so new, many people don’t know what it is, so take the time to explain how the sport works. Always check with a governmental agency before placing caches on its land. You can contact the agency directly, try a Google search to see whether its geocaching policies are published on the Web, or talk with other geocachers in your area to get their experiences in dealing with different agencies. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management recognizes geocaching as a recreational activity and tends to be friendly toward cache hiders who want to locate a cache in places other than wilderness or wilderness study areas. The U.S. National Park Service, on the other hand, prohibits placing geocaches on the land that it manages; if you’re caught hiding a cache on such land, it’s a federal offense. Yipes.

Selecting a container to hide the cache

First things first. You need something to house your cache in. The only real requirement for the container is that it needs to be waterproof, although sometimes cachers use plastic bags inside a nonwaterproof container. The size of the container determines where you’ll be able to hide the cache and how full you’ll be able to fill it with trading trinkets. Any container that you can think of has probably been used for geocaching, including plastic buckets with lids, breath mint tins, margarine tubs, 35mm film canisters, pill bottles, plastic Army decontamination kit boxes, and PVC piping. You’ve probably got a suitable geocaching container lying around the house or garage. Just for the record, the two most popular types of cache containers are

• Ammo cans: Made of military surplus steel, ammunition (ammo) cans work great because they’re sturdy and waterproof. (The narrow cans tend to fill up with trinkets quicker.) Depending on the terrain and vegetation, the olive-drab color makes ammo cans difficult to spot. You can typically get ammo cans for around five dollars or less from local or online Army surplus stores.They typically come in two sizes, based on the machine gun ammunition they once held:
• 50 caliber: 11 inches long, 5.5 inches wide, and 7–5 inches deep.
• 30 caliber: 10 inches long, 3.5 inches wide, and 6.75 inches deep.

• Tupperware: Rectangular Tupperware or other plastic storage containers are also a popular choice but aren’t quite as rugged as an ammo can. Sometimes a geocacher won’t reseal the lid very well. Plastic containers are cheaper and more available than ammo cans, and you can easily match a size to go with any cache. Some cache hiders spray paint the containers to make them blend better with the surroundings.

How to hide a cache?

After a while, you might get the urge to set up a cache of your own. This section discusses how to create and hide your own cache. It’s not that difficult, and most cache hiders spend $10 or less to set up their cache, which is some pretty cheap entertainment these days. It’s also a way to give something back to the sport.
Don’t rush out and hide a cache before spending some time finding caches. Searching for other caches will give you some good ideas and set expectations for creating your own. Check out Geocaching.com for the FAQs there as well as a complete set of guidelines for hiding and placing caches.