MnGCA

[loneeagle_24]

Has anyone ever tried to geocache in 12" of snow? I don't think I'll be doing much geocaching now around this area. Maybe I could hide a couple of caches yet? It would almost make it too easy for the next party to find though. Tracks to the cache site in the snow would be pretty obvious. I suppose a person could place a couple of virtual caches on the geocache site? If you can ever get the administrators to approve a virtual. I have tried in the past with no such luck on virtuals.

[Moe the Sleaze]

Tracks in the snow have seldom lead me to an easy find. The tracks are usually to confusing to get anything out of other than an assurance you are in the right vicinity.
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"Hi, I'm Moe, or as the women know me - Hey! You in the bushes."
-Moe, The Simpsons

[Marsha and Silent Bob]

[RJ]

I think caching is easier in the winter time, EXCEPT after a new snowfall. The most caches I've found in one day was in the winter with a foot of snow on the ground (nine finds). Granted it hadn't snowed for anything significant for weeks. Think about it; no leaves for satellite intereference, no wet shoes, NO BUGS , no crowds, sometimes tracks right to the cache. I've tried finding a cache after just a few inches of snow and it is too confusing. Just so many places to look! And if the cache is hidden on the ground, forget about it . You'd never find it unless it was obvious like the only tree in a field or something like that. When I hide caches, I always take into consideration snowfall and how it will affect the difficulty level of it. I don't hide too many caches on the ground anymore for this fact. It makes it a lot more difficult to find a good spot that won't get plundered and is off the ground but I think it's worth it. Just my 2 centavos.

[hardware]

i remember a geocaching expedition on a sunday morning in early december, 2002. it was a bit windy and cool, but not bad for early december. there was no snow on the ground, fortunately, because i struggled enough as it was to find one of the caches. ("down by the creek," if i recall correctly.)

having reached the nice round find total of 100 recently, i was content to take a couple of months off. then came the promise of the last nice day of the year, last thursday. wanting to take advantage of it, i began to rearrange my schedule to allow me several hours of daylight and mild temperatures to partake in outdoor activities, including geocaching. then came the food poisoning incident, which derailed that plan entirely.

given my recovery period, and limited access to daylight prior to this weekend's "winter blast," it looked like find #101 would have have to wait indefinitely.

but feeling better on sunday, and having to run to target anyway, i decided to step up to the challenge i've shunned thus far. i decided to geocache in the snow. it was still coming down a bit, and it was windy, but i braved the elements to search for a recently placed cache.

with no tracks to follow, i had to trust my GPSr. it's instincts were right, but i doubted them for a time. so if the tracks haven't been blown over completely, there are some misleading ones in the general vicinity.

this cache had a difficulty of 2. i was lucky, i stumbled upon the hiding spot despite inches of snow. this cache would likely have been much easier to find without the snow. with it, there was no indication of the hiding spot. some cite "the force" in their successes. if i've ever been assisted by said force, sunday was certainly the day.

and the beauty of it all is that until the snow melts completely, even with the tracks in and around the cache area, it may be just as difficult, if not more so, to find that cache.

as for virtuals, loneeagle, despite my abuse and assault of a gc.com admin in my persistent quest to gain a virtual cache approval (sarcasm mode off), it seems to me that with very few exceptions, geocaching.com is trying to distance itself from virtual caches. while i agree that not every roadside historical marker needs to be one, virtuals can point a person in a direction off the main road a few miles to an interesting point that you'd otherwise never learn about. i can think of a few good examples from my limited virtual caching experiece. but again, that's no longer considered worthy at gc.com, unless the location is in the middle of a decidely cache-unfriendly park or preserve. it seems that creating offset caches using points of virtual interest is the only way to go these days.

[JT]

Well, winter is upon us!!!! Went out on Friday and boy, did we have some problems finding caches in the snow. #1- a workout to get to the cache site, #2 the increased difficulty because of the snow cover. I have to say! I sure was fustrated, even by one that R.J. had hide in the rain. Its supposed to be in plain site, not with the snow!

I guess I will need to bring some new tools along with me on my adventures.

-JT

[B3Fiend]

[Marsha and Silent Bob]

[eagleyes]

When we were in Kansas City caching over Thanksgiving, we noticd that several of their caches had 3 common ids on them- you could rate:Prickly ash, poison ivy, bugs - we thought it was a good idea. the more I start surfing other state sites, I see there is room for imporvement on my cache pages. By the way- there are some really neat caches in KC.
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LIFE IS GOOD;CABIN LIFE IS GREAT

[tomslusher]

I used The Selector Tool from the Texas Geocaching club on all my caches. That is pretty slick. Can some web geek make one of those for MNGCA to have on this webite? Maybe make it pertain more to our climate? For example, I don't think we need anything warning of nearby cactus'. (Or is it cacti?)

And by saying geek, I don't mean any harm. For Christ's sake, who isn't a geek who is into this geocaching thingy?

tomslusher

[towlebooth]

[goucher]

This is my first winter geocaching, and I am enjoying it more than I thought I would. When I decide on the cache to look for, I read through the logs to scan for "winter friendly" posts. I'm still new to this sport, so I like to keep it as simple as possible. I often thought it would be a great idea to rate these caches as winter friendly or not or even "Kid friendly" or not as I sometimes bring the litttle ones along. It is frustrating to waste a kid friendly cache on myself when I am alone.
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Then I was deep within the woods
When, suddenly, I spied them.
I saw a pair of pale green pants
With nobody inside them! -seuss

[SirPoonga]

Yeah, microcaches are very tough in snow.

I finally got out and went caching for the first time, with a friend that just got his GPS. The first place we went to was difficult in fresh snow. We didn't find it.

The other thing is trying to make it not so obvious you were looking in an area. Some places that is very tough without ALOT of covering your tracks.

[Arcticabn]

Well I don't know about 12" of snow. Luck if there are 2 here now. But I have started to put on my cache pages whether they are "Winter Friendly" or not.
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Airborne All the Way!