Quality Of New Caches As A Trend

[+cache_test_dummies]

There have been some spirited discussions recently which relate to a perceived degradation in the quality of new caches in certain areas. A number of posters have highlighted specific 'trend' problems (for example: an increasing number of lamppost micros, more and more caches placed without imagination, the tendency to place caches in bad or uninteresting locations or use bad containers, etc.).

 

Obviously, everyone has their own view of quality. But based on what others are reporting in these discussions, I feel very fortunate that my local area (southern New Hampshire, northeast Massachusetts) doesn't seem (to me, anyway) to be suffering from such a phenomena. Since I started (a little over two years ago) we have certainly seen a boom in the number of caches (of all types), but in my opinion, the overall quality in terms of variety, location, and imagination of local caches has remained high.

 

I was wondering how others would describe, in terms of a trend, the overall quality of new caches in their local areas.

[CoyoteRed]

We saw a brief trend in a very low quality caches, but fortunately it was only one cacher. Hopefully, no more will be placed.

 

In general, the local cachers place very well thought out caches ranging from traditionals hidden is little gem locations to physical and/or mental challenges. The locals are great. The micro evangelists from other areas are not so great.

[+wimseyguy]

As I mentioned in one of those other threads (they are all blurring together now), the quality and quantity of new hides in the Greater Raleigh NC area is better than ever. We are not inundated with the so-called "lame" guard rail and lamppost hides at all. Yes we have a few, we even have this cache which sucks!, but mostly good caches from hiders new and old.

 

There are not a lot of newer caches that require a hike of over one mile just for them (unless you want to skip the others along the same trail).

What we do have in the past year are some trails that loop for over several miles with perhaps a dozen caches of varying difficulty along them.

 

One local oldtimer (can you say that about someone with 2+ years of experience ) pointed out that "we started out hiding these things, so non-players wouldn't find them, but now we like to hide them from each other cachers as just as much!"

I think as the game/sport is evolving he is correct. Yes a nice woodland hike is enjoyable, yes a clever container is fun. But to me and the others I frequently team up with, if the hide at the end of that long hike is pretty obvious from 100' away it cheapens the experience. If the clever container is only 10' from parking it's fun, but just a snack. The mantra-"the proper container for the proper location" is pretty well adhered to here. I hope it continues this way. I'm having a lot of fun out there. Are you?

[+Team Perks]

Things have only gotten better in my local area since I started caching a year and a half ago.

 

To be fair, my current hometown is not a particularly scenic area--there are only so many picturesque spots. So the local hiders are getting more and more inventive with more creative containers. We still get the lame hides popping up, but some of the best caches I've ever seen (and I've seen plenty of caches) are very close to home.

[+Salvelinus]

I have actually noticed a slight degradation in cache quality. The worst one was not placed by a local, rather a numbers cacher who happened to frequently drive by a local rest area. That cache (an old lipstick container with a scrap of paper, hidden in a fence near the exit of the rest stop) has, thankfully, bit the dust.

 

I live near Penn State University so you would expect some campus micros and urban type caches to pop up. But the surrounding area also has the most square milage of public land in the entire state. Besides the caches I have placed...most of the new caches pop up within the urban areas. Most of them are good, but a few of them make me say "What is the purpose of this?" Sometimes I wonder why cachers don't just drive a few miles outside of town to place a cache rather than creating a virtual around Joe Paterno's statue. My theory is that the permitting system for PA's state parks and forest causes cachers to prefer areas where a permit is not needed. Even though the permitting system is relatively easy...some people just are not comfortable dealing with state agencies.

 

Don't get me wrong...I think we have a good mix of cache types in my local area right now. It's just I see the cache quality trend slightly going downhill, and my fingers are crossed that it dosn't gain momentum like in nearby areas.

 

Salvelinus

[+briansnat]

I'd say its staying the same here in northern NJ. There are a few prolific cache hiders who entered the sport within the past year who are hiding excellent caches and doing an outstanding job finding new and interesting places. They are doing their part keeping up the generally high quality of caches in the area.

[+sbell111]

I've been unable to really get out and go after many caches for a while now so I hope someone else from my area will post to this thread. That being said, I think that what we've seen in the Nashville area is growth in the numbers of caches across the whole range of cache types. We have a bunch of easy caches that many would stick there nose up at, but there are also tons of caches of all descriptions and difficulties.

[+Renegade Knight]

What I've seen is more of every kind of cache.

 

In 2002 when I first discovered geocaching I waited till the snow melted in the mountians and went on a hike to get one of the few caches in the area that I had not done. There were 79 within 100 miles.

 

In 2002 there are about 7 or 8 logs on that cache.

In 2003 there were about 2.

In 2004 none.

There were also fewer cachers seeking caches in 2002 than 2004.

 

Meanwhile in 2004 in those same mountains there were more caches in general, and something like 500 urban caches before you even needed to go hiking to get a cache.

 

In 2002 if you wanted to cache at all, you had to hike to the cache. Now even if you like hikes you can pick and choose, and if you just like finding caches, you are not forced to travel or hike to have a long full day of caching.

 

So I think the loss of cache quality is an illusion. There are more of all types of caches, but we live in the urban jungle and so we will tend to see more of those. As urban areas fill up, it will force people to the country if they want to place a cache.

[+vree]

lately in my area there have been a ton of new caches placed by a few different cachers. i'm glad to have so many caches close by, but the majority of new ones are in cemeteries, which personally i don't enjoy doing. there are also a LOT of nanos and micros in the woods.

while i enjoy getting out in the woods and finding new caches, it's also nice to find something occaisionally that you can drop a TB into. i've gone to dozens of caches in a row without finding one that would fit an average sized bug.

i guess the hide qualities are good, but i like a little variety too. in the last two months, of all the new caches with a size specified, ~50 were micro/decon and i think it was 9 regular or large sized. i don't mind mircos, but am trying to cope with the fact that locations that would support a larger container are instead used to hide small caches.

 

i appreciate that they are trying to place caches that are winter friendly, but when you drive around with caches in your car and ready to go, i can't think that they've been all that well thought out.

i'm working on putting together a normal sized cache, and placing it to do my part (still scoping out possible places), but i certainly can't keep up with that pace...

Edited February 25, 2005 by vree13

[+c88m]

I like to challenge and be challenged a little , so when I go to set up a cache I try to think of a way that I would enjoy finding but is not impossible either . I usually pick an area that might be nice to explore or just a nice walk . I'm currently looking at 6 more areas and trying to think of a good way to set up a interesting caches in each (probably multis for most) . I like to see a little thought put into the cache .

[+fly46]

My area, the trend is to not take swag, so the cache stays pretty much the same quality as it was when it got placed.

 

For instance, my bonus cache: (and I did just look this up to be exact)

The cache has been hit 22 times. Out of the 22 people that logged it, the first finder was given the offer to take whatever she wanted out of the cache as a FTF prize - no trade required. She took no swag.

Of the other 22 people, the last three were cachers from out of town. They're the first people to have left anything, and yet, not all of them took something from the container.

 

Definately easy for a cache to retain it's value when nobody takes anything from the cache.

 

 

 

I do agree with what sbell said (wait, did I just say that?) We have a growth of caches. However, I haven't really seen a difference in the types placed, either. We can pretty much say "Oh that's a [cacher's name] hide, so .... " and be able to type the type of hide that any given cacher would make. We know that JoGPS's hides will be sneaky (a group of out of towners kept calling me about caches they had issues with, they were all his), MonkeyBrad's will be extremely creative, Team NAB will mostly be micros, but the ones that aren't are generally simple full sized caches, etc.

 

No, this isn't cut and dry, but for the most part... Cachers hide the types of caches they enjoy hiding/finding and unless their tastes change, they can hide 50 or 5000 and it should generally be the same percentage of cache types.

[+cache_test_dummies]

Thanks for the responses. I'm relieved to see that in general, for those who posted, the overall quality of new caches in their local communities doesn't seem to be degrading. I'd still be interested in hearing from cachers in other communties.

 

The reason I started this topic was to see if I could get a sense of the evolving quality levels of new caches in other areas, since I'm not seeing what I would consider to be a harmful trend in new cache placements locally. In this topic there were some statements made which made me think that perhaps there was some kind of ongoing general degredation of cache quality in certain communities - a kind of 'clear and present danger' signal to me that there might be a looming threat on the horizon to my own community, and to geocaching in general.

 

Here are some of the statements from that discussion which make me wonder if I was missing something (please forgive my use of partial quotes - these snippets were all extracted from larger statements, I don't mean to take anything away from the overall points the respective authors were trying to make):

 

You can see a pattern developing in that folks in some areas seem to only want to place micros in places that are less and less appealing.

... as far as harm, in many areas they become the only kind of cache available, so variety suffers and I'm left without the kinds of caches that I like to look for.

This isn't the game I signed up to play. A lot of people here locally seem to enjoy this game (the numbers don't lie), but I don't. Many (but not all) of the prolific hiders here locally are hiding these types of caches. Few people hide even moderately challenging caches anymore, (and by moderate - I mean a 0.5 mile roundtrip hike) because very few people will seek them out. There's some exceptions to this, of course, but the trend seems pretty clear to me.

How many caches would exist if not for the lame caches? Monday I found a total of 50 caches. Of those 48 were micros, 1 was an ammo box and 1 was a fish food container. The majority were lame hides.

I took a look at my closest unfound 40 caches. 36 park and grab small/micro caches including 4 lamp posts ....

At one time this webpage said "All you need is a GPS and a thirst for adventure". Its degenerated to the point where "all you need is a GPS and taste for Big Macs and parking lots". Please forgive those of us who find this trend to be disturbing and want to see the pendulum swing back the other way.

 

In the same topic, I did see a number of statements made which seemed to contradict the notion of a trend towards lower quality caches. For example:

 

Many people love to hold up Nashville as an incubator for lame micros. However, Nashville has lots of all types of caches. The so called lame micros have not pushed the others out, nor could they.

What [lame micros] do not do, however, is push traditional caches out of an area. Very rarely do they encroach on an area that a traditional could be placed in.

I don't believe that this growth in micros affects my enjoyment of traditional hides or the future of the hobby.

Perhaps I live in a very unusual caching community. We have over 1000 caches hidden so far and the quality level seems to be as high as when I started over two years ago. We are not being inundated by so called lame, 50' park and grabs here.

If anything, the newbies around here (who aren't so new anymore!) for the most part have actually taken things up a notch, and pride themselves in trying to hide the best caches possible. So not only has leading by example worked, it's flourished.

 

So I'm left confused by all this. Are we truly seeing a trend towards placement of lower quality caches? Is this a regional phenomena? Or is there really nothing to worry about?

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Alabama over-all has seen a huge increase in geocaches and geocachers of every stripe - and the trend is toward better caches all the time.

 

Having cached 9 states I know that our hides are as good as or better than the average.

 

We were very fortunate in having some strong, colorful geocachers get an Association off the ground, and the friendships and communications developed through it have led to a sense of pride and even friendly competition to place the "best" hides.

 

You won't do 80-100 a day here, you'll have to go at it long and hard to get 10-15, but those you will remember!

 

I truly believe the perception of a declining quality is fostered in these threads.

 

Note the total number of geocachers that post here, then count the number who regularly complain about "lame" micros and game deteriation.

 

I think you'd find that about 20, maybe less, very vocal complainers posting over and over again are setting the tone and thus the perception in these forums.

 

Look at the broader view, attend events, communicate with others in and out of your area, and I think you'll discover a different story.

 

As a member of 5 regional geocaching groups and a regular event host and attendee I meet and cache with literally hundreds of cachers per year and have never heard these concerns outside these forums.

 

Ed

[+drat19]

Alabama over-all has seen a huge increase in geocaches and geocachers of every stripe - and the trend is toward better caches all the time.

 

Having cached 9 states I know that our hides are as good as or better than the average.

 

We were very fortunate in having some strong, colorful geocachers get an Association off the ground, and the friendships and communications developed through it have led to a sense of pride and even friendly competition to place the "best" hides.

 

You won't do 80-100 a day here, you'll have to go at it long and hard to get 10-15, but those you will remember!

 

I truly believe the perception of a declining quality is fostered in these threads.

 

Note the total number of geocachers that post here, then count the number who regularly complain about "lame" micros and game deteriation.

 

I think you'd find that about 20, maybe less, very vocal complainers posting over and over again are setting the tone and thus the perception in these forums.

 

Look at the broader view, attend events, communicate with others in and out of your area, and I think you'll discover a different story.

 

As a member of 5 regional geocaching groups and a regular event host and attendee I meet and cache with literally hundreds of cachers per year and have never heard these concerns outside these forums.

 

Ed

Ed:

I agree with all your statements. However, I will add an addendum:

 

Overall cache quality for the state of Alabama went up considerably when a certain hider of "just any ol' side of the road, and often near (or in!) garbage piles" caches archived the 60+ (!) of those caches that he hid in the Mobile area.

 

-Dave R.

[+wimseyguy]

I truly believe the perception of a declining quality is fostered in these threads.

 

I think you'd find that about 20, maybe less, very vocal complainers posting over and over again are setting the tone and thus the perception in these forums.

 

Look at the broader view, attend events, communicate with others in and out of your area, and I think you'll discover a different story.

 

As a member of 5 regional geocaching groups and a regular event host and attendee I meet and cache with literally hundreds of cachers per year and have never heard these concerns outside these forums.

 

Ed

I'll second that motion! It might also explain why this thread has had barely a dozen replies while other 'hotter' threads ran to 6 pages.

 

One of the cliches (are they cliches if they are true ) in my industry is that if you give someone a lousy dining experience, you can be sure they will tell 100 people, and the story will get worse with every telling. But if you give them a great experience you are lucky if they tell 10 people about it.

[+Mr.Benchmark]

I truly believe the perception of a declining quality is fostered in these threads.

 

I think you'd find that about 20, maybe less, very vocal complainers posting over and over again are setting the tone and thus the perception in these forums.

 

Look at the broader view, attend events, communicate with others in and out of your area, and I think you'll discover a different story.

 

As a member of 5 regional geocaching groups and a regular event host and attendee I meet and cache with literally hundreds of cachers per year and have never heard these concerns outside these forums.

 

Ed

I'll second that motion! It might also explain why this thread has had barely a dozen replies while other 'hotter' threads ran to 6 pages.

 

One of the cliches (are they cliches if they are true ) in my industry is that if you give someone a lousy dining experience, you can be sure they will tell 100 people, and the story will get worse with every telling. But if you give them a great experience you are lucky if they tell 10 people about it.

Isn't also true that people often don't bother to complain - they just never patronize the place again?

 

One of my own personal metrics of quality is that a cache has some degree of physical challenge, even if it's only quite a moderate challenge. I mention this one because it's somewhat measurable from the cache page. Other types of quality metrics aren't really measurable unless you go out to the cache site itself. (Well, except for how nice the cache page looks.)

 

Last week, in my area, there were ~60 caches placed. Of those, over 50 were terrain 1.5 or lower, and of those, most look to have less than a 200' walk from parking to the cache, and many less than 50'. This doesn't make them "bad caches" for many people, but since I do this to get some exercise, most of these are just of no use to me. Unfortunately, most of the ones with terrain greater than 1.5 look to be very short walks too - just more difficult, but still very short, walks.

 

If physicality is perceived to be a part of quality, then these are not quality caches. If location is perceived to be part of quality, many of these are probably unexciting, but not actively bad. However, by every other metric, most of 'em are good or better than good. (Interesting hide, fun hunt.)

 

Almost all of them are micros. Again, I don't want to say that "micro = poor quality", but they are not to everyone's taste. If you cook fish for me in your restaurant, but I don't like fish, it really doesn't make much difference how good a job you do - it's just not to my taste and I'm probably not going to enjoy it.

 

There's nothing that says my tastes are the correct ones and that others, who like these caches are wrong. I've never said that (or if I did - I was just flat wrong). My problem is that few locally are hiding ones that are to my taste any longer, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I can hide more physically challenging ones myself - but they'll get few finds, and won't encourage people to hide ones of the type I like. (BTW, I'm not talking about monster, marathon hikes - a 0.25 to 0.5 mile roundtrip to the cache would be just fine.) Anyway, I guess my tastes are just out of fashion at the moment. For me, that means that quality seems lower, but others seem to be loving it, and I'm sure they'd argue that things are just fine.

 

So it's possible that some of the folks who are complaining are just worried that their preferences are getting lost in the shuffle. That's certainly my situation - at least it feels that way to me.

 

So maybe it would be more fair to say that the trend, in my area, is for more caches to be placed that are less physical, and hence not to my taste, great though they may be for others, and that this worries me. Is that a perhaps less inflammatory way of stating the situation from my perspective?

Edited February 26, 2005 by Mr.Benchmark

[+Konnarock Kid & Marge]

Too many lame micros. There seems to be a renewed drive for quanity not quality.

[+Team Tigger International]

In our area well Star's anyway the number of caches has been increasing and the quality has NOT been going down . If anything it has improved greatly !

 

Star

[+Lean Wolf]

We saw a brief trend in a very low quality caches, but fortunately it was only one cacher.  Hopefully, no more will be placed.

Ouch! What did you do to him?

[+Isonzo Karst]

We've been doing some wonderful new caches over the past several weekends, long forest bike rides. And north of us a hider is placing devious interesting urban micros in large numbers, with the ocassional family friendly container in a park type too. Stuff keeps getting better (for the most part.) I've actually only ever seen 3 caches that really struck me as unfortunate. And one of those has a nice poem write up. They're all over 2 years old.

[+2WalkAs1]

As new cachers (55 finds currently) we obviously can't comment on trends, positive or negative. I can only say that in our short time caching, we have come across numerous micros in unappealing locations. Conversely, we have done some awesome caches, large and small that required thought, a hike through a nice park/nature preserve area or both.

 

We have placed two caches, one is an ammo can on a favorite stretch of beach and the other a micro at one of our favorite museums. Neither is particularly challenging to find (though the micro is a little tough) but they are in places that are worth seeing and for us that is the goal, really. See a new place that is interesting, unique, beautiful, etc. and as a bonus, you get to log a cache.

 

We can generally tell if we want to find a cache by looking at who placed it. There are a couple of people that we don't even bother with, as they enjoy putting micros in trashy urban areas which have nothing to make them interesting or even notable, except that they are trashy. They also like to stick micros in bushes, which we hate. It's not clever, you often damage the bush trying to find the stupid cache, and you are left with scratched hands and a 35mm film cannister containing a tiny scrap of paper. Great!

[+fly46]

I have to comment on this.. One of the things you quoted was from somebody who went out and found 50 caches. In the same day.

 

Now, I know this is obvious to some of us, but for the others, DUH. [Note, the following ramble is general and not directed at anybody] Numbers runs are generally get as many quick caches as you can and that's it. Of course you're going to come across micros when your idea of a 'long hike' is .15 round trip from car to cache to car. (I actually got yelled at when I made some out of towners do a round trip cache 'hike' to get one of mine in the woods that took a total of >20 minutes - including them looking through all the swag and commenting about all of it and taking pictures)

 

You know, even the places that have a lot of micros, you have to break down the micros, too. Half my hides are micros - but they're also some of the only caches that travelers near the airport can do (the only if they want to do less than three miles of walking) and they all lead to a full sized bonus cache. Many of the micros around here are special caches - in honor of somebody's 1k or 2k or some other special milestone.

 

A micro does not lame a cache immediately make.

[+justybug]

i've only been here for 2 months, and by no means do i consider myself expert.

for myself though, i now know i really prefer traditional caches, am not very fond of urban micros, like we're not conspicuous enough wandering in circles everywhere else we go? i need to be doing this in full view of an entire office building now???

i also find that i prefer decent hikes, which lead to nice views or interesting places, instead of that convenient spot by the road to pull off and grab the micro stuck to a sign.

if others like to hunt those, great! that's why it's a fun game. everyone gets to play their way!!

but it's also what led me to check out terracaching.com and see what they offer.

generally it's more of what i like to go find. but the funny thing is, i've ended up finding out that there's much more to geocaching than i'd seen by only checking on available caches in my town, and local stuff. as i'm forced to go farther to find their caches due to smaller numbers available, i'm finding there's tons of geocaches in those places or on the way to them, that are just as fun and worthwhile for me to hunt down.

so, i don't have to give up or beatdown one site over another, i just have a larger menu to pick from.

i haven't yet found enough caches by any one particular hider to like/dislike their style either, but have scratched my head at what could possibly have compelled someone to place a couple of them.

another issue i have with micros is poor maintenance. if you only leave enough room in something for tiny strips of paper, at least do some occasional maintenance on it!!!

that's my rant for the day.

Edited February 27, 2005 by justybug

[+OccidentalErrant]

Would it not behoove the hider to put the cache in an area that the general public doesn't go? Ergo, allowing for a higher quality cache for lack of fear that it would get muggled if found in a higher traffic area by the general public?

 

Also, by quality, is it meant that the quality of the hide is lower or the quality of the contents?

 

I am just getting started with this hobby. Of the three that I have found (which were pretty easy.. Those that I haven't found yet but did look for are still there and unknown to me, so I could say that they would be average in difficulty, but they are micros and I can't say anything about the contents.

[CoyoteRed]

I truly believe the perception of a declining quality is fostered in these threads.

Actually, the perception on my part comes from the traveling we've done.

 

There is one major city that you'll not find one logged cache even though we visited and actually went out caching. If the quality was so high then we would have bumped into one, but didn't. No, I'm not going to say what city.

 

Other places have seen more caches where we choose to pass on by.

 

No, the perception is fostered by getting out there and hunting for them. That's the reason we didn't want the same thing to happen to our area.

[+cache_test_dummies]

I truly believe the perception of a declining quality is fostered in these threads.

Thanks for this perspective, Ed. Just the sort of statement I was looking for as I try to gauge the quality threat level. And this certainly would help explain why I see no evidence of declining quality locally.

 

Look at the broader view, attend events, communicate with others in and out of your area, and I think you'll discover a different story.

 

Good advice - exactly what I'm trying to do with this topic! I have attended events (ok, one), but I do communicate and cache regularly with others, and, like you, have not heard from anyone outside of these forums that there appears to be a declining quality trend.

[+cache_test_dummies]

It might also explain why this thread has had barely a dozen replies while other 'hotter' threads ran to 6 pages.

Good point. I could conclude from the fact that there hasn't been an outcry from people citing specific examples of how cache quality has declined in their local areas that there isn't such a trend.

 

But I think I'll give this more time to see if such examples are provided.

[+cache_test_dummies]

So maybe it would be more fair to say that the trend, in my area, is for more caches to be placed that are less physical, and hence not to my taste, great though they may be for others, and that this worries me.

This is one trend which I have seen mentioned in other topics. I wonder if this is inevitable in a hobby with a growing number of members, especially in urban areas.

 

In your area (you are in Dallas, right?), are the number of 'good' cache spots which involve a more physical committment depleted? Or are there still such locations available, but less and less people seem to be interested in placing caches there?

 

Is that a perhaps less inflammatory way of stating the situation from my perspective?

Yes, nicely articulated! You've identified a trend without accusing anyone of doing anything unfair or irresponsible.

[+Renegade Knight]

Urbanization.

 

They turn over more often, get replaced more often they show up on everyones closest list because they don't happen to live in the middle of nowhere.

 

Quality is a relative term. Does a well maintained cache with a bone dry log, a pencil that is always sharp, and a container that is replaced before it goes bad in a "lame (insert your own defination of lame) location" Low quality?

 

Or would a wet soggy moldy lump of a log in a broken container in a truly amazing location count as qualiyt?

 

If it'w well thought out in spite of location or container does that make it quality?

 

If everyone counted their nearest from where they would like to cache rather than the slum ... er neighborhood... they live in would percieved quality go up?

[+cache_test_dummies]

There is one major city that you'll not find one logged cache even though we visited and actually went out caching. If the quality was so high then we would have bumped into one, but didn't.

But do you think this represented a declining quality trend in the city you visited, or was it just the local flavor?

 

Lets say I visited Martha's Vineyard (an island off the coast of Massachusetts). And while wandering around, I stumbled into an area where the houses (and I mean all of them - dozens of them) had a whimsical Victorian gingerbread house look, painted in bright pinks, purples, yellows, greens (this is a real place, by the way, located in Oak Bluffs - it's fascinating to see).

 

Ok, not my style, but to each his own. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about coming home and finding that such a style was overtaking my own neighborhood.

 

But if I saw topic after topic being posted in the Homeowners Forum that talked about the 'problem' of the coming onslaught of whimsical Victorian gingerbread houses, I'd be a lot more worried. Definately time to worry if I saw more than a few of my neighbors bringing out the scroll saws and the buckets of pink paint .

 

I have cached in a number of places well away from my home turf, doing both urban and more remote caches. But I don't feel qualified to judge the trend in quality in those places. I've seen different predominant styles of placements in these areas, but I don't feel threatened by them with respect to my local area. Perhaps in those areas thats just how its always been. I don't know.

[+OccidentalErrant]

All of this goes to failing interest. or lack of it?

[+sistrurus]

it looks to me like the quality of new caches is in decline. and the quality of new cachers is in decline, too, so it all works out.

 

when i put out a cache that requires a room-temperature IQ to recover, people call me names. when I put out a 1/1, people drive 100 miles to add it to their stats.

[CoyoteRed]

But do you think this represented a declining quality trend in the city you visited, or was it just the local flavor?

I have no idea if it was a trend, but I'll tell you if that's all they got to offer I think they need to travel to some place and pick up some pointers.

 

I've done plenty of urban caches. Let's take our first trip to Jax. Urban micros galore. Unless we were just lucky 9 out of 10 cache we hit showed us something. A park, a monument, or it was a high-risk grab. Sure that one of 10 might have been stuck on the back of an ATM or some random sign, but by in large you didn't have to filter out all micros in order to have a good probability of getting a good cache.

 

While we haven't visited Jax in a while, I can tell you they knew what urban caching is all about. Now, if they've started displaying a trend toward less imaginative caches then that would be most unfortunate, because I really enjoyed myself.

 

This other place, in the words of Will Smith, "Daamn!"

[+Alan2]

While there aren't many caches in the 5 boros of NYC, the numbers of caches within 100 mile has increased from about 1000 to 3500 in a couple of years. If you're willing to drive a little, there are loads of great caches in the woods to hike or have a nice drive or get a scenic view. You just have to be a little selective.

[+Mr.Benchmark]

So maybe it would be more fair to say that the trend, in my area, is for more caches to be placed that are less physical, and hence not to my taste, great though they may be for others, and that this worries me.

This is one trend which I have seen mentioned in other topics. I wonder if this is inevitable in a hobby with a growing number of members, especially in urban areas.

 

In your area (you are in Dallas, right?), are the number of 'good' cache spots which involve a more physical committment depleted? Or are there still such locations available, but less and less people seem to be interested in placing caches there?

The thing about Dallas is that even though it's a giant urban sprawl, it's quite flat, and because of the river going through it, there's zillions of creeks and areas that are left wild because they are more or less floodplanes, and anything you build will just end up floating away at some time. So even though a lot of the good places in parks are taken, there's still room. It takes more time and research to find a good place, but it's definitely still possible.

 

Here's one I found today that shows it's still possible to hide this type of cache:

 

The Headless Horseman Takes a Fall

 

This one was excellent! Aside from the amusing story and hilarious props that were used, it involved a short (1.2 mile roundtrip) hike around a park. I did a little light bushwhacking, and crossed the creek a couple of times. It was pretty easy, really fun, and I got a bit of exercise, and the cache itself was exceedingly well done. (I can't say too much - there are elements of visual humor incorporated into this cache that I don't want to spoil.) It's obvious the hider spent a LOT of time, effort and probably money on the cache. It's not in a big park, but the trail I took kind of wound all the way around it.

 

Another example (I had a very small hand in this one):

 

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

 

So, yeah, part of the issue is that some parks that are crowded:

Spring Creek Nature Area - this park is pretty FULL

 

But you can still find good spots. It just takes a little effort. And obviously people still do hide this type here locally, it's just not in anywhere near the same numbers as the park-n-grabs are hidden. I don't mean to use the term 'park-n-grab' in a disparaging manner - it's just a convenient handle for a physically unchallenging cache. I don't want to say anything about the quality of these caches - they can be good, amusing and fun. I did one today that made me laugh. The trouble for me is that I could put on weight hunting park-n-grabs if that's all I did for exercise.

[+GRANPA ALEX]

What I am finding is that the creativity of the actual hides & containers is adding substantially to the fun in the game.

 

This is part of the game's migration as those very special locations may become consumed and proximity of other caches may limit urban hide locations. It makes it perfect for hides that are in less than the most interesting or prettiest location but that can safely support a cache that provides a good hunt experience.

 

In an area that has up to 150 caches within a six mile radius of a chosen central cache, I can spend 10-12 hours and find only a dozen caches lying within a 1/2 mile of parking. The hides/containers/camo are really improving the game for me, making it challenging. This is how I play the game . . . you may be different.

[Jeremy]

Improving for me. Because of the large quantity of caches available to me I can now be pickier about what I search. And since they are within the higher terrain category they are less likely to be muggled and visited less often.

[+workerofwood]

In the San Francisco Bay area I think the quality is going up. There have always been a good selection of all types of caches here, but seems recently we have had a burst of good ones.

 

Part of this is expectations. I think most folks see good examples of what to hide and want their caches viewed favorably. The region has plenty of nice accessable parks so there is room for large caches on nice hikes. There is a tradition of clever camo hides here, and seems about every 10th cache is a clever puzzle.

 

I just visited a 1st cache by a fairly new cacher last night and it was one of the better camo jobs I've seen.

 

We have PLENTY of lamp-post hides here, but there are enough caches around that you can choose to hunt them if you wish (most are in interesting spots), or ignore them and pick something more to your taste.

 

We held a regional event last night (about 130 people showed up) and there were 5 new caches hidden for it. All were good, and that set an example for the new cachers attending.

[Stony2008]

the caches in my area are pretty good (42501) im having trouble getting people involved though.