+wetalkpirate Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 I'm new to geocaching and logged our first find yesterday. I have to admit that we had a little help in finding the area due to tracks in the snow. I know you're supposed to minimize tracks to the cache, but what do you do in wet, melting snow? We're attempting to be considerate and I don't know how elaborate we need to be with stealth. We rehid the cache with care and wandered around a while to confuse footprints, but there wasn't much we could do about trampled snow. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated? Quote Link to comment
+CACHE KRAWLER Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 I'm new to geocaching and logged our first find yesterday. I have to admit that we had a little help in finding the area due to tracks in the snow. I know you're supposed to minimize tracks to the cache, but what do you do in wet, melting snow? We're attempting to be considerate and I don't know how elaborate we need to be with stealth. We rehid the cache with care and wandered around a while to confuse footprints, but there wasn't much we could do about trampled snow. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated? I hear Pixie dust works great for that. Just sprinkle a little bit on each foot and it should be anough to just float you around. Now my serious answer is this....don't worry about it. You will find in time that even in summer conditions that a "Geotrail - a trail made my geocachers in or out of the woods in search of a specific geocache" will form overtime. Have a great time out there and most of all, enjoy yourself. Quote Link to comment
+CACHE KRAWLER Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 WOW! I just looked at your profile and your a Premium Member after only one find. Geez, I know some people who after years of caching are not Premium Members. My hats off to you and thanks for contributing to our addiction. Quote Link to comment
+larryc43230 Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 I'm new to geocaching and logged our first find yesterday. I have to admit that we had a little help in finding the area due to tracks in the snow. I know you're supposed to minimize tracks to the cache, but what do you do in wet, melting snow? We're attempting to be considerate and I don't know how elaborate we need to be with stealth. We rehid the cache with care and wandered around a while to confuse footprints, but there wasn't much we could do about trampled snow. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated? I don't know that's there's a lot more that you can do, other than leave some "red herring" footprints leading off in wrong directions. Snowshoes, perhaps? I remember doing a full day of cache-hunting a couple of years ago just a day or so after a significant snowfall. I tried my best to obscure my prints and leave some bogus ones, but when I logged my caches on the Web site a couple of days later, I discovered a bunch of "Found" logs from a cacher I know that thanked the previous finder (me) for leading them right to about a dozen caches. --Larry Quote Link to comment
+BlueDeuce Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 We like to do things like walk backwards into various areas and then walk back out forwards so people can't tell which way we come from. Or just all over the place so there's no telling which one to follow. Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 It's hard to minimize tracks so what many people do is add more tracks to make it confusing. Quote Link to comment
+WRITE SHOP ROBERT Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 Yep, I went to a Cache last winter, and I put away the GPS at the parking lot, and just followed the tracks. I started to wonder if the other Cacher was still there, since there were tracks IN but not OUT. once I got to the Cache I saw that they went out a different way. I did the same, but didn't follow theirs this time, so the best way to hide tracks in the snow is to make MORE. Quote Link to comment
+wetalkpirate Posted January 17, 2010 Author Share Posted January 17, 2010 Thx everyone. Looks like we did the "right" thing. Thankfully it's icing here now and it will be totally obscured by morning. Quote Link to comment
+And Sister Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 If it's the right kind of snow (light and fluffy) and not too deep, I've also been able to take a branch and sweep some snow over my tracks. But mostly, like the others, I just try to make lots of extra tracks. That includes standing and stopping in a few spots so that the place I really spent time at (ie, found and logged the cache) doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Quote Link to comment
+ShaunEM Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 If someone is looking for your tracks, they want the help. Don't worry about it. I find I take SO long to find a cache, that anyone following my tracks is going to end up very annoyed with me. I second the comment about geo-tracks. 90% of the caches are located by me just by following the traffic in the area. Shaun Quote Link to comment
+-CJ- Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 The issue is well known in our area and many people here do believe that making additional tracks helps. I would say that tracks matter (and their quantity as well) but the most important is whether your tracks look suspicious/interesting to muggles or not. It's much like a stealth technique. E.g. if there's a standalone monument in a snowy park and tracks lead there from a path I would say that this don't seem unusual. Someone just wished to look at the monument at a closer distance. People feed birds, walk with their dogs, play snowballs, do many things that are of less or no interest to others. Would I follow some man's tracks that lead from a remote parking lot to bushes round the corner of a building that looks abandoned? I would probably not However, I recently failed to find one urban micro cache that was located behind a small billboard standing about 5 meters away from pavements. The billboard was clean, no information on it, and I would have to pass a small fence to reach the cache. I though that would look too unusual and suspicious for muggles (heavy traffic around) so I decided to return when it will be not snowy (perhaps at night). As for geocachers, I would say no "additional tracks" or anything of this kind will prevent an experienced geocacher from understanding the situation Quote Link to comment
+ipodguy Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 Take really big steps. Quote Link to comment
+murrayegger Posted February 11, 2013 Share Posted February 11, 2013 Take really big steps. Like this? http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/02/07 Quote Link to comment
+StarBrand Posted February 11, 2013 Share Posted February 11, 2013 I've been known to walk up to every Geo-target in the area and stomp down the snow like somebody had been standing there awhile. Quote Link to comment
+Gitchee-Gummee Posted February 11, 2013 Share Posted February 11, 2013 Pretty good suggestions given... but the best way to not leave tracks is to LEVITATE! Quote Link to comment
+tweetiepy Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 I just wander around aimlessly searching for the cache - not on purpose mind you, we're just all over the place anyways. Comes from being a newbie... We try not to be obvious but mother nature has been really helpful this year in dumping more and more snow each day to hide our tracks... Quote Link to comment
+The_Incredibles_ Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 After you've found it, you can just stumble around randomly, perhaps have a snowball fight and make some snow angels, that will throw them off your track. Quote Link to comment
+popokiiti Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 We've added additional tracks to the ones we've made.....especially if were lucky to go straight to the cache. We do this in case muggles come by! Quote Link to comment
+Harry Dolphin Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 Reminds me of the mystery cache that I hid. FTF used FITS (Footprints In The Snow) to find the cache. Took him a while because I had wandered about a bit looking for a good hiding spot. I thought this was pretty funny! Quote Link to comment
+BlackRose67 Posted February 15, 2013 Share Posted February 15, 2013 After you've found it, you can just stumble around randomly, perhaps have a snowball fight and make some snow angels, that will throw them off your track. It's a little harder to do that when you snowshoe across a swamp to the cache at night...or as our case was last weekend, 12 of us snowshoeing across the swamp. The next day, a cacher that previously logged a DNF on the night cache used our well established trail to make the find in the day Quote Link to comment
+Gitchee-Gummee Posted February 15, 2013 Share Posted February 15, 2013 The next day, a cacher that previously logged a DNF on the night cache used our well established trail to make the find in the day That... and the packed snow froze down so the trail was much better walking than cutting his own trail! Lots of animals do that, too... Quote Link to comment
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