Jump to content

Suggestions for minimizing tracks in snow?


wetalkpirate

Recommended Posts

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?

Link to comment

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.

Link to comment

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? :shocked:

 

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

Link to comment

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.

Link to comment

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.

Link to comment

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

Link to comment

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 :)

Link to comment

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. :laughing:

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 :ph34r:

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...