Geocachers lost in the bush

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 25 January 05 2:17 pm

Hi

Experience in the woods leads to lost girl .... http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/local ... 107570.xml

Regards
Andrew

Mix · Post by **Mix** » 25 January 05 2:26 pm

Aushiker wrote:Hi

Experience in the woods leads to lost girl .... http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/local ... 107570.xml

Regards
Andrew

Lt. Sniper · Post by **Lt. Sniper** » 25 January 05 7:45 pm

Geocaching requires having a clue, morons need not apply!

Insensitive comment maybe, but I donÃ‚â€™t want my adventure sport with a tarnished name.

Going caching without knowing how the GPS works, thatÃ‚â€™s like getting into a car when you donÃ‚â€™t know how to drive, its going to end up a big expensive mess and someoneÃ‚â€™s going to get hurt.

EcoTeam · Post by **EcoTeam** » 25 January 05 8:16 pm

Darwin will take care of them!

Perhaps we will see a Geocacher among future Darwin Award winners?

Billy Bob was looking at the GPS needle which said the cache was 10m away, and then he fell over the 1000ft cliff.
"He was just following the pointer, these things are supposed to be accurate, this shouldn't have happened" said Billy Bob's brother Jed.

EcoDave

xf king · Post by **xf king** » 25 January 05 11:19 pm

The couldn';t work out how to use the GPS. man on man, thats the first thing I would do if I got a new toy of any sort... Work out how the thing works inside out. I can believe if your far in the cush, say 20 km into a deringer cache and your GPS fails and you get lost. But its a good idea to take a compass and second set of batteries on a cache that has a long hike, and always bring some First aid on a high terrian cache.

Also, what kind of weather were these people doing such a cache in?? must have been freezing for sombody to get hypothermia. I hope that some people grow some brains. I have been out in the cold and the heat, I know my limits and have had to turn back due to weather, terrian, or just plane shear tiredness.

Diadem · Post by **Diadem** » 27 January 05 1:21 pm

When I first started geocaching I read the US forums regularly and there was a story about a bloke who knew how to use his GPS (at least enough to get somewhere). He didn't waypiont his car, so after trudging into the swamp he had no idea where his car was nor how to get back to it. He had to call the emergency services to find him (despite his knowing his coords). He was also ridiculed for not know how to use the track-back feature of his GPS. Just goes to show there are many ways for fools to get lost with high tech stuff and no low tech common sense.

Bronze · Post by **Bronze** » 27 January 05 4:03 pm

Heh hee -

I remember some monhs ago recieving a rather sharp and abrasive email from a fellow cache who attempted to do one of my 2/2 caches. For some reason this cacher tried to scale a 15 sheer wall of rock to get another 5meters forward to reach the cache. He was with a wife and child who sat on a ledge with cliff below them.

I had to completely reword the whole page because peanut here endangered his family looking for the shortest route to the cache. I would have figured "Hey this cache is rated 2/2 so i don't need my climbing gear. it's is in the other car anyway so there must be another way to the cache, say up that path perhaps?"

Peanut did teach me an important lesson. Cater for the lowest common denominator when placing your cache. Fortunately when I as doing Peskys Monkey Face the other day I didn't walk that extra 32 metres out into the thin air. I guess I'm just lucky.

Bronze.

Post by **caughtatwork** » 27 January 05 5:26 pm

You make an interesting point.

I've been looking for a general location to go on Friday / Saturday with my Brother in Law who's down from Qld for a couple of days.

We looked at a map of Victoria and picked a spot that had quite a number of 2 to 2.5's as far as terrain went.

We were all planned to go that way until we actually looked into each of the caches. They were all set during a 4WD Event and all of them state up front you need a 4WD to access them.

I appreciate that information being in the cache description, but if we'd headed off without looking to well* we would have come unstuck.

If specialised equipment (such a mandatory 4WD) is needed then the terrain should be much higher such as a 4 or 5.

I understand that the cache ratings are subjective and IF you had a 4WD then the terrain would be 2 or 2.5, but without a 4WD it goes much higher.

When looking for groups of caches to do, finding a whole bunch of 2 or 2.5's just adds to the frustration in that you have to look at each cache to see what the terrain is really like.

*When planning we would always check the cache description, but if we happened to be in an 'area' without the description, this could have been annoying as we would have been targetting 2 or 2.5's as doable in a 2WD, but suffering when we finally got there.

Bronze · Post by **Bronze** » 27 January 05 7:57 pm

Mabey it's just me, and I realise this is a little off the point but if I placed a cache that needed a 4WD I would place a 4 star (at least) rating on it.

We could go around in circle on this topic I'm sure as it's all up to the cacher, experience, local knowledge, vehicle of the placer etc etc etc.

I quite often make it a habit of asking the first few cachers to arrive at my new cache what did they think? What did they like the best? Is the rating correct in their opinion? Is the description sufficient?

Quite often we see eye to eye but more often than not the rating needs quite a bit of adjustment as being a finder is harder than being a hider for the cache.

Bronze.

Slider & Smurf · Post by **Slider & Smurf** » 27 January 05 8:25 pm

You could always argue that you only need a 4WD if you plan on driving to the cache ... nothing to stop you walking in, or cycling if you really wanted to.
<p>
We managed to make it a couple of those caches in a psuedo-4WD without low range ... just needed a bit of a run up the hill! Wouldn't recommend for a 2WD though.

Post by **caughtatwork** » 27 January 05 8:30 pm

Slider & Smurf wrote:You could always argue that you only need a 4WD if you plan on driving to the cache ... nothing to stop you walking in, or cycling if you really wanted to.

True, although this should also raise the terrain rating as the walking distance is increased as well as the up hill down dale scenario.

As I mentioned it's all subjective and I'm not all that grumpy, it just means I'm not hitting Maryborough but will be heading Bendigo / Castlemaine instead.

dcr · Post by **dcr** » 27 January 05 8:47 pm

Bronze wrote:... from a fellow cache who attempted to do one of my 2/2 caches. For some reason this cacher tried to scale a 15 sheer wall of rock to get another 5meters forward to reach the cache.

You know some cachers can also turn a 1/1 into an epic because they didn't really look at the map and thought "If I park here I can walk across to here..."

But I guess some of us serve as a warning to others

Yes it was *up there*, and it all turned out well in the end.
cheers Darren

Post by **caughtatwork** » 27 January 05 8:53 pm

Bwhahahah!

I drove past that waypoint and picked up the clue without getting out of the car. Talk about 1/1. It should have been 1/0.

I did have to get help at the final waypoint though

Zytheran · Post by **Zytheran** » 30 January 05 7:03 pm

Just like to point out a fellow SA cacher went to one of my caches the (unexpected) direct route and went over the cliff it was on when they arrived at the *top*. Cache was rated as 4 1/2 star and was a freeclimb from the bottom. They suffered no major injury after a 5m tumble and fall.

I felt pretty bad reading what had happened and was very relieved to realise they 1) lived to tell the tale and 2) lived enough to hobble away and not die in the bush from a broken leg.

So even using a GPS and knowing the area, it's the little details that can still make you come unstuck. They didn't know the cliff was there, I didn't until the week before and it's not on any topo maps. GPS units might give sraight line bearings but the terrain might not cooperate.

The thoughts of the media hype if something had happened were not good.

Geocaching Australia

Geocachers lost in the bush

Geocachers lost in the bush

Re: Geocachers lost in the bush

Happens to the best of us though...