camouflage

Always Blame The Bear

While I was in Flagstaff camping, I got to check up on all the caches I placed last August. I was really excited to see how they had fared after a winter of snow, wind, and rain.

I haven’t hid that many caches (13) so I’m not really sure how often I needed to check on them. The ones in Flagstaff are kind of tricky, since I live about 2 hours from them; not really practical to scoot over to check after the first DNF!

The first cache we checked on was The Quiet Zone. This cache is a favorite of mine, but I was concerned about the container; the prior three people searching for it had been DNF. As I drew closer to the cache, it was clear to see what had happened.

A bear had made off with the cache!

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13 years ago • • Tags: , ,

Camouflaging A Geocache

Updated February 2017

You’ve decided to hide a geocache. You’ve got the perfect container but now you have to do the camouflage. Ah, camouflage, one of the most important factors in hiding a geocache. I’ll be covering some tips & suggestions on how to doctor up your cache!

I’ve found some pretty-cool micros (okay, so I had a caching buddy point them out to me since I don’t really do micros) and I’ve found some caches with amazing camouflage. This article is how to put camouflage on an ordinary, run-of-the-mill cache.

Picking Your Container

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a ton of ammo cans laying about to be made into geocaches. So if you need to use a plastic container, here are my recommendations.

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13 years ago • • Tags: ,

Best Cache Camo vs. Whimsy Caches

I’m always very interested in the best cache camouflage that’s out there in the “wild”. Like in the animal kingdom, camo can make or break a cache. If it lacks camouflage it’s just too easy. Of course, too hard of a hide isn’t always fun either! In my opinion, there’s a big difference between camouflage and unique hides. Camouflage is designed to be that thing that you look at and look at and you’re not sure that the cache is there and then you get an “a-ha!” moment when you find it.

Unique hides are for location or whimsy. They’re usually evident that the cache HAS to be there.

Here are some examples from my favorite caches. I’m purposefully leaving the GC codes out (the codes provided by geocaching.com that give the name and coordinates of the caches) so there won’t be any spoilers.

Whimsy Caches:

120809-whimsy1

Javalina cache guard

This metal javalina is on the side of the road, nearly in somebody’s front yard. A park-and-grab style cache that gets serious props for it’s whimsy.

120809-man

Rock-man with a geocacher’s heart!

Now, this man is in the middle of nowhere. And NO, before you ask, it wasn’t built to hide the cache! The person who hid this cache actually says that he found it out hunting in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s — that’s long before the creation of geocaching. Of course, this stone man in Northern Arizona gets my whimsy vote since it was the ONLY place the cache could be hidden. Plus, the cache container was hidden in the man’s chest. He is a geocacher at heart!

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14 years ago • • Tags: ,