eCache

GeoLitter Cleanup

39° 29.390N
74° 53.078W

LCFB

This hunt took me back more than a year. I am very familiar with this cache.

Way back in another life (it seems), I used to be really up on the local caching scene. I kept an in-depth database. Despite some swarmy comments about being the resident statistician, I had a good handle on what was going on in the area. It was never about leaderboards (hell, they are easy to create). No, it was about the other things one could do with the data. One of those things was to document what caches needed attention. For a while, some even got that attention. Like I said, it was if that were another lifetime ago.

When I began to run the numbers, I found that there were more than 25% of the local caches that were in need of attention. Perhaps some might quibble over a few of the designations, but what was clear is that South Jersey had an epidemic of abandoned caches.

Mixed CD’s is one of those. Allow me to tell its tale.

In August 2003, a new name appeared on the local caching scene. Thirty-two caches were logged in a span of a week. Reading through the logs, one learned about this new cacher. She was a relative of a local cacher. She was in town visiting and gobbled up a bunch of caches in the area. She had just joined big green a few weeks earlier and seemed quite enthusiastic.

Her arrival was met by a new cache, compliments of her relative. Ode to Rippietoe (was called Ode to Rippietoe #2 originally, which begged the question where was #1?) caught the locals’ eyes. Hmmm . . .

At the end of the year she was back in town logging more caches. Forty-five more caches fell over the New Year holiday. And before she left town, two new caches were in place. But hadn’t big green been cracking down on vacation caches? If one lives in Tennessee how would she ever maintain a cache in New Jersey? My questions were dismissed. She had a local maintainer and that ensures the integrity of the cache. So there!

So, out I went on a most bitter cold January morning. I entered the municipal park which was empty for no one had any business being out on a day like this one. The first cache I went to without gloves. That was a mistake, but it was in keeping with the cache that was secured to a piece of children’s playground equipment. All of a sudden I was happy that it was so cold out for who in their right mind would seek a cache in a children’s playground? It was back to the car for the gloves before walking to the other side of the parking lot to begin the Mixed CD’s multi. It didn’t take too long to find the pill bottle along the edge of the lot. I plugged in the coordinates to the final stage and traversed a frozen football field. I entered the woods and found the cache 100 feet from where I had entered. Other than a briar or two, there was no impediment. This was a stellar three-star terrain vacation cache!

That day ended up being an interesting day.

An aside
After I left this municipal park, I was heading north on Rt. 40 when I was pulled over. Dang, I was speeding! As I recall, the car was an absolute mess and I was loaded down for a big day of caching. With all the blaze orange, coolers, maps, etc., I wonder what the officer really thought. As I fumbled for the license and insurance, well, I couldn’t find the insurance. I found an old card, but not the current one. Sigh . . . after a while sitting there as he ran my plates, he came back and said, “How about you move your GPS a little? Have a good day.” Wow! Indeed I moved the GPS a little bit away from the steering wheel and took off, slowly, for the next cache. I found several new caches that day before heading much further north for another new one. As I drove into the WMA, I saw Floopy driving out with his Mom and Dad in tow. I continued in, drove to the end right where another cache had been the previous year. I made short work of the cache and logged in right behind SF. On my way out is when it got fun. The patch of ice I drove over cracked when I returned. Beneath the ice was a swamp. Okay, maybe not that bad, but there are tales about the puddles on this road (that I learned after-the-fact). There I was stuck 90 minutes from home. It was mid-afternoon and the town was a few miles away. Sigh . . . I began hiking back. Finally a truck came along. A couple young guys were agreeable to helping. They went to fetch a strap and some time later, showed up. By that time another cacher had come. He couldn’t help. I eventually got out. I figured I couldn’t afford to lose a second car to caching, so I decided to drive home . . . with a quick stop into the Pine Barrens to pick up a hitchhiker of mine that had completed its goal (I released it the day we were married and the two camels went to Niagara Falls and came home for their own honeymoon). An eventful day to say the least . . .

Back to the Story
By July, there were problems. A local reported the pill bottle was MIA. A month (22 August) later it was replaced. Another local found it. That, my friends, is the last time the cache was found. The logbook supports that.

Another Aside
Interestingly, the South Jersey Geocaching Organization had just formed. It decided to begin to recognize the Must Do caches of the area. There used to be a page (disappeared after the site migrated to a new host) that displayed which month each cache was recognized. I have forgotten which month this cache had been highlighted. The “program” began in September. Mixed CD’s was one of the first caches trumpeted by the locals as Must Do.

Story, Again
At the end of the month, a third local sought the cache. The superintendent of the park was not thrilled with the idea of caching.

A month later, the cache owner dropped a couple travel bugs into the cache. Or so it is claimed. What was observed was that the three caches in this park were used as virtual drops for TBs. Nothing would ever actually be placed in the caches, but rather were used to log miles. I know this from having chased some of them. And if the hitchhikers had been dropped, would the cache not have been restored?

After the bug drop, the local relative cacher picked up the bugs. Would he not have rehabilitated the cache? Something wasn’t right.

The folks over at big green knew all about this. This cache was in my maintenance list I used to share with the volunteer reviewers. Eventually (somewhat to my surprise), the cache was disabled by one of those volunteers. That prompted the cache owner to promise to attend to this. An empty one it would turn out to be.

I continued highlighting the cache in my reports, but it was expecting too much for the frog to do anything.
So, there Mixed CD’s sat. It has been more than 14 months since it was last found. Oh sure, there is a Found It! log on the cache page. There was no entry in the logbook. That log seems a bit iffy, doesn’t it?

Then the owner dropped another hitchhiker. That sparked renewed interest in the cache. Four more DNFs were posted before the owner archived in in September. How come no one ever finds the cache after the owner visits it?

How come the local maintainer didn’t do his job? If his maintenance on his own cache is an example, then perhaps we know. Notice, the only one to have ever found this cache was . . . rippietoe!

Something has not been right with all this, but now it is over. Today on my lunch break, with dress slacks on, I walked out to the woods without coordinates, side-stepped one cluster of briars and retrieved the cache. On the way home from work, I dropped the cache off at this location. Since the local maintainer needs to rehabilitate this one too, this kills two birds with the same stone.

This was the definition of geolitter.

Also blogged on this date . . .

• Bayshore - 2007
• What A Louse - 2006
• AC Corruption: An Opportunity for Leadership - 2005
• Moss On T.O. - 2005

Tags: GPS Games, neverending-scavenger-hunt, TerraCaching