Have you hugged a geocacher today?

Before I get into it, can I please state for the record that I'm totally sick of winter.  Or at least how unpredictable the weather has been.  I've been tracking the weather for the meetup.com thing this Sunday (I'm scared a lot of people will show and there won't be room in the restaurant - my hope was to chill outside, but not literally).  It's warm - it's cold - it's wet - it's dry - it's snow (wtf!) - it's dreary - it's blue... It's supposed to be spring.  I just want spring.  Where is spring?!

Ahem.  Anyways.  Geocachers, yes, that's what I'm here to talk about, geocachers. Last weekend while I was in the park hiding a box for this weekend's event (Hi! Park), the place was pretty busy and there were folks out there participating in all sorts of activities.  And I guess some of them are geocaching.  And I guess I didn't check my locations right cuz I clearly planted my previous weekend's plant too close to a geocache which was discovered by a nice geocacher, Willipan. This kind soul did the thing that letterboxers everywhere hope a thoughtful geocacher would do: found the box, did not assume it was their cache, have a look-see, signed in, put everything away, registered on AQ, and left a wonderful comment as follows: 

I was out geocaching today and thought I'd found the cache for which I was looking about 10 metres from Ground Zero - what a surprise to find this letterbox instead! I've done geocaching letterboxes before but never a non-geocaching one and certainly never found one by accident - I had to sign up and log it! We were the first to find this one - I put in my geocaching stamp but unfortunately, didn't have my geocaching log book with me to use your beautiful stamp! We never did find the geocache we were hunting, but this was a great surprise!

I sometimes see how geocachers are talked about by the letterboxing community and it sort of makes me sad.  Listen, no one will be more irritated than me when one of my stamps gets traded out by a geocacher who is not paying attention.  But isn't that all it is?  Let's face it, all letterboxes will eventually go missing.  At least if it's a letterboxer, there's a chance they will come to our hobby as well.

And really, they're sort of like our cousins; they're just having a great time in the woods looking for tupperware just like us.  How can you be critical of that? Yes, they play the "game" differently but we all know there's no right or wrong - just different.

So, for posterity, some reasons I love geocachers:

• When explaining letterboxing to them, unlike a muggle, they get it
• They're blazing the path for knowledge of these types of hobbies, making it easier to come in and plant in areas that are already primed for the idea
• They bring new folks to our hobby; let's face it, there are some amazing Ontario letterboxers who came to our community from geocaching
• They're inspirational when it comes to clues and hides (I mean, just look at this!)
• On the whole, they're great people just looking for a stump to hide a box in.

Have you hugged a geocacher today?

Happy trails, letterboxers and geocachers!

Bumble

On finding geocache letterbox hybrids

The beautiful views on the way to this letterbox/geocache hybrid.

To be clear, I am a letterboxer and not a geocacher.  I see from lurking in the AtlasQuest boards that there are some fairly disgruntled letterboxers who seem to despise some geocachers' lack of respect (understanding?) of our hobby - particularly in the stamp-goes-missing category of misunderstanding. I tend to think that that is only one of a myriad of ways a letterbox can go missing... And I'm inviting my stamps to go missing by the mere fact that I am essentially abandoning them in the woods. So I don't get too bent out of shape about it.

Anyways.  Where was I?  Oh, yes, well, in doing my due diligence for planting letterboxes, it became necessary to become a premium member on geocaching.com in order properly identify locations of geocaches to avoid.  In doing so, I've also been scoping out some of the geocache/letterbox hybrids that I see posted on that site.

Now, in the past, I have found some of these hybrids - mostly by Lone R - as they are also posted on AtlasQuest.  But, I sought those letterboxes out as they are by experience and well-qualified letterboxers who know what they're doing.  On the other hand, I suspect that some of these hybrid geocache letterboxes are likley planted by geocachers who, with all good intentions, aren't understanding the essence of what makes a letterbox.

Nevertheless, as with any regular letterbox, you never know what you're going to get, so you should always go find these boxes anyway!

Along with my premium membership to geocaching came access to some reserved caches, one of which is a nearby clued hybrid letterbox cache with an excellent puzzle clue.  I spent one rainy day solving it and it's been on my list of letterboxes to find.

Finally, last Friday I had the time and opportunity and I set off.  The hike was fantastic, skirting a deep ravine with the Rouge River below, there was an excellent puzzle before and during the find, and if not for the store stamp at the end, it would rival most standard letterboxes.  If you're in my area and have a premium geocaching membership, you'll find this great letterbox by Tequila.

View on the way to the geocache/letterbox hybrid. 

Moral of the story: you'll never know what you're going to get until you open that tupperware - so find 'em all!  I'll have to hunt down other hybrids off that site.  One more place to check for local boxes while I travel ;)

Happy trails!