Challenge Caches Paused - Where to Find Information and Opinions

Paws on Challenge Caches? OK, easy!

April 21st 2015 Geocaching.com announced a moratorium on publishing new challenge caches. This announcement has resulted in a lot of opinions from many quarters, but as with anything in life, it's important to sort out information from opinions to help you understand what is actually going on.

"Geocaching.com is not approving...challenge caches...for 1 year..."

In simplest terms, Geocaching.com is not approving any further challenge geocaches for publishing on their listing site for 1 year, effective April 21. This moratorium will be used to consult with the Geocachers around the world and determine how to make the challenge cache aspect of Geocaching better for everyone who plays the game. It is important to also be aware that "it does not impact previously published challenge cache listings."

This morning I took a listen to episode 400 of the Geocaching Podcast and was interested in the opinions and ideas of the hosts on that show. I found it curious that a few of the things they discussed were actually covered in the interviews I conducted at Geocaching.com's office the day the moratorium was announced! 

For example, there was some discussion about how Geocaching.com can/should consult more with Geocachers on these kinds of topics to ensure that decisions are made with input from the user community. Well tune in to episode 92 of Caching in the Northwest to listen to lackey JaymeH explain how they are engaging YOU, geocachers, in making decisions by way of her role as the User Insights Analyst.

Her methods move far beyond the User Insights forum although that's a great place to start. She shares with you in our interview how she will be engaging directly with geocachers to get their opinions on various topics to bring directly back to the development teams. 

That's right - JaymeH will be at select Mega events throughout the year meeting with groups of geocachers to get your insights. 

Want to know how to get an invite? Listen to the podcast live tonight (Thursday, April 30th at 9:00pm Pacific) or hear the recording afterwards if you can't join us live. JaymeH explains the whole process in our interview.

"...listen to ... Caching in the Northwest where Eric clarifies the situation and how you can be involved..."

Several other of the Geocaches podcasts, including episode 8 of the "Cache & Release" podcast, have shared the news about the challenge cache moratorium, and while Michael Miller and his peers have all explained it fairly well, if you'd like to hear the thoughts directly from Eric, PR & Social Media Manager at Geocaching.com, listen to episode 91 of Caching in the Northwest where Eric clarifies the situation and how you can be involved.

As always, we're really interested in your thoughts about challenge caches:

• Do you enjoy doing them? 
• Do you have any plans this year to complete any? 
• Will you be providing Geocaching.com your constructive feedback on how to make the Challenge Caching experience better?

And whether you are going after challenges or LPCs, remember to always:

"Cache safely, and cache often!"
The LANMonkeys

A Cookie Comes Home...

You may have heard that last week I was down at the Lilypad (Geocaching.com HQ) for a tour and to record some interviews for Caching In the Northwest. What you may not have heard is the neat story of the trackable I brought home.

Many of us have sent out trackables, and help others along their "missions" and for the most part, we really don't know what happens to them. Some arrive at their intended destinations after many detours, and many just "disappear."

This story is about a trackable "cookie" that went on an exciting worldwide adventure, and then through a series of coincidences made it's way back home again - and I'm so excited to have played a small part in making that happen.

Local geocachers may know Dave The Best (the guy who gets everyone's attention at CITOs and Flashmobs?) - well he's the owner of the "COOKIE!" trackable. In his story I've copied below for you to read, I'm the "fellow cacher" he was Tweeting with who brought "COOKIE" home for Dave.

Dave tells this story so well, that I'll quote him instead of retelling it myself:

"On April 28 2014, I dropped this a cache in Cuba. It was then picked up and traveled all around the world to Austria, Slovakia, Cyprus, Poland, France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Portugal, Luxembourg, Japan, and Belgium, before being brought back to North America and dropped in the Groundspeak HQ cache. 
On April 21, 2015, I noticed a fellow cacher post on social media about heading down to the HQ. Less than an hour later, I get a notification that my TB was dropped off there. I tweeted at the cacher asking him to pick it up, and he replies with a picture of my TB! Today we met up at a CITO and I got my trackable back after it's long adventure around the world. 
This is such a fun game, and so many different things can happen. When I released this into the wild, I never set any goals; I just wanted it to travel from cache to cache, and see where it went. I think it's a super cool story that it traveled the world and then came back to me. 
Thank you for discovering my TB, and don't forget to be awesome!"

I thought you might enjoy hearing a happy tale of a TB coming home after a world-wide adventure. If you have interesting TB stories to share feel free to post them to our Facebook Page!

And remember:
Cache safely, and cache often!
The LANMonkeys

Caching Amongst Nesting Herons

Have you ever considered whether herons nest on the ground or in trees?
 
This past weekend our geocaching adventures took us to the "Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve" in Chilliwack, BC. As it turns out, they nest in trees!

This location is quite easy to access, ample parking, and a nice selection of geocaches for the family on very well maintained walking trails. 

You can use the multi-cache "The Tower" as your reference point on the Geocaching website to navigate your way there, but it's just a few minutes off of the Trans-Canada highway.

It's important to know a few things before you go:

• The trails are open dawn to dusk all year
• The interpretive centre is open 10am to 4pm daily with free admission
• Some trails do NOT allow dogs :-(

Only a few of the 130+ nests here

In addition, it's helpful to know that "parts of the Heron Colony Loop Trail and Discovery Trail are closed in the spring to allow lots of room for the herons to forage and nest undisturbed." This doesn't seem to impact the trails along which the geocaches are placed, so that's great news for geocachers.

All of that said, the experience this time of year while the herons are nesting is absolutely amazing. To see these giant water-striding birds glide gracefully into their tree-top nests at the peaks of huge cottonwood trees is stunning. 

Heron in it's tree-top nest

Our visit took us on one of two possible looping trails to pick up geocaches, but by taking the "westward" loop from the interpretive centre we were able to observe the 130+ heron nests from a distance that was safe for the herons and that our geo-hound Piggy was allowed on.

Spending some time afterward in the centre chatting with one of the staff we learned that this reserve is the largest heronry (group of heron nests) in the Pacific Northwest and that the number of returning herons (on average) has been quite steady the last several years.

Visiting the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve is not only great way to not only spend the day out geocaching, but also to learn more about these amazing indigenous birds in their natural habitat.

Resident eagles guarding their food source

Geese with a gosling nearby

Mrs. LANMonkey on GeoGearHeads

Last night BOTH LANMonkeys were guests on the GeoGearHeads podcast with DarrylW4 and TheBadCop, to talk about caching by kayak. It was fantastic to have Mrs. LANMonkey come onto a podcast with me, and we had way too much fun.

Darryl & Chris make it easy and enjoyable to visit them on their podcast and the live viewers in the Google HangOut Q&A were awesome! We couldn't believe how many great questions and ideas they brought up to make your kayak geocaching experience better.

If you have the time to watch the live video feed you can check it our here


or better yet, subscribe to the GeoGearHeads podcast by going their website and hear every episode of this fun and informative podcast on tech, geo-location gaming, and enjoying the outdoors.

Thanks Darryl and Chris for letting us spend the evening with you, it was a blast!

LANMonkey Visits the Lilypad

This Tuesday I had the exceptional opportunity to drive south to the Freemont neighborhood (also known to the locals as the "Centre of the Universe") and visit the good folks at Geocaching.com headquarters - or "the Lilypad" as it's called.

I arrived early and had some time to grab a quick lunch and stroll the neighbourhood - what a quirky place! We've been to two Block Parties and have had a "rushed group" tour of the area doing the GeoTour and lab caches before, but it's fun to check it out at a more relaxed pace. 

I was greeted immediately by smiles and a fun attitude from the moment I walked through the door until I left to make my way home. It's really clear that the people who work here love working here, and are really passionate about what they do. What a great office environment and team.

My guide was Eric Schudiske, the PR and Social Media Manager for Geocaching.com. Eric was kind enough to tour me around the office, make several introductions, and also set up an interview for me with Jayme - the User Insights Analyst from Geocaching.com. She has a fascinating role, and if you'd like to hear more about that, make sure you catch episode 92 of Caching in the Northwest when we'll play that interview on our podcast.

On the tour I got to see a number of the cool spaces set of for people to work, chill, recharge, and work some more on making the website and apps everything they can be. I also met the social media team and had a quick chat there. I found out where the Signalbrau flows from; the inspiration of my favourite Geocaching mascot variant! (mental note... need to order myself the Signalbrau shirt sometime...)

In checking out the development areas, I also met up with Moun10Bike, and he showed me the very first geocoin!

Eric & I spoke about a number of things including the reasoning behind two major recent cache guideline changes (minimum time for events and 1 year moratorium on challenge caches), the 15 Years of Geocaching celebrations, souvenirs, and a hint of what's to come in May, as well as a couple of topics near and dear to the hearts of Canadian geocachers as well as those planning to attend the MVG Summertime Winter Games event.

Before we were done I also spent a bit of time chatting with Bryan Roth, one of the founders of Geocaching.com. I've met Bryan in passing before but never had the chance for a bit of a chat. It was great to meet him and I must say I have an enormous amount of respect for the organizational culture he has built here.

If you want to check out the Lilypad yourself, follow this link to arrange a visit - they love having people come and see them and treat you like family when you're there. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and look forward to a future opportunity to come down and see the team there again.

Thanks Eric, Jayme, Bryan, Jon, and everyone else I'm forgetting to mention (so sorry!) for an amazing and fun visit. I'll be back!



Some more photos from my visit are below...

One of the cleanest server rooms I've seen in a long time.

"The Creek" one of the areas for lackeys to meet, chill, and plan.

Mobile development team - with a sense of humour!

Caching Cuba

Recently we returned from an amazing vacation in beautiful Cuba. We wanted to share with you how to maximize your geocaching enjoyment while still experiencing everything Cuba has to offer.
 
It has been a long time since we posted here last - our attention has been focused on the YouTube channel and we realize that only gives part of the story! So back to the blog.

With travel restrictions from the US to Cuba imminently lightening, we expect it will be a more popular "North American" destination soon. One of the most amazing things about Cuba is the simplicity of life while visiting there. Hopefully that doesn't change too much, although admittedly there are many people in the country who could benefit from an economic boon (such as increased tourism investment would bring).

Varadero is circled in red at the top of the map.

We stayed in the popular resort area of Varadero, the peninsula on the North-East of the island nation where the majority of the resorts are located. A quick look at the Geocaching map shows  a number of caches all along that strip. 

You can easily spend a day just grabbing the 20+ caches along the Varadero Peninsula. We'd suggest renting bicycles from your resort as most of these caches are placed along or proximate to the highway that runs the length of the peninsula. 

You can also take the 5 CUC ($5 US) "Hop-On, Hop-Off" tour buses that run the length of the highway, but they are about 30 minutes between each other and will not be efficient.

Along this stretch is an EarthCache we highly recommend, Cueva de Ambrosio (GC2DDG4). This cache was our 5,000th find milestone, but it was also amazing to explore. Also 5 CUC (you'll quickly find a theme in Cuba of 5 CUC).

Most importantly however, is plan some time to get away from the resorts and see the rest of Cuba. One easy way to do this is to take some of the excursions - I won't kid you, they aren't cheap (do your research ahead of time) but the country of Cuba is amazingly rich in history and natural beauty so it's worth the investment.

Some of the excursion we took while in Cuba & Geocaches found:

Cayo Blanco Catamaran Tour

Cayo Blanco (Traditional - GC30VV2)
Cayo Blanco Beach Erosion (Earthcache - GC3BCWP)

Jeep Safari

 

Cueva Saturno - Karst Cenote (Earthcache - GC5NDGX)

Bellamar Caves

Cuevas de Bellemar (Earthcache - GC26P9D)

La Habana

San Francisco de Asis, Habana (Earthcache - GC53KP8)

Most importantly - ENJOY YOURSELVES!

There were several more traditional and Earthcaches in Habana, but we couldn't get to many others due to a tight itinerary on our tour.

So hopefully this blog will help you plan an enjoyable, relaxing visit to Cuba, where you can also pick up a few geocaches and have fun - like we did in this video!

And remember to cache safely, and cache often!

The LANMonkeys