Power caches, what are the requirements?

[photojunky]

Ok, the subject has been broached, now I need to know about power caches. What exactly is a power cache, what are the rules according to ArkGeo, how many caches minimum and is there a max? How far apart must they be, how many may be posted at a time? And any other info that I might need to know so as not to step on anyones toes? :mrgreen:

[Gaddiel]

Past experience suggests that I should make this disclaimer: ArkGeo doesn't create or enforce any rules for geocaching.

Our members are excellent resources, but your local reviewer (ChuchWalla, in our case) would be the one to make any final decisions.

Now that we have that out of the way, here's what the rest of the membership has to say... :D


Wayne

[photojunky]

Out of 23 views, 1 person responded. I see that I need to wait until the 5th or 6th of June and ask in person. I am not planning on a power cache anytime soon beings as I get my son just as the Petit Jean meet starts, so I can wait. Thanks for the reply.

[astrodav]

GS guidelines state caches must be 528 feet apart. They "recommend" no to place them "every 600 feet just because you can", but don't specifically forbid it. That's what a "Power Trail" is, which I assume you are talking about.

However, those of us who have set them before received an e-mail a couple months ago placing "additional guidelines" upon us, which included, but weren't limited to:

1. Caches must be 1/4 mile apart.
2. Only 5 can be published per day.
3. A trail must be detailed & accepted BEFORE starting, including the exact length of trail, exact # of caches, & beginning and end-point.
4. No cacher may set more than 1 trail every 6 months.

Plus others.

However ......... since then, all of those "additional guidelines" have evdently been removed, by persons unknown. There have suddenly been at least 1 very long Power Trail pop up which doesn't meet ANY of those added-on rules. But no 2nd e-mail was ever delivered to those of us who received the 1st e-mail, stating anything about them being changed.

And no explanation has been given in the forum, although it has been asked for.

So basically ..... your guess is as good as anyones as to what the guidelines in place for Power-Trails are. Judging by the recent one in East Arkansas, and the lack of response explaining the obvious changes, I guess we can assume that the guidelines in place by GroundSpeak ARE the now legal ones to go by ..... as they always should have been.

That's not an official run-down of the guidelines, since I'm not an official, only the observations of someone who was affected by the change/re-change.

[jclaudii]

I will post here instead of the other thread on this similar topic.

Astro, I know your frustration on "not being treated fairly", but I can't help but wonder if the new power trial happened like this:

What if backpackin jack didn't know about the extra requirements since he is not part of this board...I think he has his own. If chuckwalla never told him on his board, this this one powertrial could have been is one "grandfathered" power trial for backpakin jack and he now knows what the requirements are.

The other thing I was thinking of it is possible to get approval for your power trail 5 at a time and just not publish all of them until the last 5 are approved. So if you had 25 that needed approved, that should get done in around 5 days and on the 5th day publish all of them at one time? At least I remember there being an option to publish it after approval or not publish it.

[photojunky]

Let me also add, that as someone who has never been involved in a power trail, I was at a loss as to any problem with them. I would have thought that as long as I followed geocaching.com's rules as to 528' apart, and it was a trail that no one had put anything on yet (ie the old hwy 10 trail which I loved) I would have done the same thing and not thought twice about it. I did not post this thread to cause problems, only to make sure that I wasn't one that made a mistake, or cause anyone to feel I had special treatment. This is a wonderful hobby/game, and I don't want any hard feelings. I have a son who lives outside of Casa and when he is not with me can only put out caches on his bike, I would hope that when he puts out caches only 528' apart it wouldn't be a problem.

[astrodav]

jclaudii .... your guess is as good as mine, which is exactly what SHOULDN'T be occuring with guidelines. But as you can see, with 2 different threads dealing with the subject, it's only us regular geocachers commenting on what the guidelines are.

The "5 per day" rule is evidently no longer in effect. It was laden with problems, which were demonstrated on my Hwy10 trail. (Although it kinda tickled me, but upset some others) You had areas which quite obviously had caches at them, but weren't being published for another 1-3 days. So that led to people, quite understandably, searching & logging caches before being published.

Photo .... this type questions is by no means causing trouble. Contrary, it's VERY important info that we ALL need to know. But it isn't being decimated down to the cachers .... or at least not to all of us. When that happens, then the best course of action possible is to discuss it between us regular cachers & try to piece together the fuzzy parts.

And there's LOTS of those in this specific issue. Although I am just one of those regular cachers who get the same (or less) info as everyone else, I think if you want to place caches, then simply going be GroundSpeak guidelines which are in print should keep you safe. All his other stuff which ISN'T in print, & is beginning to seem individualized towards specific cachers, is in such a state of flux that it's impossible to cache by those rules.