I'm a premium member. An archived cache is still in the database. Anyone who found it can see it and anyone who knows the GC# can see it. I could do a little more sleuthing and asking around for the GC number if you don't have it. Once I have the GC number I can see the listing. Let me know if you want me to give it a try.

Lone R

The cache's name is Todd's Pond and the # is GC26NTK.
I've been able to go to cache's page using the owner's name, but it's still blocked to nonpremium members.

Thanks!
Leilani's Aunt

I went to Geocaching's website and read the logs. There is no mention of anyone finding your letterbox in any of the logs. The cache has been missing for a while and quite a few cachers logged that they couldn't find the cache. The cache has been confirmed as missing.

I hope this helps,
Coffacupee

Leilani's Aunt, see the logs here:

http://ontariocacher.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/todds-pond/

The password is: todd

I hope this helps,

Yes, it does. The letterbox Fly Away Goose is a good beginners box (and beginners don't always rehide well), in cute park that gets a LOT of short visits. I was probably lucky it lasted as long as it did. I just wanted to make sure the timing was just coincidence and not a letterbox/geocache confusion thing. I'm going to think a bit more about re-carving and replanting -- maybe give it another chance to see how long it lasts.
Thanks,
Leilani's Aunt

Seeing the logs is helpful. It's a small park with the pond taking up a lot of the space. I was concerned about a few of things -- especially beginners not rehiding well -- but also flooding and other wetness issues. Re: letterbox/geocache confusion, I knew there was the potential for a lot of GPSr bounce, so I thought there might be some confusion -- but clearly there wasn't. It also looks like the cache and my box disappeared at about the same time. Reading the feedback in these logs and from my letterbox, I'm considering re-carving and replanting and just seeing how long it lasts.

There's one log entry that made me smile. There was a problem with a pair of Canadian Geese for a while -- they were quite territorial and this pond is on a busy street. Every day, twice a day, they would stop traffic to cross the street to hang out in one particular yard. I learned to keep a respectful distance as I entered the park to keep them from approaching me. Apparently these geese harassed one of the geocachers.

Thanks so much for your help!
Leilani's Aunt

I haven't done much geocaching since they instituted that cache rating system, but right now I'm preparing for a summer driving trip so I've been looking at them a lot. It turns out that they apparently will do me no good at all! People are rating boxes highly that I wouldn't even bother to hunt. For example, micros that bring you to some knickknack store or a pancake restaurant or whatnot. I don't even bother with that stuff. Meanwhile, the caches that are out on some trail don't seem to get very favorable ratings.

Also, the virtual caches and earthcaches all seem to get great ratings. I suspect they usually deserve them, but those are another thing I don't bother with. Sometimes I'll load the coords just because I want to go see the place, but I have no use for answering questions just to get credit for a find. I don't care about credit for a find.

I haven't done much geocaching since they instituted that cache rating system, but right now I'm preparing for a summer driving trip so I've been looking at them a lot. It turns out that they apparently will do me no good at all! People are rating boxes highly that I wouldn't even bother to hunt. For example, micros that bring you to some knickknack store or a pancake restaurant or whatnot. I don't even bother with that stuff. Meanwhile, the caches that are out on some trail don't seem to get very favorable ratings.

That hasn't been my experience. The most favourited in my area are often the tough ones - need a canoe to get to an island in a river, need to wade through water to get to a cliff, need to climb a tree.

Groundspeak has promised that they will be adding favorites to PQs so premium members will be able to filter caches by PQ and D/T (Pocket Queries and Difficulty/Terrain ratings). Looking forward to that, then I'll be able to search for caches that have at least 2 Favorite votes that have a D/T rating of less then 3.5 (that'll weed out the canoe/tree climbing caches which I'm not in into), but should keep the longer walks.

Within 10 miles of my home, the top 10 "Favorited" caches:

26 votes - canoe cache
25 votes - canoe cache
22 votes - canoe cache
21 votes - public art sculpture
17 votes - a landmark that pilots refer to as the 'weiner beacon' before landing at the YYZ
16 votes - a man-size hole in a sheer cliff that you have to climb about 50 feet up to
16 votes - a unusual large object in the middle of the woods
16 votes - a man-size pot hole that you have to climb down into, a few feet from the foot of a waterfall
10 votes - a multi where the first stage is in a "in plain sight" but a difficult to find/recognize object (last stage is a nice size cache deep in the woods)

The Favorite vote, for me, is the best feature to come along at GC.com since Pocket Queries.

Meanwhile, the caches that are out on some trail don't seem to get very favorable ratings.

For the exact same reason people go to McDonald's for dinner... because they are lazy.

I tried a 10 mile search from center point Havana.

Top 5 rated caches:

3 votes - Action Jackson - Traditional - Regular size - Difficulty/Terrain: 1/3.5 - one mile walk on a peninsula in a lake

3 votes - Lake Jackson Boat Landing - Traditional - Micro size - D/T 2.5/1.5 - a park & grab but logs say it's a very cool and very clever hide

3 votes - Tallahassee Blues - Puzzle - Small size - D/T 5/1.5 - from the photos it looks like a cache in the woods by a lake

3 votes - Red Hills Bonus Cache - Small size - D/T 4.5/3.5 - find all 8 of the Red Hill series to get the coords to this final cache - a long trek according to the logs

3 votes - Quincy's Mystery Cache 1 - Multi-cache - Small size - D/T 3/1 - historic, involves an old cemetery

I've only been geocaching for a short time, but I have only found one (out of about 10) that I would bother to rate at all. The place was very difficut to get to, and no one will ever find it accidentally... but the swag was the usual.

Who knows why some people like different hides. This whole favorite thing is new, and far too subjective for me to use in my area. I spoke with one person who believes the best caches are LPCs (Lamp Post micro Caches), and another who says they only like ammo-cans on a 2 mile hike. I believe that the favorite ratings will be better, but only after many more people begin using it. For now, it is still new, and I won't trust the ratings too much.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! You are in for a terrific journey!

We have stumbled across a few geocaches when searching for letterboxes before, but never had anything to swap.
I decided I should always keep something in my bag, just in case. (I don't geocache as a hobby, just find them when looking for boxes). So, today, I made some little things to keep.

They're these super cute 3D-stickers I found at Zellers; only 0.49 for a pack of two (Got one pack of zebras, one of butterflies). May as well, right? I wrote my trail name on a pink piece of paper and stuck these stickers to it, then trimmed around it.
I now have two little Zebras and two Butterflies to hide whenever I find a cache.

Does anyone else happen to keep some little trinkets in their bag in case of finding a cache when out on the trails?

Does anyone else happen to keep some little trinkets in their bag in case of finding a cache when out on the trails?

A lot of geocachers don't even carry trinkets while geocaching. They just find the cache and log it in and ignore the stash.

I made heart shaped shrinky Dinks with my sig. Stamp and name.

I never knew that. I dunno, I guess I'll just keep mine in the bag, but thats a good point, I can just sign it but NOT trade.

Thats cool; they're really personalized then!

Does anyone else happen to keep some little trinkets in their bag in case of finding a cache when out on the trails

i used to but it got to messy in my bag with all the other junk i carry. Now i just:
TFTCTNLNSL
which means:
Thanks Tor The Cache. Took Nothing Left Nothing Signed Log.
i usually stamp the log with my mini sig stamp. HHHMMM maybe i should make a mini sig stamp with those initials on it. Never thought of that before. Thanx for the idea.

deniserows
over to her carving table

Thats cool

LOL no problem! Haha

Does anyone else happen to keep some little trinkets in their bag in case of finding a cache when out on the trails?

I'm into personalized swag in a big way. I get quite a few comments from finders who have found my handcrafted sig items (via my blog). You can see 'My Geoswag' blog via my profile page. :) It's a big part of the fun of geocaching for me. I like pawing through the stuff in the box. I trade for other handcrafted things (which you can see on my blog under "Cool Swag I've Found").

Does anyone else happen to keep some little trinkets in their bag in case of finding a cache when out on the trails?

Little Atlas Quest pencils.

Little Atlas Quest pencils.

That is cool swag and gets the word out about letterboxes to geocachers.

I will check that out. It will be cool to see what you've made and found; it would be awesome if I found one one day!

Yes, and that could help protect our stamps from being cached, too.

Me too - I always bring a little swag-bag and GPSr while boxing. I usually have a handful of pretty marbles and a few British Pence coins to drop in. Finding geocaches while looking for boxes was the way I got hooked on caching. Items don't need to be expensive, but it is great to find something unusual and different.

I know what you mean. Soooo sick of the lamp post and guard rail caches. In my area, the top rated caches are: very difficult ones that are creative, and easy ones that are creative.

The earth caches and virtuals get lots of favorites by cachers who like to use them as tour guides, I think. I do enjoy them, but not the long, involved ones with lots of questions.

Interesting type cache containers, like ones where you have to figure out that there's a hidden magnet, to get the cache out of an outer container, etc. Or home made containers like bird houses or fake fence posts. Lots of retired people in my area, who can't do the long hikes, including my mom who is my caching partner. So these creative containers get LOTS of favorites.

I have 3 small to medium size lock in locks in a really nice park, .3 mile to .6 mile hike across mudflats, through MILLIONS of fiddler crabs. The park has kayak and canoe rentals, which is kind of unusual for my local area (not too many where you can rent) and a nice nature center. Barely any favorites on these caches, although I get nice comments from the 20 to 30 people that have visited in the last 6 months.

I think if you're travelling, you're almost better off emailing some of the cachers who live in the area and asking them, rather than simply looking at the blue ribbons (favorites) or look on local message boards on Geocaching.com.

Yes, but I am a geocacher!

I have in my pack right now:

3 packs of playing cards
a few small baggies of foreign coins
some small keychain calculators
silly bandz
stickers
tatoos
mini puzzles
halloween erasers
Christmas CDs
reusable shopping bags that have Florida scenes/alligators on them
little girl's new in package pony tail holders with bunny and bear heads on them

Pretty good stash, huh? I don't trade a lot, usually donate to geocaches I like, or that are kid-friendly.

Mini sig stamp....good idea....off to carve one for caching now! LOL!

We found a letterbox today, after all our bad luck. And of course...the stamp had been cached. The sign-in was by 'FireBall and Boowanda', Oct. 9, and they drew a little smiley face in a square under. We are working to find them and retrieve the stamp. If you can help us, we would be SO SO SOOO grateful! Thanks so much!