This article was originally published on Cache Up NB. It has been mirrored here for archive purposes only.
A cacher decides that they want to go out and hide a particular series of caches. They obtain all of the materials for the containers, log books, baggies, and any swag associated with the caches they put out, and get them ready for hiding. They pick out a spot to hide the series, go out and hide them, mark the coordinates, test that they are good coordinates, and eventually return home where they spend the time listing the cache. Eventually, the caches get published and the find logs start coming in. The cacher is happy that the response is good to his/her series and the work that they have put into it is not going to waste. Feels good to have given something back to the geocaching community.
However, time passes and some of the caches within the series fall in disrepair. Nothing too major like holes or being destroyed, but a few have fallen to the ground, or the logs have become wet, and eventually a few of them go missing. The owner goes out and does the typical maintenance on these caches. This is a pretty normal cycle of cache ownership that many of us have already experienced.
For some however, the desire to want to give back something to the geocaching community is overshadowed by something that many of us are in short supply: time. Unless you’re retired (and sometimes even then) most folks only have the chance to maintain their caches in their free time. With families, work, and other personal hobbies, sometimes it’s difficult to find the time to do the maintenance on your caches. It’s not that you don’t want to, it’s just that the maintenance of them seems to fall closer to the bottom of your priority list than perhaps picking up the kids, or buying groceries, etc. I suspect that this is how some (not all) caches fall into disrepair and eventually simply just turn into geotrash.
It is this particular situation I have fallen into recently. Back in September of last year, I started buying up containers for a very large series of caches that I had been thinking about hiding. After a conversation at one of the breakfasts, I changed my mind of where I wanted to hide these. Eventually, the series became known as The Story Teller series. This series consists of 100 caches which are hidden all throughout rural Salisbury and Elgin. All but two of them are winter friendly, and all of them are required to solve three different puzzles. They all can be accessed within 50M from a road and some of the scenery from that area is quite beautiful. That’s why I picked that area.
I’ve received a LOT of positive feedback and great logs from people who have done this series (and the puzzles along with it) and it has felt really good to give something like that back to the caching community. However, many of the containers have since lost their wires and have fallen to the ground. Some have become wet, and I have had to replace a few. As another cacher indicated to me, these guys won’t survive the winter.
About a month and a half ago, someone logged a NM on one of my caches in Dieppe. I have driven by that exact location several times. I checked for it once and it was definitely gone but I did not have any spares with me. I have since been by that location more than once and have yet to replace the container. Not because I am lazy, just that it keeps escaping me to do so. When I did think of it on a lunch hour, I stopped at a store to try and find something small enough to get, but couldn’t find anything. So right now, that cache is still disabled.
It got me to thinking about the caches on the Story Teller series. The logs tell me that many have fallen down but have been re-hidden and it got me wondering whether or not I should pull the plug on the entire series. I know there has been a difference of opinion on who should take care of maintenance but for myself, I feel that if I do not have the time to properly maintain and take care of the caches I have, then perhaps they should be removed for someone else to do a hide that they can maintain. This would thusly mean I’d have to archive the entire Story Teller series.
So, readers and followers of Cache Up NB, I send it out to you on what you think I should do about this. I love the series. Cachers seem to love the series, but some, and eventually all, of the containers need some TLC and trying to find the time to do it seems to be difficult. I want to keep the series alive but I also don’t want to see it fall into disrepair because of me not finding the time to fix up containers that need the TLC. I want to keep my reputation of having good, maintained hides.
As of right now, I want to archive the entire series as I just don’t feel it’s right to have those caches out there if I can’t maintain them.
What are your thoughts? What would you do in this situation?
7 Responses to Knowing when to pull the plug