The art of a stealthy find

This article was originally published on Cache Up NB. It has been mirrored here for archive purposes only.

One of the advantages of going caching on long trails is that the muggle and stealth factor is relatively low. You don’t need to concern yourself too much with whether or not someone is going to spot you looking for a cache. Most trails see hit and miss traffic of others out for a hike, but not packed like downtown city streets, or urban parks. The art of stealth is one that many geocachers partake in to avoid caches from accidentally being “muggled”. However, some cachers would argue that the need to be stealthy is unnecessary. Here’s a typical scenario:

A geocacher wanders down a public street, GPS in hand, following the arrow and distance readings to bring him (or her) to a cache. As the cacher gets closer, he sees several picnic tables nearby with a large group of people enjoying their lunch. Off to the side of the tables, he spots a lamp post which is where his GPS seems to be pointing him. He casually walks towards the lamp and notes the distance on his GPS as he passes the post, and realizes that the odds are pretty good that the container is under the lamp skirt and in full view of the nearby muggles. The cacher must decide whether or not to go for the cache within full view of the muggles, or try another day.

It’s been my experience, that the decision to either bail on the cache or go for the find has depended vastly on the amount of people, the specific area I am in, and whether or not I think I can get to the cache container without being spotted, or without looking “suspicious”. This of course varies a great deal depending on the type of urban cache you are looking for but the same general guidelines apply. If the cache container is well camo’d (like a hollow bolt, magnetic sign, inconspicuous nano) it might just be a matter of being able to “swipe” the cache from it’s hiding spot without being noticed. If it’s not camo’d, and just well hidden, the stealth might take on a different form.

Some folks will stand around holding their cell phones, or maybe even their GPS’s (pretending they are phones themselves) and wait awhile to see if the muggles disperse. Some cachers have been known to wear “official” type gear like vests or hard hats to make themselves look less suspicious when looking at phone poles or other types of common hiding places. And finally, some cachers will just take a look around, decide now is not the best time, and try again on another day.

Then there’s the cacher’s who think being stealthy is unnecessary. I’ve heard a couple of cacher’s comment on the entire art of being stealthy and their opinion has always been that the more you try to look like you’re not doing something you shouldn’t be, the more suspicious you actually look. Their take is that you are not doing anything illegal, and if someone asks you what you are doing, you just tell them the truth. The counterpoint to that is that muggles will very quickly become aware of the cache, and the container is very likely to go missing. Why not be stealthy to preserve the cache?

Well, those same folks would argue that bad caches get muggled, and good caches don’t. The caches that are well hidden and camo’d from prying eyes tend to stick around longer because of just that: they are well hidden. Bad or crappy caches go missing because they are hidden in poor locations that are just asking for the container to disappear. If you are trying to be stealthy on a crappy cache, are you not just promoting more crappy caches? If you just get it, sign the log, and replace it, odds are the cache will go missing and we’ll have one less crappy cache to deal with.

I find myself more likely to take the stealthy or walk away approach when it comes to muggle-rich caches. I’ve “talked” into my GPS on countless occasions, walked by the same area a half a dozen times waiting for someone to leave, and I’ve even thrown my car keys into a bush that I knew had a cache in it, just so that if someone saw me, I could say I was looking for my car keys. I’ve also walked away when there was just too many people and I knew that there was no stealthy way to get the cache without being spotted. I’ve only ever found myself taking the “who cares” route once, and that was way back when I first started, and ironically, a muggle spotted what I did, found the container later, and themselves became a geocacher.

Personally, I think the whole idea of stealthy caches actually adds an entire other element to the sport of geocaching. It makes it a little bit more fun when you need to try and get something without being “caught”. Not that you’re doing anything wrong, but somehow when muggles are around, there does sometimes feel like they might be watching and the whole idea is to try and keep stealthy caches hidden. How well can you keep the container’s location a secret from non-cachers? It’s a completely different type of skill.

What’s your take on stealth? Do you partake in it? Do you bother? Do you always walk away? What tales of creative stealth or muggle avoidance do you have to share?