Too Many Maps?

While I’m certainly in the camp where the motto is, “You can never have too many maps”, I have to admit I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the different mapping software products offered by Garmin. And I’m just talking about the software that’s of interest to geocachers, not other products such as those for vehicle navigation systems.

When I bought my GPSmap60CSx (or was it my “TOPO U.S. 24K West DVD”?, I can’t remember), it came with “MapSource”, a nice little program that allows you to load different types of background maps on to your GPS receiver, including non-Garmin maps available from sources such as GPS File Depot.  I also use it to extract my GPSr data after a cache outing in order to view my tracks overlaid on a map, along with the trip statistics such as total length, time, and elevation gain. It also has a feature that allows you to export your track and waypoint data into Google Earth.

But as I was perusing the Garmin website (as I often do), I ran across another similar product called BaseCamp. O.K, what’s the deal, Garmin? It looks like BaseCamp is just a slightly souped-up version of MapSource, in that it supports 3D views, rotated maps, and geo-tagged photos (sort of like Google Earth), and, most importantly, allows you to import data from geocaching.com (presumably, in the form of a GPX file).

I only just started playing around with it, so I can’t provide a detailed compare and contrast analysis with MapSource. But if it truly does everything MapSource can do and more, then I might make the permanent switch to BaseCamp. Until such time, of course, that Garmin offers up yet another mapping tool...

Cache On!

Bookmarking Maps

Every time I visit geocaching.com, I inevitably end up using the map tool to scout out my next caching adventure. And I'm really liking the new Maps Beta page. So many different map choices including the standard Google Maps backgrounds (road, terrain and satellite), along with Bing Maps, My Topo, Open Streetmap and Open Cycle Map. Of course, the infinite number of caches that can be displayed, along with the quick screen redraw and refresh feature, make it much better than the standard geocaching.com map.

I like and use the new map tool so much, I've added it as a bookmark. In a previous post, I explained how to add your favorite pocket query cache searches as bookmarks. You can do the same with the maps page. Just zoom in to your favorite location on the map (your neighborhood, most likely). Then drag the little globe icon from your browser's address bar to your bookmark bar:

That's it! You're all set. Although you may want to rename the bookmark to something like "Cache Map", as I've done here. Now, every time you click on that link, you'll see a map with all the latest caches in your favorite area.

Note too that the site contains a box in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen with a "Link to this page", in case you want to copy and paste different map locations into a list of links/bookmarks of your favorite locations:

Enjoy the new maps, and Cache On!

Getting There Is Half The Fun

Anytime you make plans to go geocaching, whether it be a quick grab down the street, or a long day of hiking and caching in a state/regional park area, or an urban caching adventure, one of the first things you have to figure out is how you are going to get there. The nice thing about living in the San Francisco Bay Area, is you don't necessarily need to rely on a car to get around. In fact, sometimes you are better off without one.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Case in point: a caching buddy of mine was working on completing the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) series of caches, and I decided to come along with him to grab a few new caches of my own. So we hopped on our bikes, rode to the closest BART station, loaded our bikes on the next westbound BART train, and headed off to the Berekely / El Cerrito area along the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay.

Every BART station has a cache hidden in it, so we were immediately greeted with a cache-finding opportunity upon exiting the train at the North Berkeley station. From there, we rode our bikes north along the Ohlone Greenway, a wonderful class 1 bike trail that follows the BART right of way up to El Cerrito. The trail itself is home to numerous caches, making the bike ride that much the better.

All in all, we covered about 50 miles out and back (see GPSr track below) and found 10 caches in just a few hours. You would be hard pressed to find these same caches as efficiently, and have as much fun, by automobile.

So the next time you head out on that caching adventure, consider your transportation options carefully, as the right mode of travel can make your outing that much more enjoyable.

Cache On!

The Problem With Statistics

The interesting thing about geocaching statistics is that when your cache finds are presented to you in a particular way, you suddenly find yourself with completely new geocaching goals you likely would never have come up with otherwise. What do I mean by that? Take for example, "Most Consecutive Months With a FTF", one of many  somewhat obscure statistics generated from the GSAK macro, "FindStatGen". Certainly not a statistic I would have derived on my own, but once I saw it on my computer screen, I suddenly became obsessed with keeping that streak going (I'm up to 19 consecutive months and counting).

And take the nice calendar of finds available on your geocaching.com stats page. Again, something I would have never even dreamed of keeping track of, but now that it's there in black and white (so to speak), I've gone ahead and entered all my "missing days" in my personal (Google) calendar to make sure that I'll drop everything to find a cache on those days. I don't even know if there is a challenge cache for filling in your calendar - I'm just obsessed with wanting to see 366 days filled in on my computer screen:

That's right, I said 366 days. That's because it includes February 29th, which, as you know, only comes around every 4 years. And you can bet that I, and all the other calendar-watching cachers out there, are not going to let Feb. 29th, 2012 pass by with out getting a smiley.

Cache On!

Best of Both Worlds

When OpenCaching first launched several weeks ago, there was some heated debate in the geocaching world as to how this new service may, or may not, impact Geocaching.com. A lot of the early intensity of those discussions seems to have simmered down somewhat recently, as most people realize they can live peacefully in a world with more than one geocaching listing service.

For those of you who are ready to bury the hatchet and move on, there is a very nice GSAK macro available that allows you to pull data from opencaching.com into your GSAK database. It is called OpencachingGarmin.gsk, and was written by one of my favorite macro developers, "hynr".

The macro works great and runs quickly. By default, it will use your designated home location and pull all the caches within a specified grid into the GSAK database of your choice. You can modify any of these input variables, including the number of caches that you download from the site:

If you load the OpenCaching caches into the same GSAK database containing your geocaching.com caches, you can distinguish between the two by the Code name: geocaching.com caches begin with "GC", whereas opencaching.com caches begin with "OX". In addition, opencaching.com caches do not contain the State location, so in the GSAK State field they will be listed as, "Nil". Once you have all the caches you want from both services in GSAK, you simply load them all onto your GPSr as you normally would (see this help file), and you're good to go.

Cache On!

Going Mobile

This blog is now mobile-friendly, which means when you access The Geocaching Journal from your smartphone, blog intelligence will kick in and detect whether you are opening the site on a desktop or mobile device, and then display the appropriate version of this blog. So now when you are out geocaching and need some reading material to keep you occupied between caches, you have direct access to all the bloggy goodness of this site. Give it a whirl.

In other blog-related news, this particular publication has been nominated for a "2011 Golden Retrevo Award" award by the good people at the consumer electronics site, Retrevo. But it's up to you, my faithful readers, to determine whether I win or lose this award, by casting (or not) your votes. So, if you like this blog and feel it's worthy, please take a second to vote by either clicking this link, or on the button in the upper right-hand corner. And unlike voting policies in most countries, you can vote early and vote often (up to once per day) if you are so inclined.

Thank you for your support, and as always,

Cache On!

Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish all of my faithful blog readers a happy, healthy, and cache-rich 2011!

While my caching productivity dropped somewhat in 2010 (as life and other things got in the way), I was at least able to end the year with a bang instead of a whimper. On new year's eve, I found 24 caches, including one FTF, and another cache that was hidden way back in the year 2000. The 24 finds was key, as I was able to finish the year off with exactly 365 finds:

But beyond just the numbers, the best part was the trip itself, and the company. My caching buddy, the always jovial "Rohrerboy", and I headed up Highway 1 along the rugged California coast in Sonoma county. It is such gorgeous country here, that cache finds or not, it's impossible not to enjoy yourself in this part of the world. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't ideal on this particular day - extremely cold and cloudy. But the sun did come out briefly late in the afternoon, allowing me to get this shot, which should give you a sense of how beautiful it is here:

Again, Happy New Year to all, and I hope 2011 holds lots of wonderful caching adventures for everyone.

Cache On!