Before I start my rant I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not directed at the Maine approver. The Maine approver is just following the guidelines set by GC.

I have discovered a rule set buy GC in 2005 (as I was told) has really come to annoy me in the past couple of days.

When placing caches they need to be 528 feet or .8 miles from the nearest cache. This I do not have a problem with.

When you are placing a cache out you can look on GC ahead of time to verify that there are no caches in the area and then you should know you are safe to go place one in the location you were planning on, WRONG. If there is a leg of a multi cache in the area where you want to place your cache that is less than 528 feet or .8 miles from within where you going to place your cache then it will get disapproved.

I can understand this with traditional caches but how are we the caches suppose to know where legs are to multi caches unless we have done all the multi caches around? Some multi caches have legs that or miles from each other and some don’t. Most of the time multi caches are micros or close to being micros.

Here is the problem I ran into. I placed a cache and was told that there was a cache to close to the one I had placed. I looked and I saw that there was a multi (first stage) exactly 528 from where I had place it so I was disapproved because it need to be moved at least one foot further. I had no problem with this. This was my fault.

I moved the cash a couple hundred feet further just to be safe. I resubmitted the cache and was disapproved again. I was told that there was a cache within 422 feet of my placement and it was one of the legs to a multi stage micro. This was when I started to get irritated but I kept my cool.

I went out with all intentions of doing this multi stage micro today so that I would know where all the legs were. First you have to realize I am not good at doing micros hence I don’t normally do them but in order to place a cache in my area I had to find all the stages of the mulit micro so that I would not keep getting jerked around by GC. I found the first stage and moved on to the second stage where I spent 45 minutes looking for it. I could not find it. I had to give up because it was starting to get dark.

This is where the problem lies. I could not find this leg of the multi cache and to top it off it is a micro. I really do not think that legs to a multi cache should be considered as part of a cache when placing other caches. How is a cacher supposed to know where the caches are prior to placing a new cache out if they cannot look on CG and see all cache locations. They should not be required to do multi caches and find all the legs to the multi cache before placing a new cache.

Here is an example. Jack places a mulit cache out and the first leg is on his front door step in Lewiston, ME. The second leg is placed in Litchfield at a boat launch. The third leg is in Brunswick at a boat launch. Now a person placing a new cache is required to know where the legs to these caches are before placing a new cache so that it will not get disapproved. This is a little asinine in my opinion. This would require me to do all the multi caches in Maine in order to know where legs are before I place a new cache. If a cacher named Fred goes to Litchfield to place a cache at the boat launch it will get disapproved even though he looked on GC and verified that there were not caches within miles of that location.

This is my rant and my opinion only.