Geocaching what does stealth mean

I often take a kid with me, a great "muggle shield". You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

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Recommended Posts. T and M Posted January 17, Posted January 17, edited. Edited January 17, by T and M. The more you try not to look suspicious, the more suspicious you definitely will look. If anyone passes by and looks at you in a confused or alarmed way, just smile and say hello. Must-have items for your geocaching kit: a hi-vis jacket and a clipboard! Again, confidence is key.

Own it! Play the tourist. Nobody will blink an eye. Just hanging about staring them down is probably not the stealthiest idea, so why not call a friend to waste a few minutes while looking not quite so conspicuous? When you want to go for a fast-paced walk, this can be quite annoying but when you need to loiter at one particular tree for a while, this can come in quite handy. Plus, the geohound gets to go for a walk. Kids are also great cover when caching, as a lot of them like to climb over and under and all over stuff.

There was times I would show up to a cache and if someone was around I would move on. Now I often will just go look for it like I belong there. It is crazy how if you don't think you are doing something wrong others wont trip off of it. I always have my sons with me, 7 and 4.

Nobody takes any notice or asks any questions pretty much regardless of what we do or where we go They are also pretty useful at grabbing logs out of tight containers, and containers out of tight hides As an aside, but related to the topic, I've often found that "stealth required" often means "I didn't get permission to hide this cache. Vest, hardhat and clipboard work quite well.

If anyone does approach you it is legal to wear this get up, as long as you do not try to pass yourself off as an official of some kind. I have a hard hat with a Geocache sticker on it, never had a problem any where I've wore it. This has come up several times over the years. I looked into it and talked with a lot of LEOs about this. It is not illegal to wear a hard hat and vest. It would be illegal to impersonate a city employee, but just wearing a hard had and vest would not do it.

We aren't worried about land owners and managers approaching us of course, as we courteously explain that we're looking for the container the CO had their permission to place there. It's that typical passerby we actually do want the pass from. This of course is your humble opinion. However, the kind of caches I would use this on are ridiculous and unnecessary.

I haven't had to resort to a vest and hard hat more than a couple times over the years. But it works quite well when a cache is hidden along a store front, on a busy main street in town. Or when the cache is in plain site in a park where lots of people are hanging around. Anywhere where someone thinks they are fooling anyone by pretending their GPS is a phone or camera while looking for a cache.

Others I've talked with, who have used a vest and hat, say it helps them go for caches they would normally feel too exposed to go after. In my humble opinion any thing that helps you find more caches is not ridiculous and unnecessary. I've used many methods of being 'stealthy' depending on the circumstances.

All of them involve the principle of just doing what you're doing as if you belong there and observers will apply their own stealth TO you. I frequently poke around buildings and public places with a clipboard, spending lots of time inspecting things and areas that I know to be cache-free, so that when I walk over to the big crack where the BT is and stick my hand in there, I won't be doing anything that the homeless guy across the street hasn't watched me do five times in the last five minutes.

They'd work great with ninety-nine percent of the potential observers, but that last guy could cause you unnecessary hardship. With a clipboard, you could be anybody, doing any task. But, with the defacto official accoutrements of a safety worker or another person dressed for physical danger, you attract MORE interest. Most people would see you and wonder what was going on, but SOME people would be more curious or concerned, and that would increase the chance that they would approach you.

Another aspect of that is that if you're seen by someone who feels that they're the person who should know if someone from the power company or phone company or a construction inspector is poking around and they don't see a truck, then you immediately transition from being a object of passing interest to a target of suspicion. How many times have you seen the hero in a movie notice that the guys in the guard uniforms are wearing dress shoes, and immediately take them out?

If I was curious about a lone hard-hatted worker poking around a public building without any apparent reason to be wearing a hardhat, and noticed that they were wearing sneakers instead of more-protective footwear, I'd consider finding someone that I knew worked there.

A police officer will approach you if they don't know what you're doing and usually be open-minded, but that approach will change if you're actually pretending to be something you clearly are not. So, my point is, learn to use others' ideas of what stands out and what doesn't against them while caching, and don't get clever. Wearing a vest and hardhat states "I am an Official!

I often use the GPS on my android tablet when caching. It usually gets me pretty close to right on top of the cache and in this day and age no one takes a second glance at a young person like me I'm 26 walking around with a tablet in hand. Well, except the one guy who decided to berate me because I'm apparently a typical millennial and too absorbed with my devices to disconnect and observe the world around me. Not sure what his problem was.

I wasn't even doing anything - just walking. Ah well. I've actually been lucky so far and I've only been caught with the cache once.

It was one of the first caches I found and I didn't know how to react so I just explained the game until the person got bored and left.

Which was probably silly of me. The only other time I nearly got caught was when I was near the cache and some other people came up the trail with their dog. I said hello and just kept walking down the trail a hundred metres or so before backtracking when I knew they'd be out of sight. That ought to ensure they don't look too closely!

Fortunately for me I was wearing rubber gloves since there was a fair bit of rubbish in and around the bushes I was searching in so I just started picking up the rubbish when they saw me and they didn't look twice.

Funny how garbage collectors can fly under the radar. Unfortunately I didn't find the cache and I later found out it had been muggled. Oh well. A CO may get permission to hide a cache in someone's Little Free Library, but maybe the neighbors see numerous folks being un-stealthy and get curious. So they call the police. Sometimes people don't bother checking with the property owner first, they just act. Or, maybe a CO gets permission to hide a cache in front of someone's storefront.

The business owner and even the neighboring businesses are fine with it, but a customer sees a cacher blatantly grabbing and replacing the cache. That muggle may 'investigate' and take the item home. To me, being stealthy isn't just about 'permission'. My thought is usually more along the lines of "If stealth is required, then maybe this isn't such a great hiding spot?

My go to in more urban areas is to put my cellphone to my ear and walk around until people move on, even make fake conversations if they're close enough to hear. Other places, just making it look like you're picking up trash seems to work.

I was once with caching friends in the middle of town, trying to find a cache among boulders near the cart path. People kept stopping to ask what we were looking for.

I told them that it's a very fast, colorful snake. The people wished us luck and left in a hurry. Very cool I like to take my 2 year old along in his stroller. You can stop pretty much anywhere under the guise of getting him a snack, putting his shoe back on, etc.

And you can use the stroller to block people's view. I agree. You might be surprised how few muggles are actually paying attention or care what someone else is doing unless it's something that begs to be noticed. Setting oneself on fire, screaming, doing acrobatics I once hesitated retrieving a cache in a park because there was a vehicle parked some distance away.

Turned out the driver wasn't even in the vehicle, but off doing something in the wilds One I use regularly. If I think I have been spotted, I squeal like a stuck pig, and wildly flap arms, on the theory that nobody in their rite mind will snoop around where there is a wasp nest I'm also a birder and I always have a small pair of binoculars around my neck when I'm out geocaching in parks or the woods.