Howdy, Yes.. I have 501 finds and 1 cache hidden. Why? First off... let me say this... there are those who obviously prefer to hide caches and there are those that obviously prefer to find caches. Yes I do agree all need to do their part (hiding caches) to keep the sport alive. Look at Puz-zel. He doesnt have very many finds.. but look at all he has hidden. His joy in geocaching seems to be in hiding caches for others to find. He has 8 found and 45 hidden! I am the opposite. However, when we hid our first cache, we had something like 346 finds. We were ready for something different in geocaching. We were very much ready to hide one now. The time spent (and no money..the ammo box was given to me and the items inside didn't cost me a dime! If you choose to put money into preparing your caches.. go right ahead.. it's your wallet, not mine!) making the long hike to the cache site was very much enjoyed by me and my two teammates. We very much enjoyed the experience of hiding our first cache. It was a good feeling. We couldnt wait to get home and post our new cache on Geocaching.com. Then, we waited.. and waited... and waited (patiently I might add!) for the very first log. We were very excited when Trail Gypsy posted the 1st find on RTW-1. It was a treasured moment for us to see and read this first log. We are still feeling the excitement from our first cache hide. Once that first cache hide gets old and the excitement is lost.. we will hide another one to renew that feeling. We have only had 2 find logs posted on our cache and so we are still enjoying it's 'freshness'. That is how I gauge my caches hidden. I think this is a perfectly reasonable way to go about it. The quality of my caches would be lost if we just simply started hiding them at any quicker of a pace. I feel we put MUCH more time and effort into the placement of our ONE cache than some teams do in placing 20 urban/altoid caches under park benches. Secondly... we personally don't want to have a whole bunch of cache hides. I feel VERY strongly about cache owners and cache maintainance. I have seen MANY caches out there that are in very crappy condition. Some that should even be archived. There are other caches that have been moved from the original exact locations and others yet that aren't even there anymore and the cache owner doesn't even know it! (probably because they are not active anymore in the sport or because they have so many hidden they cant watch them all). Our caches that we will hide will require long hikes and maybe steep climbs. Perhaps a good half day or better to do one of our caches. So, I cant go placing a bunch of these types of caches and expect to be able to properly maintain them all. So, we will hide only quality caches and the ones we have out there we are willing to go check on if need be. Also, Team RTW will only hide a certain type of cache... an ammo box way out in the wilderness somewhere or on top of a mountain peak or something like that. Oh, yea and the coordinates take you right to the cache. None of this armchair caching stuff. We enjoy the more 'extreme' cache placements and those are also our favorite types of caches to seek out. We hide caches with meaning and much thought put into them. We thought about it long and hard and scoped out many places before we finally decided on the mountain we placed our first cache on. There are WAY to many caches placed that have no rhyme or reason as to why they are there. One that particularly comes to mind is the 'Ice Cold Cache'. It is placed not but a mear few hundred feet from another existing cache (Angel Cache) in a desert lot up near Red Mountain Ranch (Mesa). Just a barren and dead peice of scrubby desert near the city (a pretty walk, dont get me wrong). But, why was it placed SO close to another cache? There isnt anything particularly interesting about this caches placement. (The Angel Cache, that was placed there first, does have an interesting location to it with an interesting theme). I can think of dozens and dozens of urban caches that are placed in this manner. There are some urban caches that will certainly stand the test of time. These are the caches that are well thought out and sometimes made to look like another object of some kind. But, there are many of the altoid container type that are simply magnetized to a bench or something and will likely be found by non cachers soon enough. No thought put into a cache like that. Just walk around the block from our house and plop one under a bench in the nearby park. I DONT THINK SO! You will not find an RTW cache placed in such a manner (I have no problem with these kinds of caches, I just will not place one like that). The logs on our cache are always going to be interesting. Tough hike to some really awsome views. I dont have any interest in hiding a cache in the city or otherwise and reading the same old log after log that says "Parked 50' away and found quickly and was on my way". BORING! One thought I have had recently is this: if EVERY cacher in Arizona (no matter how active or not they are in the sport) did their part and hid ONE cache each... Arizona would still have just as many caches hidden as we do now AND they would all be well maintained, well stocked and well thought out caches. Can everyone agree with this? I think so. If each of us had one cache hidden... there would be no reason why we couldnt maintain that cache to keep it a very interesting and entertaining cache. Now, of course.. there are those that (so it seems) would rather hide caches than find them. Fine. Let those individuals hide all the caches they want. Whatever it is about geocaching that you enjoy most. But, at least all others will have done their part and hidden at least one. We will then have much more higher quality caches in Arizona. I am not saying that all caches have to be difficult terrain caches either. There needs to be many caches in many different varieties. Not everyone can hike to the top of a steep mountain. Some have limitations that restrict them from doing so. There needs to be easy caches and difficult ones to please every individual that gets into geocaching. It is very possible to place a handicap accessible cache that is very difficult to find. Just because it is handicap accessible doesnt mean it has to be easy. I would agree also that geocaching should get back to the way it was. Caches placed in rural areas. I don't particularly like urban caches. But, I do them because they are there. If there never was an urban cache, we wouldn't miss them, would we. Sure, we would have MUCH less 'finds' for the top teams. But, the same teams that are on the 'front page' of the rankings now would still be the same. Anyways, this is my 0.02 cents on the issue and my explaination of how Team Ropingthewind hides caches. I will not comment any more on this subject as I beleive I have said all I need to say! :) Scott Team Ropingthewind _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail