Convenient parking and easy extraction of this match safe hanger.
Now that you’ve mastered the basics, maybe its time to move on up Maslow’s Need Hierarchy and broaden your thinking. Here is a way that you can cut down on some of that cache page paper you’ve been printing, without having to buy a PDA. I call it the Speed Sheet.
I use it for short excursions where I advance plan a sequence of caches, usually during lunch at the office. As the name implies, it gives me speed. To make one, you’ll need your query GPX file (premium member download), GSAK (free download, small fee if want to avoid the nag screens), and Microsoft Excel. At a glance, the procedure may look involved, but you should easily be able to create one in the time it takes to eat a sandwich. And you can eat the sandwich while you’re doing it. Roast beef or ham & cheese seem to work best. Peanut butter & Jelly may be substituted (but please keep it away from the keyboard). Potato chips are optional.
Create the Order:
I build it using my local 450 GPX file that spans an area reaching from Lafayette to Mobile. I load the GPX file into GSAK. From a map, I select a cache in the center of my chosen target area. In GSAK, right-click on that cache and left-click on Set This Cache as Center Point. Notice that the caches are now all listed in order of closest proximity to that center cache and in the Miles column and you can see how far out the target area expands with each cache you want to include.
Select the targets:
Next, go to the task bar at the top of the screen. Left-click User Flags and left-click Set All User Flags. Notice the column with checkmarks by all caches. Now descend from the top, left-clicking each of these squares to uncheck the caches you want to include.
Eliminate unwanted targets:
Go to the task bar at the top of the screen and left-click Waypoint, left-click Delete Waypoints, select All User Ticked, and left-click OK. You now have a list of only the target area caches.
Use your data:
From this grouping, load the targets directly into your GPSR, File Export GPX File for loading into your paperless devices, File Export a mapping format for mapping applications, etc, or
Create a Speed Sheet:
Left-click File, left-click Print, left-click Preview, left-click Edit, left-click Select All, left-click Edit, left-click Copy. Now bring up Excel and at A1, right-click, Paste. Now, simply delete the columns you don’t need. On mine I typically leave:
Cache type
Waypoint name
Placed by
Container
Difficulty
Terrain
I add a hints column to the right (its there if I need it)
Insert a column on the left and enter the sequence you want to find them. Then just data sort them ascending and you’re finished.
You can tweak the sheet with adjust row heights & column widths and even copy/paste hints from GSAK into a column on the right. In GSAK, double click on the cache row and the cache page will appear. You do not have to be on the Internet to see it. Scroll down to the hint, highlighted in blue, and left-click it. Once the hint appears, highlight & copy it. Then return to Excel and paste it. You might think that you are depriving yourself of the hunt in its purer state by already knowing the hints in advance, but if you’re doing 10 or more, you’ll never remember them until you refer back to them when necessary.
You’ll end up with a single sheet that gives you virtually everything you need, in the order you want it. You can expect to fit about 30 to a page, which is more than enough for a lively day trip. You can scratch notes on the sheet as you go for later Internet logging, and you always know which cache is next (the nearest-cache technique can leave you zigzagging excessively). Ultimately, you should end up with less time driving needless miles, fumbling with papers and gear, and squinting at PDAs, and more time doing what you like best, geocaching.