It is not cool to allow the members of the cache hiding party to claim the honor of First To Find while hiding the cache!  This is one of those DUH moments

One of the things I’ve learned the hard way is to wait until you have found at least 100 caches before hiding one.  I was so excited about my first hide!  I had been caching for about a month and enjoyed finding Geocaches so much, I wanted others to find mine.

I placed it in Las Vegas where Stacie and I got married.  I had to provide a maintenance plan for the container to the cache reviewer (These people are volunteers and do an amazing job!) since it was so far from our home (We lived in Colorado).  The plan was for my daughter, who is a Geocacher and lived in a city nearby, to take care of the container if it needed some TLC in-between my trips to Vegas.  She attended the deployment of the container so she would know where it was hidden.  Here’s the DUH moment: My daughter asked if she could sign the log.  Because of my inexperience, I said yes.  So imagine the proverbial balloon bursting when I read the real FTF cachers log that someone had signed the log before it was published.  It was then that I realized that it was a bad idea. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  I couldn’t stop thinking about how I tarnished those cachers’ experience with the game.

My Take-Away:  Hiding a Geocache is a responsibility.  The Cache Owner must provide the same quality experience that we all have come to expect from Geocaching in every container we hide.  Including the first hide!  Don’t let members of the cache hiding party sign as the First To Find!