With the advent of gigantic power trails, it’s not surprising that many geocachers are attracted by the challenge of finding hundreds of caches as fast as they can. It’s not really my geocaching style, but I can see why it’s appealing to other geocachers.
I was recently horrified by something I read in this Groundspeak Forums thread. Apparently, on these massive power trails, it is common practice to “shuffle” the geocache containers. In order to minimize time spent on each cache, the cacher take the cache with them to the next one, signing the log on the way. When they find the next geocache, they switch the containers and repeat.
There are a lot of geocaching practices that I personally find kind of lame, but I’m not going to spend time fussing about something that doesn’t interfere with others.
Switching containers? That’s interference.
There are anecdotal accounts of geocachers doing these trails at a leisurely pace and being passed by faster groups. The slower group arrives at the next cache only to find that they’ve already signed the log!
This is a game that relies on cooperation and trust between geocachers. Interfering with the game pieces is an obvious breach of trust and a slap in the face of the cacher who comes next.
Just don’t.
geonarcissa 
I hadn’t heard of such a thing, but that sounds incredibly wrong. They are breaking a fundamental rule of not putting the specific cache back where they found it. Not only that, but they are mixing up caches .. how insane. What if there are coins or trackables in it? Now they’ll instantly be in a different one? That is definitely interference and really playing the game for the wrong reasons. If their entire purpose is just to get a big number at the end of the day, they are missing out on sooooo much.
By: CacheChick.Com on November 10, 2010
at 9:08 pm
Yeah, that sounds out of line. As already stated there are too many problems associated with this practice.
By: sumajman on November 13, 2010
at 8:02 pm
I read the thread and noticed that one of the messages said that the owner of the power trail caches suggested shuffling the caches as one way to log them quickly. Personally, I don’t like that, but if the cache owner condones it and you are all about the numbers… *shrug*
By: gordon on November 18, 2010
at 4:08 pm
The owner has essentially turned every single one of those geocaches into a travelling cache, which is against the guidelines.
By: geonarcissa on November 18, 2010
at 5:04 pm
agreed .. most disturbing
By: firennice on December 15, 2010
at 12:48 am
[…] alternative, or, at the very least, encourage Groundspeak to step up their game and fix some of the serious issues happening at Geocaching.com right […]
By: Opencaching.com « geonarcissa on December 8, 2010
at 10:44 pm
Incredible ?!? never heard that. And what do they do with the 1st cache location of the trail, no more box until they’re back ? :-O
By: toflabeuze on February 28, 2012
at 9:23 am