In the two years that my wife and I have been caching together, we've met all sorts of cachers and encountered all sorts of cache hides. There are those who are obsessed with accumulating numbers, and those who have more hides than finds. Some are incredible hikers, while others enjoy a nice, leisurely stroll through a quiet park. There are caches that even a novice can locate from 30 feet away, and those that leave you scratching your head (and maybe even uttering a few choice words) after a good solid hour of searching.
Given all these things, there is one item that is a common thread tying it all together: every attempt at finding a cache is an experience, and every experience has the ability to be captured and logged on the official website. However, more and more I have noticed that many attempts (mostly the unsuccessful ones) go unlogged, and this global cast of characters we call the geocaching community is deprived of sharing in your efforts.
On one hand, you have the successful finds that go unlogged, but these are far less common. For those more into the experience than the actual total, they can often go days, and sometimes weeks/months, without logging their finds. If you fit into this category, I would urge you to reconsider for several reasons. First, cache owners place their caches for the enjoyment of others, and enjoy the knowledge that their caches are being visited and found. Also, as a cache gets older, the number of times it gets visited falls off, and having a smiley logged is a reassurance that all is well with the cache itself. Finally, a good cache owner will read the logs for their caches and scan for items of note, such as added-in maintenance requests, or information about the surrounding area that may have changed since it was first placed.
Ultimately, though, the vast majority of unlogged attempts are the dreaded Did Not Finds (DNFs). Conversations with cachers reveal several reasons for this, and the most common I have heard is that people just don't want to bother since they don't get "credit" for it. For some, their pride is at stake, and they just don't like to admit that they failed. Whichever way you look at it, the fact remains that you had a geocaching experience, and there's a reason that Groundspeak included the DNF log option for a cache. For one, logging a DNF is often not a singular experience. If a cache has been compromised, a series of DNF logs is a great way to alert the CO to the need for a visit. Another reason is that a CO may not have intended for a cache to be as difficult as seekers will indicate that it is. Sometimes PI growth sprouts up if a cache was placed in the winter, or something that seems obvious to someone hiding it can be close to impossible for others looking for it.
Ultimately, the decision to log experiences remains in the hands of the individual, but one of the things that makes geocaching great is the dynamic of the community, which polices, maintains, and seeks to improve itself. Caching logs, both successful and unsuccessful, provide valuable information for both cache owners and cache seekers, and participating fully is the best way to keep our sport as enjoyable as it can be.
