Tool Of The Trade Question…

Tools… We all have them. We all use them. Some tools, such as tweezers get a whole lot of use. Others, like (in my case) the stick-borne mirror, don’t get used all that much. Some caches need them, others do not. Of course, not all of mine are pictured. My trusty maglight is still in the car. My new pen and backup writing devices are not pictured, either. For the longest time, I didn’t consider those to be TOTTs because, while you use them to claim most caches, they don’t actually help you find or acquire the cache. Turns out that items that help you log a cache count, too. Of course, other equipment falls under the category of “specialized equipment.” I myself do not own a boat, climbing gear, or similar. But it has had me thinking…

Should a ladder be considered a TOTT? It is a tool used to retrieve a cache, but it’s hardly something anyone can be expected to have. Mine has been of some use, though, oddly enough, I haven’t used it to retrieve a cache yet. I’ve used it in a few attempts, but none have been successful yet. I can spot a nano at 10 yards, but I can’t seem to find a thing in a tree to save my life.

But the real question is something that’s been rattling around my head: can a car be considered a TOTT? We do live in a time when it’s a reasonable expectation that someone would have one, but it’s more than possible that someone won’t. As we all remember, for a while I didn’t have one myself. Or should it be considered specialized equipment? It does require training and licensing to operate one. ATVs, boats, scuba and climbing gear, and pretty much anything that aids transport would fall under that category. And again, not everybody might have one. You’d never expect a younger cacher to have one. One of the reasons I’ve been thinking about it is that, if I remember correctly, when you have a challenge, the difficulty can be whatever reflects it’s…well…difficulty, but the terrain is supposed to be what it takes to find the physical cache itself. But if you have to travel large distances to actually accomplish the task itself, that should justify a higher terrain rating. So what do you think? TOTT or specialized equipment? Inquiring minds want to know!