CachingCentral

Scavenger hunting may become illegal on open space

By Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer
August 30, 2004

Yes, you’re in the right place.

Yes, your GPS readings are correct. But get out of the bushes. You’re not going to find the hidden treasure you seek.

Geocaching, the sport of hunting for caches of “treasure” on public lands at geographic coordinates found on the Internet, is going to become illegal on Boulder County Open Space if members of the Board of County Commissioners follow their agenda Tuesday.

All across Boulder County, and in all 50 of the United States, hobbyists over the past four years have hidden these small caches, usually consisting of a few trinkets or a log book, out in the wild. They have then recorded their cache’s global positioning system coordinates and posted their locations to Web sites such as www.geocaching.com, luring other technophiles outside.

Participants who find the caches with their hand-held GPS units leave their own little trinkets behind or leave their names in the logbooks.

But people who manage Boulder County’s public lands look askance at the hobby, which they say encourages people to run roughshod off the trail, disturb foliage and scare animals in order to stash caches.

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Treasure hunts given new look by geocaching

Quynh Tran
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 29, 2004 12:00 AM

Hours before his competitors closed in on the hidden treasure, Bill Tomlinson was on the trail Saturday morning scanning for an upturned rock in Phoenix’s North Mountain Preserve.

Tomlinson, 41, of Phoenix, was the first among 125 Arizonan players to find the cache, the hidden treasure, using his global positioning system device, in a nationwide contest sponsored by Magellan, a GPS manufacturer.

For him, “it’s the thrill of the hunt.”

As GPS devices become as popular and available as cellphones, the timeless treasure hunt has modernized, with players using geographical coordinates to look for souvenirs.

Caches are usually created by individuals and hidden anywhere from underneath a boat dock in Greece to behind a tree in the Grand Canyon. The coordinates are posted online.

Full story…

BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Geocaching is fun at a lot of levels. For some people, it’s a great way to spend a day in the outdoors with the kids on a high-tech treasure hunt.

For others, it’s a competitive activity where they use their handheld GPS electronic navigation units to try to log more finds than anyone else on the block, state, country or even the world.

And now Thales Navigation, the company that makes the popular Magellan GPS units, offers a chance to go geocaching for fun and profit in the second annual Magellan GPS Geocaching Contest. It’s not hard to take part. You’ll need a GPS unit (many different models are now available starting at less than $100), moderately-agile brain and a love of adventure. You’ll also need a computer to log onto the Magellan Web site at www.magellangps.com

Once on the site, log onto the geocaching contest page, fill out a questionnaire, then click on “View all cases” to see some clues that will help you narrow down where the hidden treasure might be located.

Magellan clearly would like everyone to buy one of its units, but any GPS that can read degrees, minutes and seconds out to three decimal places will do the job. And geocaching is a wonderful way to learn how to use a GPS, because it requires learning how to read the unit in conjunction with a map, enter waypoints from given coordinates and even establish backtrack routes that get you out of the bush after you get into it.

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Call it a sport, call it a game, call it fun. Geocaching is catching on. In fact, it is becoming so popular that off-trail hikers are stumbling upon caches hidden by players.
Here’s how it works:

You’ll need a Global Positioning System. A GPS is a device that operates off three satellites simultaneously to determine a location. It can give a user a reading of where he or she is, and in which direction the hand-held device is moving. It can also direct the user to the location of a specific place if the location of that site has been entered into the GPS.

For instance, if you save data on the location of your truck, the GPS can direct you back to the truck many hours later.

You’ll also need access to a computer, so you can visit some Web sites: www.geocaching.com or www.alacache.com.

There you can find lists of hidden caches and directions for finding them.

The treasure will be in a secure box, and it will contain a log book and several objects. Finders sign the log and indicate what, if anything, they took and what they left in its place, and the cache is left for the next finder.

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For about a year, Michelle Novacek has been taking time to walk around in the woods with a handful of toys from the dollar store in search of little plastic containers full of similar objets she could trade for. No, shes not crazy, shes a geocacher.

She was dragged into geocaching by her brother.

He was really into it, Novacek said. The first couple times I went with him, I thought it wasnt very interesting. We were just wandering around in the woods and then we found a box. We spent at least 45 minutes looking for it and when we found it, I couldnt believe that was what we were doing. But somehow, when you finally hold it in your hands, its the best thing youve ever done.

Geocaching is a relatively new but growing hobby/sport that crosses a regular hike with a scavenger hunt and the techie world contained in a global positioning satellite (GPS) unit.

Participants must surf the Web before they hike the trails, a kind of cyber-surf and turf. At www.geocaching.com, the hikers type in their zip code and are presented an array of local geocaches, hidden packages full of goodies, often in Tupperware containers or old metal military boxes. The geocacher selects a cache to find and is given the exact coordinates of the cache and a few encrypted clues.

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SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 11 /PRNewswire/ — Thales announces the North American availability of the new Magellan eXplorist(TM) 100, the first GPS handheld to give navigators the confidence of knowing where they are within 10 feet for the highest level of accuracy at the low cost of US $99. The small, lightweight and easy-to-use Magellan eXplorist 100 is the ideal all-around recreational navigation device.

The Magellan eXplorist 100 offers the best value in a GPS track plotter for outdoor enthusiasts seeking adventures in hiking, climbing, camping, geocaching and more. Simple enough for first-time users, yet powerful enough for the GPS expert, the orange eXplorist 100 is built to provide real GPS for serious outdoor activities — with a tough, rubber-armored, impact-resistant, waterproof exterior and proven Magellan technology inside.

Magellan one-button access quickly takes users directly to the functions that matter most: the menu, personal points-of-interest storage, ‘goto’ routing, the backlight and the eXplorist 100′s three navigation screens with track plotting to help you find the fun — then find your way back. It also saves up to 500 waypoints and 20 routes, plus three track-log files with up to 2,000 points each, providing ample storage space even for avid navigators.

Weighing less than four ounces and measuring only 4.6″ x 2.1″ x 1.3″, eXplorists are designed for fit-in-your-pocket convenience without compromising screen size. A large 2.3″ diagonal, four-level grayscale LCD display has a zoom capability and amber backlighting to ensure optimum viewing, day or night. In addition, each eXplorist offers advanced capabilities, including Magellan TrueFix(TM) technology, which incorporates a superior 14-parallel-channel, WAAS/EGNOS-enabled GPS receiver to provide precise position fixes within three meters and ensure advanced reliability and accuracy in satellite signal acquisition and tracking.

Complete announcement…

Additional announcement with picture – Magellan eXplorist 100 – Three Meter Accurate GPS for $100

Dash for cache
Geocaching enthusiasts take treasure hunting into the 21st century

By TANIA GARCIA de ROSIER, Special to the Times Union

If it’s the weekend in the Capital Region, you can bet they are out in force. Overturning rocks and rummaging through brush, they troll state parks and city landmarks, Global Positioning System receivers in hand, poking about for hidden treasure.

The name of the game is geocaching (geo for geography and cache for hidden stash), a curious hobby mixing scientific gadgetry with outdoor adventure. This high-tech hide-and-seek has exploded into mainstream popularity with thousands of participants in every state and more than 200 countries, according to Geocaching.com, the first Web site devoted to geocaching.

Today, geocaching (pronounced “geo-cashing”) appeals to more than just the technologically inclined. It’s families, college students, young professionals and retirees in the Capital Region who are drenching their legs in bug spray for a jaunt in the woods. All that’s is needed is a GPS device (and cash, since they can run $100 to $1,000), an adventurous spirit and a taste for the outdoors.

“With geocaching I’m introduced to new trails and parks and places I’ve never even known about,” says Pat Rooney, 51, a GIS/GPS technician for the C.T. Male Associates engineering firm in Latham.

Already a GPS user, Rooney began geocaching three years ago after learning about it from a colleague. Now he takes his family out weekly to either hide or find a new cache.

Full story…

By GEORGE SMITH

georges@leader.net

[SNIP]

There might be something else in larger caches: Travel Bugs.

Travel Bugs are essentially hitchhikers, items that can be moved from cache to cache and pick up stories along the way that are shared on the Geocaching Web site (www.geocaching.com).

Travel Bugs are special tags (think dog tags) attached to items that are tracked on the Web site. Some may travel coast to coast; others may travel internationally before returning to their owners.

Jeep has currently placed more than 4,000 Travel Bugs in caches that include the tags and tiny, keychain-size yellow Jeeps.

It’s part of the Jeep 4×4 Cache-In Adventure, in which three new full-size Jeeps will be awarded in a sweepstakes.

“All the caches are hidden so the casual observer won’t see it,” Saneholtz said.

Full story…

By GEORGE SMITH

georges@leader.net

PLYMOUTH TWP. – An old ammunition box would work well. Or maybe a small, tin, flip-top breath mint container. Or, if very small, very tiny and very “evil” as it would be referred to by diehard disciples, a round, plastic 35 mm film container would serve wickedly.

These receptacles are commonly used as a “geocache” (pronounced geo-cash), places where “geocachers” hide small, assorted items as well as a log their fellows sign when the cache is located.

It’s all a part of geocaching, a young but up-and-coming hobby in which GPS (global position system) units are used to locate precise spots on the globe where the caches are concealed.

Confused? Think high-tech orienteering on a broader scale using GPS receivers instead of compasses.

“Geocaching got its start in 2000 when the federal government made GPS much more accurate to average people,” said “PSU Paul” Saneholtz, a geocacher from Forty Fort. “The first was hidden in Oregon, and it had food in it. That’s a no-no now.”

In five short years geocaching has grown in leaps and bounds.

Full story…

By Nephi Tyler

An organized network of low-key individuals skilled at working undercover have utilized satellites and state-of-the-art technology to hide containers of mysterious materials throughout the U campus as part of a worldwide movement.

One of these network cells now operating in Utah calls itself the Utah Association of Geocachers and claims responsibility for more than 1,600 containers deposited in hush-hush areas across the campus and state.

Contrary to how it may appear, UTAG is a club of outdoor enthusiasts who play a treasure-hunting game known as Geocache.

Explaining what Geocache is can be just as challenging as playing the game itself.

In simple gas-station direction terms, Geocaching involves using a Global Positioning System to track down a hidden box, or cache, that could be anywhere on the planet.

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