CachingCentral

CHRIS HOFF AND SETH SHORT

Armed only with a flashlight and a GPS device that we are just beginning to figure out, Seth Short and I set out to find something called the Double Cross cache, somewhere in the West Hills.

It’s nearly 5:30 p.m. on Day One when we realize that A) it’s totally going to be too dark to find the cache once we figure out its approximate location and B) the coordinates that we’ve printed off www.geocaching.com are much more difficult to follow than we’d originally thought. (For more geocaching history and alternate GPS-based games, see www.gpsgames.org.)

The light wanes as the sun goes down, and we park in some gravel off the road. Neither of us can figure out how to get the light on the GPS thingy to work, and we agree that we need its manual. Day One ends with the agreement that we will find the GPS maker’s Web site, print the manual and start earlier the next time we meet. We figure that we’re close to a trailhead that we can’t see in the dark.

This brings us to Day Two of my maiden voyage with the sport.

After downloading and printing the PDF manual for Short’s GPS device, I spend the better part of a day figuring out how to turn on the thing’s light, place “flags” (or way points) on a tiny map on the display and various other things that I’m sure will impress.

I call Short and we agree on a day and time to meet. We also agree to bring along two extra explorers in the form of Chris Hoff and my wife, Natoscia (aka Tosh).

Not only has Short figured out, without the manual, how to turn the GPS thing’s light on and all of my other surprises, but by now he knows how to have it plant markers, order pizza, and travel through time back to 1983.

It only takes the group a few minutes to realize that the place where Short and I left off was quite a bit off the mark, so we spend some time in the car trying to close the gap between where the streets end and the trail begins.

Full story…

by Heather Wells

Peter Belsky pulls his Jeep out of the Saguaro dorm parking lot. It’s a warm Thursday afternoon, and while most students are in class or tanning by the pool, Belsky is getting ready to go on a “treasure hunt.”

“Sometimes I’ll try to find little ones on campus on Saturday mornings,” says the business freshman. “And there used to be one on ‘A’ Mountain.”

In fact, there are 312 “hidden treasures” within a 10-mile radius of Tempe, and Belsky, 19, says people may walk by them every day without knowing they’re there.

These treasures, otherwise known as caches, are part of geocaching, a game for users of global positioning system (GPS) units, which use satellites to pinpoint latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates.

Belsky says he started geocaching when he was a high school sophomore in Vail, Colo., as part of a class he was taking.

“There are caches where you find the initial cache, and then that will have a clue that will lead you to another one,” Belsky says as he drives down Mill Avenue toward the two caches he’s looking for today. “Some caches are take-a-thing, leave-a-thing. There are also event caches, like at a concert or something, where you post the GPS coordinates of where you’re going to be, and then people come find you.

“There are two caches I think we can find today that shouldn’t take too long,” he says.

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Just 1 month after releasing v3.20 for the eTrexC and LegendC, Garmin has released v2.30 for these models.

The fixes for this release seem to mirror those for the 60C(S) and 76C(S) models:

Changes made from version 2.20 to 2.30:

On a recent Saturday morning, seven adults and two children stood near a fence off Juniper Valley Road in Middle Village holding small digital devices and looking impatient as they waited for the students at the school next door to disperse.

“Geomuggles,” Woodside resident Rebecca Rowland said of the elementary school students. She was using the term that describes those who have yet to be introduced to the activity in which she was currently participating.

After a few minutes had passed and group member John Pritchard of Ridgewood, had quelled the fears of a school security guard who was beginning to look suspiciously at the crew, the hunt began.

Soon Rowland, fellow Woodside resident Paul Agostino, Joel Lockridge of Jackson Heights, Juan Campo, Ted Pawluk and Frank and John Sehn of Astoria were happily finding treasures including a squeezable rubber frog and a dollar bill, in a small plastic bowl.

Rowland and her husband, Jason, have been enjoying the hobby for six months, and are already hooked. The couple will be in Cozumel, Mexico at the end of the month and they have already researched areas to geocache.

Pritchard only started last January, and although he had assumed he’d get 50 finds the first year, he’s already surpassed 200.

But the group’s most prolific member is clearly Lockridge who, over the past two years has logged in more than 700 finds, including 80 in one day alone.

Full story…

Garmin has released a minor update for firmware for the 60C(S)/76C(S) units.

What they list as what has changed from v3.70 to v3.80 is:

Garmin has released a firmware update for their eTrex/eTrex Camo/eTrex Summit units. Firmware v3.30 lists the following as changes from 3.00:

By JASON F. SMITH

The Southeastern Pennsylvanian Geocachers (SEPAG) observed Cache In Trash Out Day (CITO) at Black Rock Sanctuary

More than a dozen garbage bags were filled with trash found on the ground, and several large items – including a car battery, tires, PVC piping, etc. – were gathered by about 15 geocachers, from around the sanctuary and nearby fishing areas.

After the trash collection was complete, a pot luck lunch was eaten and then geocachers tracked down some booty.

Geocachers from around the world organized events to clean up their local parks and other places which tolerate the placement of caches of small baubles, which are located by geocachers by using Ground Positioning Systems (GPS), in the names of fun, nature and exercise.

“We do this partially in thanks to Chester County for letting us put out geocaches in their parks,” said Norman Lazarus, the event organizer and SEPAG-CITO member who handed out gloves, high visibility vests and trash bags. “I called up John Spencer – he’s the chief ranger of Chester County – and asked him if we could do this, and he said ‘sure.’”

“I greatly appreciate their help,” said Black Rock Sanctuary Park Ranger Jay Erb, who promised he’d make sure the car battery wouldn’t end up in a landfill, or a park, for that matter. “One day with a group cleaning up makes a huge difference to a park site like this. Thanks a lot guys.”

Most avid geocachers have nicknames, which they go by when communicating with other geocachers in Internet chat rooms or via email, and many leave their trademark by or in cache boxes.

“There’s one guy I know who goes by the name ‘Waterboy’ who leaves full water bottles for other geocachers,” said Lesley Dougherty, who geocaches with her husband, Aaron. “My brother, Tony, calls himself “Cave Finder” – he’s also a spelunker – and he’s geocaching near Aruba right now.”

Full story…

By John Willard

About 50 people combined space-age technology with frontiersman’s savvy on an outing Saturday that left Scott County Park cleaner while giving them the excitement of finding hidden treasure.

The occasion was a “Cache In-Trash Out” hosted by the Iowa Geocachers Organization, a club devoted to the hobby of geocaching.

Geocaching is a relatively new game in which participants use Global Positioning System, or GPS, coordinates to hide and search for a “geocache” (pronounced geo-cash), a container of treasure. The “treasure” typically is in the form of coins, toys and other trinkets.

Saturday’s event at Scott County Park was one of the largest gatherings of the organization since it was founded in January 2004. Geocachers spent the morning cleaning up trash before venturing out again after a picnic lunch, this time with their hand-held GPS receiving units, combing the landscape in search of treasures.

Geocaching enthusiasts say the hobby combines the fun of walking outdoors and enjoying nature with the added dimension of hunting treasure with high-tech tools.
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“It gets you out in the woods with a purpose,” said Jay Lash, a software engineer from Vinton, Iowa, and the president of the Iowa Geocachers Organization.

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[Note: A very in depth article with a few pictures. Snippets below.]

CRAIG HILL; The News Tribune

There’s treasure out there, and it’s closer than you think.

At least that’s what I tell my kids as I study some computer printouts and a GPS handset with my brother-in-law, Ralph Godinez, in the front seat of my SUV.

Ralph is introducing us to his new favorite game – geocaching – and it is kind of like a treasure hunt.

drive while Ralph, known as El Pepino in geocaching circles, punches in the coordinates. He tells me where to go while the kids play with their newly claimed rubber salamander in the back seat.

After a few wrong turns, we are finally getting close as we cruise through a familiar neighborhood. Then Ralph says it’s time to park and head out on foot.

Most geocachers keep profiles using their code names on the Web site. The profile keeps a running total of caches they’ve found and stashed.

For example, Puyallup School District special assignment Principal Glen Malone, known as GEM’s, has found 1,005 caches and hidden 39.

“It can be pretty addicting for certain personality types,” said Malone. “I’ve never called in sick, but I know people who have.”

Malone has, however, run through the Snoqualmie Tunnel at 2 a.m. to get a rare geocoin stashed in a cache. He got the coin (worthless outside of geocaching circles) and got home at 4 a.m., in time to shower and head to work.

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JESSICA M. McRORIE

WESTTOWN — Stephen Bartels has something to hide and he has enlisted the help of his young neighbor to keep it secret — but only for a short while.

Bartels and 11-year-old Alex Mauer on Sunday ventured about 20 minutes into Oakbourne Park to hide a plastic 35mm film container, filled with a sheet of paper. In the next week or two they are planning to publish the general coordinates on the Internet so others can find it.

“Unless you know to look for it you are not going to see it,” said Bartels.

Doug Anderson, 44, of West Goshen, set up a cache on top of the Bicentennial Garage along South High Street in West Chester and is working to set up additional sites in the borough, he said. Anderson, who has been geocaching for a year, has discovered more than 250 caches.

About five years ago there were about five caches in a five-mile radius and now there are about 20, he said. Anderson, who often likes to geocache with his 11-year-old daughter, said the activity has taken him to several parks in the area that he otherwise would not have found or known about.

“The sport is starting to pick up. The sport was pretty new a year ago,” said Anderson.

John Spencer, a regional park ranger, said Chester County Parks and Recreation created procedures and policiesafter it was discovered that several caches existed throughout the state.

“It’s a good activity, generally low-impact and a good way to get people out into the parks,” said Spencer.

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