CachingCentral

Here’s a brief article on getting outdoors instead of playing video games. It seems to touch more on the extremes of geocaching then the norm, but it’s a short and interesting read.

For the same price as most gaming systems, you can purchase a handheld GPS receiver and join in Geocaching, (pronounced G-O-cashing) an activity that can make kids and adults enjoy time outdoors, hiking, paddling or climbing. In geocaching, you are the search engine. This is basically a modern-day treasure hunt that uses the GPS devices available for around a $100 dollars to search out and locate caches that others have left for you to find. It works like this: someone takes a waterproof container and conceals it in an area where it will not be accidentally found. Inside that container they will place “treasures” that can consist of items of any sorts. Using their GPS device, they note the coordinates and enter them via computer onto a website. These treasures, most commonly, will include children’s toys, coins, disposable cameras with which to take your picture and logbooks to record your search. Sometimes items of considerable worth are hidden.

The Jeep division of Daimler-Chrysler is sponsoring geocaches all over the country where the treasure can be a new 2006 Jeep Commander, a seven seat Jeep arriving this year. Other caches have been said to contain hundred dollar bills. Using your own GPS device, you follow the directions until you find the hidden cache.

It seems that this is a rather straightforward event, but it is not always as simple as it seems. These caches may be simply resting in a tree stump, but others will be hanging from the side of a cliff and require climbing skills, others are under or across water and require diving or kayaking to reach. Some urban geocaches can even be found in public buildings. Once you discover the cache, you may take whatever you find inside, but you must replace it with something of equal value or quantity. From there, you go home and enter your discovery on the website along with any remarks you might wish to leave.

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Obviously common sense isn’t a current requirement for placing a cache…

On Wednesday, one of those caches was hidden along the Fox River in Voyageur Park in De Pere, and drew the attention of a parks worker, who in turn summoned police. The cache, in a metal ammo can labeled “explosives,” was thought to be suspicious and was blasted open by the area bomb squad. Inside were small toys and trinkets.

People doing it know about (geocaching),” Semrau said. “You don’t want to put it in a place where people say, ‘Oh my God, what’s that?’”

Bryan Beckman, a captain with the Allouez Fire Department who plays the game with other firefighters, said ammo cans — weatherproof metal boxes 12 inches long, 6 inches wide and about 7 inches deep — are common containers. Using one labeled “explosives” is unwarranted.

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The article is primarily about GPS and hiking, but at the end, the following, of course using “digging up ground” in the description is included:

Another relatively new recreational hiking activity that will be discussed at the GPS seminar will be geocaching-a hide-and-seek type game for GPS users. The basic idea for geocaching is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world, post the coordinates online, typically on the Web site www.geocaching.com, and then let treasure hunters track down what has been stashed.

Neal Oren, manager for the Adventure 16 store in Tarzana, said geocaching has slowly developed into a popular outdoors activity over the last several years. He estimates that one in 10 hikers currently own a GPS unit, which range in price from $100 for low-end models to more than $700 for units that come as small as a watch or with built-in communication features.

“It’s a great way for families to get their kids outdoors and interested in hiking,” Oren said of geocaching. “People seem to really like the treasure hunting aspect of it.”

However, Elliott warns that there are certain wildlife areas that are not to be utilized by geocachers because they sometimes fall under protected status. Because a typical geocache can involve digging up ground to burying some form of treasure, Elliott said he would discuss the proper areas, situations and techniques for locating a geocaching spot that would prevent adverse environmental effects.

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Garmin released an update for the Garmin updates firmware for 60C/60CS/76C/76CS/Legend C/Vista C that addresses the following:

Select your model at http://www.garmin.com/support/download.jsp and download the firmware.

A new tourism opportunity is just a GPS “waypoint” away, say promoters of GPS Treasure Hunting in Northern Ontario.

Northwest Business Centre general manager Carmela Laffin said the new family-orientated activity may be something tourism suppliers and retailers want to add to the area’s tourism mix.

She said Northern Ontario GPS Treasure Hunting combines Global Positioning System (GPS) technology with the search for caches in the wilderness.

“It’s like geocaching, but a little different,” she said.

While there are interesting local stories to read at the caches, she said, the difference is the recovery of a code word which gives treasure hunters the chance to win thousands of dollars worth of prizes listed on the website www.geocachingontario.com.

There are more than 250 caches throughout Northern Ontario, she said.

“It is all about bringing new visitors to the North,” said Bill Steer, a product developer with Northern Ontario GPS Treasure Hunting.

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By Julie O’Shea

Like most things in Silicon Valley, it was only a matter of time before outdoor sports went high-tech.

The latest obsession is something called “geocaching,” a cross between hiking and a scavenger hunt that has slowly transformed the globe into one big treasure chest.

Hidden all around you are “caches” full of little toys and charms just waiting to be found. You probably pass dozens of these secret stashes, tucked inside buried ammo boxes and camouflaged Tupperware cases, on your way to work each day and don’t even know it.

So, how do you find them? A map will do you no good here; “X” doesn’t mark the spot. Instead what you’ll need to become a geocacher is a sturdy pair of sneakers, a healthy sense of adventure – and a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit.

But most geocachers will tell you that the ultimate fun comes not from the hidden treasure itself, but the hunt to find it.

“The idea is to get you out to places that are in your own backyard,” says Ron Dorsey, a geocacher from Scotts Valley. Indeed, geocachers we spoke with were most excited about discovering a cool new place while out hiking with a GPS unit.

On a recent Sunday, it is Dorsey who finds the cache hidden beneath a low-hanging tree in San Jose’s Almaden Quicksilver County Park. The ammo box is battered, sealed, nondescript – exactly the type of “suspicious package” that would get airport security all wound up. But Dorsey thinks nothing of it as he pops open the lid and begins rummaging through sandwich bags filled with little trinkets. A green plastic army figure, a rag doll and a stuffed hippo are just some of the items left inside.

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By DON KREGER

You could call it a technological treasure hunt or high-tech hide-and-go-seek but the proper name is geocaching (“geo” for geographic and “cache” for a hiding place). And it’s a sport, a game, a pastime, a passion or all of the preceding, depending on how seriously you want to be involved.

“It’s an activity that individuals, couples and entire families can participate in and which brings them into the great outdoors,” says Ken Braband of Cedarburg, vice president of the Wisconsin Geocaching Association and an avid geocacher himself. “It’s finding those little gems of nature you wouldn’t know about.”

Lucien and Karen VanElsen of Brookfield have been geocaching since 2001 and go out once or twice a week, depending on how near the caches are and the season of the year. “We’ve done just about everything in our area and go geocaching whenever we travel,” says Karen. “Although the majority of the caches have been in Wisconsin, we’ve also made finds in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Canada. A very interesting one was the original cache near Portland, Oregon, where geocaching began.”

According to Lucien, because of geocaching he and his wife have “seen more parks and more places that we never would have known were there. It also gives my wife and me an opportunity to get exercise — and not call it exercise.”

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NED B. HUNTER

Explorers liken geocaching to a community scavenger hunt.

”Essentially it’s a high-tech scavenger hunt,” said Damon Mays, a member of Geocachers of West Tennessee.

Using his Garmin Legend GPS, Mays checks the directions to a cache hidden in the woods of Lake Graham.

”Some caches you can walk to in your street clothes and some have been hidden in swamps,” he said, helping his wife Teresa down a slick, muddy slope.

The couple that met at the county fair more than 20 years ago began geocaching for exercise after Damon Mays underwent heart surgery in October. Teresa Mays said that together the couple has lost more than 60 pounds.

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Some articles make you scratch your head and this brief one had me wondering what was being discussed. Can you make sense of the following?

Geocachers use a special device that’s about the size of a cell phone. It’s kind of like a baseball player’s bat, or a hockey player’s stick. It looks like a typical camping trip… But there’s more going on here than you realize.

Then, you plug it [the GPS] into your computer and download a treasure map.

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RONA JOHNSON:

I’ve been called many things before, but never a “geomuggler.”
You might want to read on to make sure this never happens to you.

It all started when Jesse Beska found an ammunition box on the banks of a river somewhere in the upper Midwest on Monday. The discovery of an ammunition box near the river is rather curious. But even more curious were the contents of the box.

Instead of ammunition, the box contained a log, a pencil, a pair of plastic round black-rimmed glasses, a Canadian nickel and a nickel that looks like it was left on the train tracks inside a Jerky Stuff can, a couple of Happy Joe’s bucks, two AA batteries, a bandaid and two Cabela’s postcards.

Beska, a Grand Forks resident, naturally gave the box to a Herald employee, who passed it along to me.

The brain trust at the Herald determined that the box was a cache, because that’s what the log in the box said it was.

The cache that Beska found was named the “Grand Art in the Fork’s Cache” and it was stashed Jan. 1, 2003.

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