Geocaching finds its way
By BARRY ABISCH
THE JOURNAL NEWS
CROSS RIVER (4114.565 N, 7336.189 W) As Perfect Tommy leads the easy climb to the Leatherman Hill overlook, he is being watched. Every step he takes is tracked from 12,500 miles overhead.
Were it not for that, Perfect Tommy says, he probably would be at home in Chappaqua sitting in front of the computer, playing games. Instead, here he is on an overcast Saturday morning out in the woods at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, playing games.
Perfect Tommy is the screen name of Tom Curtin, a 44-year-old trademark lawyer who lives in Chappaqua with his wife and 5-year-old son. Until he found geocaching on the Web three years ago, he said, he was pretty much an indoor guy. But in July 2001, he tried geocaching for the first time. He took his family to find a cache hidden in Saxon Woods Park.
“We didn’t find it,” he said. “We were on the wrong side of the Hutch.”
The game, or sport, Perfect Tommy plays is called geocaching. It’s part hiking, part orienteering, part scavenger hunt, part hide-and-seek. It’s as low-tech as the walking stick in Perfect Tommy’s left hand and as high-tech as the compact global positioning system (GPS) receiver cradled in the palm of his right.