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 Geocaching: Get your hands on other people’s stash!
Would you believe that there are dozens of treasure chests hidden around your hometown? With a small GPS device and a little footwork, you can find more booty than a locker room full of J-Lo impersonators. And, like a locker room that could have cross-dressers, Geocaches come with their own set of surprises.
Geocaching began on May 3rd, 2000, two days after the Clinton administration removed a restriction that required civilian GPS systems to be “degraded.” This milestone meant that consumer GPS (or Global Positioning System) units could now pinpoint a location to within 10 feet. And, reportedly in celebration of the ban being lifted, someone hid a container of goodies in Portland Oregon and posted the coordinates on a newsgroup devoted to satellite navigation. Mike Teague was the first to find the container in Portland Oregon and documented the trip on his Web site. Calling the game “The GPS Stash Hunt,” Teague is credited with managing the first Geocaching Web site. A few months later, Jeremy Irish, a web developer for Sunrise Identity, Inc., found Teague’s Web site and his first Geocache. Excited by the opportunities he saw and the opportunity to put his Web design skills to work, Irish launched a new site and coined the term “Geocaching.” (Geocaching -if you’re wondering how to pronounce it- rhymes with “Cleo-Bashing,” the little known sport of poking fun at Miss Cleo and her ill-fated psychic network.) Fast forward to today and you’ll find Jeremy Irish is now the CEO of Groundspeak, Inc., the company which owns and operates www.geocaching.com. The geocache network rapidly grows, adding at least one new geocache in every state each week. And the sport is expanding internationally, listing Geocaches in more than 175 countries worldwide. IT'LL COST YOU A BEN FRANKLIN TO GET STARTED To find your first Geocache, visit www.geocaching.com. On the homepage, enter your ZIP code or select a U.S. state, or the country you’re in and you will be rewarded with a list of the nearest caches, which includes the approximate distance and direction. Each cache includes a difficulty level and terrain ratings. The levels begin at 1 (Even your fat ass can reach this cache!) to 5 (You’ll have to lead an expedition, bring a team of sled dogs and use a metal detector just to get near it!). Once you pick a specific Geocache you’d like to find, you’ll need to enter the coordinates in a GPS. The coordinates from the website consist of two sets of numbers, essentially based on latitude and longitude. We know you probably flunked geography, so there’s an easier way to understand it. Remember the countless cop shows you watched as a teen that talked about “triangulation” to locate a bad guy? Well GPS does the exact same thing, triangulating your position by using satellites the government launched years ago. Don’t worry; the feds or your wife won’t at the strip joint, because a GPS just reads information from their satellites: your location is not sent back to them. When the triangulation is complete, the GPS subtracts your location from the Geocache’s coordinates you enter manually. This allows the GPS to calculate a direct route to the Geocache and results in an arrow which points directly to the hidden treasure. As you walk toward it, the GPS screen constantly updates with the remaining distance to the geocache and an estimated time of arrival based on your current speed.
Basic GPS systems, like the Garmin eTrex, start at around $100. Used GPS units can be purchased on eBay for even less. Although entering a set of coordinates into your GPS will depend on which unit you buy, the results will be the same: a compass like pointer that shows you the way to the hidden treasure. OPP=OTHER PEOPLE'S POSSESIONS? In addition to a GPS unit, you’ll need to bring an item with you to trade before finding your first Geocache. Geocaching depends on the honor system, and each member agrees to only take a single item and not sabotage or move the cache from its original location. When you bring an item, you can trade that item for anything inside the container. When first established, a Geocache is filled with random items by the person who plants it. Beanie Babies, logo golf balls, CDs, and gift certificates are popular items, but semi-precious jewels and even good old American currency have been found in Geocaches. Sadly, to our knowledge, underwear worn by supermodels or 6-packs of beer have not been left in any cache we’ve visited. Some Geocaches have a “theme” where you can only trade items of a specific nature. For example, the “Agent 007” cache (located at N 35° 15.203 W 097° 25.802) requires the item to be something a secret agent could use. The “Everything Coca-Cola” cache (located at N 35° 28.302 W 097° 33.747) requires exchanging items related to the popular soft drink. Some experienced Geocachers have a “signature item” which they always leave inside a cache to personalize their visit like custom made metal coins, stickers and even items knitted by the Geocachers themselves. (Note to the knitter: we’d like a beer coozy please!). MARK YOUR TERRITORY Each Geocache has a logbook you can sign and date to record your visit. You can also leave a note to be read by any future visitors. Often, the cache also includes a disposable camera, which you can use to snap a self-photo (Note: full monty shots are welcome and encouraged if you’re a supermodel who won’t leave your underwear). When you return home, you can log your visit on the Geocaching web site, and upload digital photos you may have taken with your own camera. TRAVEL BUGS ARE NOT S.T.D.s Once you start Geocaching, you may find a Travel Bug at one of the sites. A Travel Bug is like a “hitchhiker” that moves from one Geocache to another by people giving it a ride. Instead of leaving an item, you can also give a ride to a Travel Bug—as long as you’re going in the right direction. Some Travel Bugs have “missions” to get to a specific destination, or to visit a cache in each of the fifty states. You will recognize a Travel Bug by the high-tech dog tag they wear to identify themselves. The dog tag, sold only on the Geocaching Web site, is etched with a unique serial number that you enter into the Geocaching Web site. This signifies that you have indeed found the Travel Bug, and that you are offering to be responsible for placing it in another Geocache.
As of this writing, we have launched
three Travel Bugs from the Midwest, with destinations of North
Hollywood, California, Hamburg Germany and Alexandria, Virginia (all
locations where we have friends or family that own GPS devices). To
date, the closest to its goal is “MOOver and Shaker,” the Travel Bug
pictured above, which has traveled 1147.1 miles, and is currently in
a Geocache in San Elijo Lagoon in California. One Geocacher even
uploaded pictures of the Travel Bug sitting on a freeway sign of
California’s Highway 101. (To see the photos that have been
uploaded, or to check where MOOver is at this exact moment, visit
http://www.geocaching.com/map/bugtrack.asp?tid=25606)
Do you have Arcanum Indicium (secret information)? Send an E-mail to custos@semperaptus.com. He'll keep your identity private and hold the information until the date and time you request.
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