By Keri Collins (RedWriterHood)

 

He hadn’t been looking for treasure, but stumbled on it accidentally while out with friends. “We found this container with a logbook, information on geocaching, and a bunch of stuff in it.” Though he didn’t take up the sport until the Jolly Green Giants invited him to go caching with them two years after his discovery, now, Jason Proctor (16), also known as Da_Rubber_Chicken (DRC), is a geocaching addict. With more than 200 finds, this teen from Buckinghamshire, England, is on his way to his goal of being the youngest geocacher to log 1,000 finds.

Geocaching, a high-tech treasure hunt, uses Global Positioning System technology (GPS) to find caches hidden all over the world. Coordinates are logged on a Web site (www.geocaching.com or www.navicache.com), caches are named and described, and then fellow enthusiasts grab their maps, GPS units, trinkets to trade, and supplies for outdoor adventure before heading out.

“Geocaching is a great sport because it’s competitive, fun, and exciting. It also gets you out and about and takes you to places you never knew existed!” Jason enthuses. For example, when he organized his own geocaching event, the group decided to attempt a geocache rated five stars—the most challenging level possible. The cache was inside an abandoned railway tunnel built in the 1800s! Armed with flashlights and good humor, Jason recalls, “We had to walk to the center of a two-mile-long tunnel which was pitch black!” The 22-member group had to contend with a century of train soot, dislodged manhole covers and four-foot-deep holes, animal bones, air vents dripping water, puddles, and muck. Fun? “It was wicked!” Jason says.

Geocaches can be found anywhere, from the remote countryside to busy urban areas—just look up the coordinates and find your way there. Once you’re close, caches can be so well-hidden you’ll have trouble finding them! From microcaches the size of a film canister, to containers that look like pine cones, rocks, or logs, geocachers have created ingenious ways to hide their treasures. If that’s not tricky enough, nanocaches are small magnetic containers that can be the size of a pencil eraser! A virtual cache means there’s no container to find—the treasure is the place itself. Multicaches give you the first set of coordinates, but once you get there you find more coordinates or hints to take you to the next location. Traditionally, when you’ve found the cache, you sign the logbook, and if you take something, you leave something. Once you return home, log in your finds on the Web site and leave comments for other treasure hunters looking for helpful hints.

Like DRC, Katie Thomas (Katerbug) accidentally discovered a cache, but in her case what began as an unexpected surprise during a caving trip ended up becoming a new passion. Geocaching information in the cache container led her to the Web site and she bought a GPS that weekend! Katie says her most memorable cache was one of her first: “I took my dad out with me to show him what I'd made such a fuss over, and we did this cache that was a walking tour of our town [Cumberland, Maryland]. It was a blast, giving us both a new view on the city. You never know what can be hidden in a place [where] you've been living all your life until you find it.”

Katie describes herself as a fan of extreme geocaching because she’s addicted to the challenge of navigating difficult terrain and conquering hard-to-find caches, but “I’m a promoter of the sport because it’s accessible to people of all ages and physical abilities,” Katie explains. “There are caches that require long hikes into the woods, and then there are some that you can pull your car over and not walk 50 feet before finding the cache.”

Geocaching is fun for the entire family, even if you’re not old enough to drive! Tristan (14) and Colin (12) began geocaching three years ago with their parents and sister, and together they’re known as Douglasclan. They grab their caching backpack, Dad loads the GPS, Mom brings the snacks and drinks, and whoever finds the cache first gets to sign the logbook. “Mom helps with the logging and trading, while Dad normally keeps an eye out for muggles,” Colin said. That may sound like he’s read a little too much Harry Potter, but means he’s on the alert for nongeocachers who might disturb the cache.

Each member of the team brings his or her own strengths to the game. Tristan explains, “I’m good at finding caches in wooded areas. Colin seems to find the ones around fences, and our little sister finds the caches on the ground, ’cause she’s shorter than us.” Like DRC and Katerbug, both Colin and Tristan have placed caches—Colin’s is a micro multicache (GCHTEJ) located in a state game farm near their home in Washington, and it requires some problem solving to find. Tristan’s traditional cache (GCHVNW) is hidden in and around the ruins of an abandoned dynamite factory.

So what are you waiting for? Explore. Discover. And whatever happens, remember where you parked the car.