Geocaching!

Has anyone tried geocaching before? For those who are not familiar, in a nut shell, someone goes out and bury or hides a box with some goodies in it. May be be a can of food, a lighter, a plastic toy soldier, the items are as varied as the individual who put it there. Then they plot the coordinates on their GPS and post it on geocache.com maybe with a few clues to find it easier. Type in the zip code and theres a list of ones to find! Type the coordinates and follow the clues. Ive done it a few times and its a lot of fun. You never know what you are going to find! Be sure to bring something to leave in the box.

Yeah, I do some geocaching - mostly for the husband. He needs a goal when hiking.

I've heard of it, but I've never intentionally went looking for a cache. I have stumbled upon a few. I think they're fun to find. Reading through the list of people that had found it was cool and looking though the stuff in it. I left something in all of them and signed the register.

When cache hunting first got popular the Missouri Dept of Conservation issued a statement saying they were going to make it illegal. I called them (of course) and talked to them about it, but didn't feel I was making much of an impression.

It was an all together odd conversation. I opened their website while I was talking to him and all the benefits they touted for the land they managed are listed there. But every reason he gave for their wanting to impose restrictions on the pastime were in direct opposition to their own benefits for existing.

So I started pointing this out, and then, at last, I mentioned that I rambled all the time on that public land, and asked if I would be ticketed if I stumbled upon one put there illegally and opened it up.

By the time we were about done the person I talked too said that their response to geocaching was "actually still under review" and he would pass along my concerns and notes of our conversation in their next meeting about it.

I know I was the first to call them about it, because I asked if they'd received any calls about it, but I imagine they got quite a few more calls soon afterward.

It was several months later that they issued another statement saying they would not make it illegal. Since then they've published a few positive articles about it in their monthly magazine.

I'm not sure if the National Forest Service ever really reacted to it. Anyone got a clue about that?

I haven't tried it either, but saw an outdoor program that featured it that is produced by the local PBS station in Fresno. I saw a site that listed some caches in my neighborhood, so I should go out and give it try. Looks like fun and should be good practice for using my GPSr.

It is quite fun because you never know whats going to be in that box! Plus, its a great way to get out doors when bored and kill a few hours, see some new sights. I am curious as to the National Parks position on this as well....

I cant believe that story btw, lol. Politicians make me laugh, I am so glad you showed them up! Way to go Bill!

From what I've been able to find out, whether or not geocaching is legal is still up to the individual land managers. Most National Forest people are especially concerned about geocaching in wilderness areas (it concerns me, too) because it appears to violate the Wilderness Act by leaving man-made containers around.

On the other hand, I don't see what it shouldn't be legal elsewhere. There's a lot of non-wilderness National Forest land for that sort of thing. I can see how it would be fun and encourage folks to get into the out-of-doors!

geocaching is still in its infancy. My worry is the future. While many people enjoy looking for them, a good number also like the hiding of them. As the sport grows the number of caches in sensitive areas will increase, which isn't a bed thing in and of itself. The problem will arise in the future as the number of people who 1. lose interest in managing their boxes, 2. pass away or become otherwise unable to manage their boxes. These leftover boxes end up as "trash" left in the woods. The number of them right now is insignificant, but it will grow. There is an offshoot of geocaching, i cannot remember the name, but it doesn't involve leaving an actual box. I would like to see the geocaching community push for this type of activity and perhaps incorporate the social networking concept to create virtual boxes, logbooks, tokens, etc... The finder can take a photo of their token with their GPS showing the coordinates, or the unique landmark to verify their location and post it to the "stasher's" facebook style page on the virtual geocache website, call it GeoBook or something. I think there is some money to be made here.

I think it really depends. I do a little geocaching.. And I hide the odd cache (GC1W56F)

Now realisticly, most of the ones that I have seen in wilderness areas are actually well maintained. The caching community encourages a couple of things

1) cache maintainers have to maintain their caches
2) "abandoned" caches are either taken over by another maintainer, or removed by a finder.

The caches I have seen outside of urban areas tend to be hidden a bit, and in "nice" places - realisticly - most traditional geocaches are very little different than what is typically kept in a cairn on top of mountains or ridges. So at least in a wilderness setting I've seen it working pretty well so far. To me I see it as very little different than what mountaineers have been doing on summits (with summit registers and the like) for hundreds of years - except for non-mountaineers.

National parks (at least up here) have rules about them as well, so most of them in the parks are essentially "micros" - more or less nothing but a register - typically the size of a film canister hidden in a cairn.

On the flip side, there are definately places I will *NOT* hide a geocache.

Well, I think that there is a logical limit on how many caches will be placed. And I don't see much of a litter issue.

For example, one of the caches I found is in a State Conservation area here (Ruth and Paul Henning). It's not far off a trail that runs through the park. I think this park is about 1500 acres. The people that use the sites that list these caches would not likely encourage more caches in this park. There's just little or no reason for it. The same would apply almost anywhere, it would seem to be a self policing sport.

The issue of "Sensitive Areas" came up in my conversation with the Conservation dept. My first question about that was, "Has that actually happened yet?" The answer was "No". I conceded that a cache could be placed in a sensitive area, and pointed out again that I think the sport would be aware of newbies doing that and respond accordingly, but I also pointed out that traffic to any one cache or location was still very minimal, so it was not a problem begging for a solution at that point. In the years since I have not become aware of this being a problem, but again, I am not active in the sport.

I do like the idea of a "virtual cache". It could even be set up with a virtual "Earthling Doodad box". After you've confirmed your being at the location you get to "Leave" an item, then pick from a list of items that others visitor's have "Left There", and they could mail you the item they've listed. That might draw some sponsorships too

I think the sport adds an interesting incentive for those that want to get outdoors. And it certainly provides a fun way to learn to use the tools hiker's use. The number of those that progress onto overnight stays and off trail hikes will really only benefit us all, even the gov agencies that manage our public land.

Finding something is a big part of the fun of getting out. But like phat said, there are places I've been that I would never post on a website. You have to find them on your own, or know me pretty darn good

Exactly.. like that spot in front of the glacier I posted in the last TR I put up

Just did my first geocaching-just around my neighborhood. Found 3 of them, just little boxes with not much room in them for anything. One is just outside my building.