Geocaching

TxDoc · February 2, 2003

http://www.geocaching.com/

(Article Below)

'Caching' in on new GPS-driven pastime

By Gary Pettus

http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0301/29/o01i.jpg>

Brian Albert Broom / The Clarion-Ledger

Many geocaching sites are places of historical interest such as the headstones Sidney Sullivan (left) and Archie Henderson view at the Haley Cemetery, dating to the mid-1800s located off the Natchez Trace near the Ross Barnett Reservoir.

The olive green, 30 mm ammo box is shrouded by a web of trees near the edge of the water, just beyond the graves of the ancient dead.

It holds, or has held at various times, a pocket knife, a Christmas music CD, pens, toys from McDonald's, key chains, a T-shirt, a logbook and a camera.

(Please do not take the camera.)

On a frosty January afternoon in rural Madison County, three men climb down from a pickup truck parked beside a road nearly lapped by the waters of the Barnett Reservoir. They're not far from the site now. Each one is armed — with a walking stick.

Each also bears a hand-held device slightly larger than a TV remote. This is a Global Positioning Systems (GPS) unit. The men aim these units at the woods; this will lead them to the box.

Actually, two of the men have found it before. Archie Henderson of Ridgeland and Sidney Sullivan of Madison have dipped into it several times. In fact, they own the cache.

It was Henderson who put in the T-shirt, for instance.

"Nobody will take my T-shirt," he complains. "It's a nice T-shirt."

But their companion, Lane Smith of Jackson, is on his first visit to the treasure cache dubbed Haley's Forgotten, named for the old, secluded cemetery that cradles a family of Haleys.

Henderson and Sullivan want to see if Smith can find it, too.

"There's a hard way and an easy way to get to a cache," Smith says. "Invariably, people will pick the hard way."

But not Smith. Nor Henderson and Sullivan. Nor any other cagey veteran of the adventure sport known as geocaching.

Geocaching (pronounced JEE-oh cash-ing) is a treasure hunt with a technological twist. It requires access to the Internet and, usually, a GPS unit. Available online or at boat supply and some retail and camping supply stores, a cheap GPS is about $100, but some go for $1,000.

Some of these orientating doodads have maps, built-in electronic compasses and voice navigation.

Geocaching glossary

* Cache: pronounced "cash", a hidden container filled with a logbook and prizes.

* GPS: Global Positioning Systems, a network of satellites that work with a GPS unit to lock in your location on earth.

* Hitchhiker: an item that travels from one cache to another.

* Latitude: the angular distance north or south from the earth's equator measured in degrees.

* Letterbox(ing): an adventure game that offers a series of clues designed to lead the searcher to a container, or letterbox.

* Longitude: the angular distance east or west on the earth's surface, measured in reference to a prime meridian passing through Greenwich, England.

* Spoiler: too much information; it gives away the location of the cache.

* TNLN: "Took nothing, left nothing." A message left behind in logbooks by folks who just wanted to find the cache.

* Travel bug: a certain kind of hitchhiker.

* Waypoint: named coordinates (latitude and longitude) representing points on the surface of the Earth.

Source: www.geocaching.com

To go geocaching, you must first visit a geocaching Web site, then choose a treasure cache located in a place you'd like to explore.

There are at least 140 caches in Mississippi alone. Caches lurk in every state and about 160 countries. Some 40,000 caches in all. They beckon from anywhere between a Starkville parking lot to the Eiffel Tower.

The geocaching Web site lists the name of a cache, such as Haley's Forgotten or Lost Rabbit; a brief description; a rating system based on difficulty; and, most important, its coordinates in longitude and latitude. You and your GPS go from there.

Originally developed for military use, the satellite-based GPS technology was born for this kind of work. Its little digital brain tracks the cache's coordinates — placing you within six to 20 feet of the stash, on a good day.

The treasure is hidden inside hollow trees or under rocks, for instance, but never buried. It's often a collection of relatively inexpensive treats such as maps, books, software, CDs, videos, photos, tickets, tools and games. In the case of Haley's Forgotten, visitors are asked to take a picture of themselves with the cache's camera.

Anyone coming across a geocache by accident will find a printed explanation of his discovery and, sometimes, a polite request to obey the Golden Rule.

Geocache creators make three main requests: 1. take something from the cache; 2. leave something behind in exchange; 3. write about it in the logbook.

Many people are addicted to this.

"It isn't like finding the command control center in Baghdad," Henderson says, "But it's fun.

"It's more about getting you outdoors, getting you off the couch and to places you've never been. You can type in search options on the Web site that reflect your interests." Old cemeteries or, say, Civil War history.

A search for a cache can lead you on a second journey of discovery along the way.

This blend of high-tech high jinks and old-fashioned romance has percolated into a unique community of folks linked by the Internet, plus a love of mystery.

Often, it's folks who have spare time after work. College students, people with older, or grown, children.

Henderson, 57, is director of materials management for Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson. While researching GPS products online, he discovered geocaching and passed the word to his friend, Sullivan, 53, manager of Methodist Rehab's radiology department. Immediately, Sullivan was sunk. "I'd do this all the time if I could," he says.

Sullivan and Henderson often go on hunts together, or with other geocachers such as Joe Lott, an environmental engineer whose online name is Leatherneck. Sometimes, they try to score a "find" before their friends do.

"Sidney's got it so bad he called me the other night and said, 'You see that another cache has come up in Brandon?' " Henderson recalls.

"I said, 'Yes.'

"He said, 'Let's go get it.'

"I said, 'Sidney, it's 6:30 at night.'

"He said, 'That's OK, let's get it before Leatherneck gets it.'

"I gave up. My wife was lying on the couch, and I said, 'Virginia, Sidney and I are going to Brandon.'

"She looked at me like I was crazy."

Eventually, Henderson and Sullivan ran into Smith, 42, owner of a medical equipment service company. He was already exploring the joys of geocaching with Joy, his wife.

"A lot of families are doing this," Henderson says.

But, apparently, it was very difficult to do this before May 1, 2000. Until then, GPS signals available to the public were intentionally degraded. When the Clinton administration stopped that practice, civilian users of GPS were able to track sites up to 10 times more accurately.

Within two days of that decree, someone hid a cache outside Portland, Ore., to celebrate. Someone else found it and created a Web site to document the discovery.

Later, a man named Jeremy Irish took over the site, www.geocaching.com, and helped spur the growth of a sport said to be a modern version of letterboxing, an old treasure-hunting game first favored by English gentlemen and still practiced here and abroad.

Geocaching spinoffs include virtual caches, puzzle caches and multi-stage caches. Regardless of the variation, says Sullivan, "it's a great escape."

On one hunt, he and Henderson discovered a micro-cache — a tiny bottle hidden inside a sign posted in a scary neighborhood.

"We had to remove some screws to get it, then put back the cache and the screws," Henderson says.

"I kept saying to Sidney, 'We've got to get out of here or we're going to get killed.' "

"We found it," Sullivan says. "That's the important thing."

Although some geocaches are located in cities, their discovery could cause quite a to-do in these uncertain times. "Especially if one's inside an ammo box," Henderson says. "Bomb squads have blown up caches."

Ammo boxes, found at Army surplus stores and on the Web, are reliable preservers of caches. Not as durable, but often used as well, are plastic storage bags and Tupperware.

This does not mean you should put food in a cache. It could spoil, or some woodland creature could eat it.

There are other geocaching taboos. No designated wilderness areas or other protected sites. No explosives, drugs or alcohol. No being obvious while hiding or searching for a cache — some people take along trash bags and groom the grounds; this is almost guaranteed to get you ignored by potential cache sackers, and will improve the environment besides.

"It's also a good idea to shove a stick into a hole before you put your face down in it," Smith says.

Holes are a geocaching hazard. "The other day Archie and I went to find a cache," Sullivan says, "and Archie stepped right on it."

"It was in a hole," Henderons says. "If it had been a land mine, it would have blown my leg off."

No such mishaps occur during Smith's hunt for Haley's Forgotten near the Barnett Reservoir.

Following his GPS and his instincts, avoiding shortcuts through rough or muddy terrain, Smith arrives within 15 feet of the cache before he spots the ammo box beneath the shivering trees.

It was too easy for him, as far as Sullivan is concerned. He opens the box and slides in a day planner.

Smith drops in a yo-yo.

Henderson looks for his T-shirt. It's still there.

Although Smith can score this as another find, he says Sullivan still has the lead.

"Archie has turned (Sullivan) into a monster," Smith says. "He has 60-something finds."

"Sixty-one," Sullivan says, as he splits off alone into the trees to re-hide the cache.