The boys and I entered the secretive world of Geocaching this past weekend. I had borrowed a GPS (Global Positioning System) from a friend and was setting up an event for the Boy Scouts when I decided that I needed some practice. I registered on www.geocaching.com , printed off the information to find a few caches, and off we went. We didn’t have much luck that first night- we only found one cache out of the five we searched for- but our imaginations were sparked. Parker and I found three more caches on Sunday afternoon when we were out picking up the containers from the Scouting event. He is all fired up to buy a GPS unit and get going- we have discovered that there are about 100 caches in Lehi alone! So, if you haven’t tried geocaching, here are a few tips.
1. Look for larger sized caches- the micros are REALLY tricky.
2. Give your GPS unit plenty of time to lock in on the coordinates. Accuracy is important.
3. Have a stick, some gloves, and needle nose pliers with you to get to those tricky caches.
4. Make sure you have a pen or pencil to sign the log and then log your find on the website.
Some caches have small trinkets in them. You can take something and leave something of equal value. My kids love this type! There are some where you can trade paperback books or tools! These are called theme caches. The micros and really small caches usually just have a log that you sign before tucking the cache back into its hiding place. There are also items called tracking bugs or coins that you move to a new cache and then log its travels on the website.
So, you don’t have a handheld GPS unit? Give letterboxing a try! In letterboxing you have to solve clues to find the cache and then you will use the stamp that you find to stamp your collector’s notebook. Check it out at www.letterboxing.org ! What’s better than a good treasure hunt?
