Anyone GeoCache?

[Bernie Brewer]

I was walking my dog on a local hiking/biking trail and got into a conversation with a couple of guys who were searching for some hidden trinkets. They told me about geocache-ing. People hide little treasures and post the location and GPS coordinates onto the website for others to find. When you find a cache, you sign a logboook and make an entry online. If you want to take an item from the cache, you replace it with something of equal or greater value, and also mark that in the logboook. That way you can watch how some items travel all over the world. I had never heard of it, but I joined the site yesterday, and plan on searching for my first cache soon. I figured, what the hell, I've got a GPS (and plenty of time lately) and it sounds like fun! Anybody else out there do this???

 

[Parker36]

No, but sounds like a fun idea. I'll have to look into it. I'm sure there are plenty of drop sites in my neck of the woods.

 

[MTpilot]

It's a blast. Great way to kill some down time.

 

[eschatz]

I was talking to a guy that had just found one of these chaches the other day. It seems like a really interesting concept. Personally, I've never done it.

 

[Coastarine]

I actually found out about it recently too, and I do find it interesting. Haven't gone looking for any yet.

 

[Decojuicer]

I have been geocaching for a few years now. I even hosted a night event around halloween last year. It's a lot of fun and some great exercise. I like caching on my bike. I can cover more area that way.

 

[ChshreCat]

I've done it a few times. It's fun. Makes going out for a day hike a little more interesting.

 

[scinerd3000]

i have gone a few times. There usually put in obscure places which is fun if you like hiking....the prizes usually suck but its interesting to see what people leave. Take one leave one...

 

[bsruther]

Last summer, my son was out geocaching in a city park. He came busting out of the bushes after finding one and there was a woman out walking. She looked at him, shrieked and took of running (he's 6'4"). He says, wait I'm just geocaching but, she just kept running.
We're thinking about placing a cache accross the road on the other side of a hayfield, so we can watch people look for it.

Watch out for muggles.

 

[eriktlupus]

i do it in the spring/fall mostly cause the bugs are really bad in the summer here and to much snow in the winter.

 

[spitfire]

I have never done it myself but I see people doing it when I play disc golf.

 

[flyangler18]

I've wanted to do this for a while. Any time spent in the woods is time well spent.

Gotta research some GPS units now.

What kind of units are HBT geocachers using?

 

[nghtmre4u]

Me and my daughter go.It is alot of fun and great exercise.I use a garmin etrex legend hasn't let me down in the few years i have had it.

 

[Homercidal]

I've done it for a couple of years. Took a bit of time off due to being busy and price of gas, but did a few last week. I like to plan caches that we can hit while camping or traveling. I've got one to set up myself, just need to find a good hiding spot. It's a puzzle cache and planned on doing some very nice first to find prizes.

We've found some very nice scenic locations while caching. People love to hide them to show off the view or recreational areas. Some of them can be hidden very sneakily too!

 

[BoyScout]

I've been doing it off and on for years. I tend to do it more often when I can't get out hiking or backpacking. I do sometimes look for ones in the areas I'm camping in.
As far as GPSs go, it all depends on who you talk to, as far as preferences. Do your own research, maybe rent/borrow a couple to try out and then buy the one you like.

 

[JesseRC]

SWMBO , kids and I started last month, its a blast. Geocaching.com is sweet. I bought a Magellan Triton and I uploaded like 2000 caches to it. Sometimes we're out and about and have some time to kill . I just fire the gps up and there's always like 20 or so caches withing 0-5 miles of my locations, sometimes in the same parking lot I am already on.

If you've got a gps that accepts uploads, you can pay geocaching.com for membership and you can dowload queries in gpx format. It saves typing coords in. THere are some hacks out there to get the data without having to join.

I find that printing some of the caches helps, and using the car nav gps helps getting close to the cache, then using the handhelp to hike to it. Goodluck.

Another suggestion, is to keep your mind open. These caches can be micro in size and quite camo'd. You will be thoroughly surprised.

 

[bradsul]

I did it for quite a while before I bought my truck and gas prices started skyrocketing. When I was driving my small car it was a lot of fun but the gas bills really started to make it expensive. I only liked doing the more difficult nature caches, the in-city stuff I found boring.

I had great luck with the Garmin eTrex Legend C. It's a simple unit that I loaded with the topographic maps and it has a colour screen and pretty decent turn-by-turn navigation for actually getting to the cache location.

 

[superfluent]

I've done it for ages (I happen to work with one of the pioneers of geocaching in europe so I kind of had no choise but to try it).

It sounds pretty geeky at first (it did to me atleast) but for me I've found it as *the* best way of experiencing new sites and locations that I never would have dreamt about visiting otherwise.

Many caches are hidden at places people find interesting. Places that are really interesting or special, either by historical reasons, it's a cool place with wierd geology perhaps a "magical" place someone has found -or it's just a place different from what you usually see when you're out going about your own busissness.

Besides, it's a fun way to spend an afternoon with your kids.

H

 

[IrregularPulse]

This would be fun but I've never done it. I assume the units you would use are far different than the car ones? My wife just got a new phone last night with GPS. Probably not the right kind though eh?

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Found my first one today! I must have walked past it ten times before I saw it. It was covered completely in camo duct tape, and about 85% covered in twigs, so it took the cache-noob (me) awhile to find it. What fun! This is gonna be fun for my boys, too, I suspect.

BTW, my GPS is an Eagle Explorer. It's an oldie that I got a the local Fleet Farm about a dozen years ago. I have to punch in the coordinates manually, but it works.

 

[JesseRC]

This would be fun but I've never done it. I assume the units you would use are far different than the car ones? My wife just got a new phone last night with GPS. Probably not the right kind though eh?

I was able to use my TomTom One for the first few ones. I wouldnt say its impossible, it would just take some tweaking. Most auto navs should allow you to enter coords. THey might also not work great in lots of tree cover, but if you just want to see what its about I would try you car one.

 

[Mutilated1]

I geocache quite a bit. If you're on Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site then I'm jxh0816 - you can look at my page and see what we've found a logged.

 

[cmdrico7812]

Geocaching is great fun. My brother and I go whenever we can. The really challenging multi-stage caches are our forte. We did a five stage the other day where we had to decipher Morse Code, Binary, Sign Language, and Brail in order to find the final cache.

 

[bradsul]

Any of the cachers reading this done a 5/5? Hardest I've done is a 4/4 and man that was an adventure! Talk about a great afternoon! A couple times I wished I had rope with me.

 

[flyangler18]

Gotta research some GPS units now.

Well that was easy. Bought the eTrek Venture this afternoon, and I'm signed up on GeoCaching now. There's a ton of caches within 5 miles of here.

I'm stoked now. Looks like an awesome weekend warrior pursuit after the spring rugby season winds down.

:rockin:

 

[Parker36]

This just popped up in the news today: Suspicious package found at Fairview a geocache likely buried by teacher : Schools : Boulder Daily Camera

 

[Memorex88]

I've wanted to do this for a while. Any time spent in the woods is time well spent.

Gotta research some GPS units now.

What kind of units are HBT geocachers using?

I've got the basic Garmin Etrex which works great!

 

[Memorex88]

I've been doing it for years. It's a great way to get the family out there and not to mention.. FUN!

Later when I get home, I'll have a homebrew while logging my finds.

BTW my handle on Geocaching.com is the same as on here (memorex88). You can add me as a friend since we have 2 hobbies in common.

 

[Chance9768]

I have been catching for a few years now...We travel with the camper trailer a lot and its fun to get a few catches in when we are travling.I dont care for catches in town my self

 

[BrewBrain]

Oh, man I forgot about this! A couple years ago I took the boys out and they had a blast. My oldest son was young enough to be really confused by the lack of an "X" marking the spot Now my daughter is old enough to enjoy it too.

Damn the Muggles!!

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I geocache quite a bit. If you're on Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site then I'm jxh0816 - you can look at my page and see what we've found a logged.

BTW my handle on Geocaching.com is the same as on here (memorex88). You can add me as a friend since we have 2 hobbies in common.

My handle is Bernie Brewer there, too. It's Bernie Brewer on just about every sit I go to.

Well that was easy. Bought the eTrek Venture this afternoon, and I'm signed up on GeoCaching now.

Is your handle the same there, too?

 

[flyangler18]

Is your handle the same there, too?

Yep. It's been my handle everywhere I go - pretty much for 10 years now.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

I did this when I had a hand held trail GPS. Garmin 60cx's rock!

Yeah, be carefull planting caches. There was an incident here a couple weeks ago where someone saw someone place a "small package" under a small bridge and called the bomb squad, including robot. 8 hours later they figured out it was a geocache.

 

[PintOfBitter]

Great activity with the kids! They love it.

 

[snisleziggy]

I'm sorry for bumping old threads, but I love geocaching! I love my Delorme PN-40! I haven't been in a while, been pretty busy. Summer months are here now though. I need to get myself back in gear.

 

[Denny's Evil Concoctions]

I should get back into this. If I can get my Android to download maps that is.

 

[evanmars]

I'm evanmars on Geocaching.com too. I started with my car Magellan 1400, worked pretty well. Then I got a Garmin eTrex H, a step up, then I got a Magellan ExploristGC.
Found a bunch of awesome locations that I probably never would have known about otherwise.