Geocaching for the first time
This morning I went and met my grandfather to help him out with some stuff, but before that he wanted me to join him in Geocaching. He was brand new to Geocaching, and this was only his second attempt to find a cache. This was my first attempt to geocache outside of a class.
Geocaching is like treasure hunting with GPS units. You get the latitude and longitude coordinates from a website, enter them into a GPS, and use it to go find the treasure at that location.
Back in the fall I took a Geocaching non-credit class at my college. My grandfather paid for it. There was three days, and each day had some lecture and in-class time, and some actual treasure hunting time.
The first day we did an easy search of a cache on campus that was located in a hollow log next to a forest path. The third day we did a multi-cache; what that is is two or more caches, and all the ones except the last cache have coordinates in them to the next cache in the chain. In this multi-cache, each cache was actually some kind of sign or post with a clue to the location of the next cache.
The second day was a trick cache. I got to the coordinates and looked around and passed a birdhouse, but didn't think to disturb the birdhouse as I feared there may be nesting birds. I spent 10 minutes and couldn't find anywhere it would be hidden, and was stumped. On the way back I decided to eyeball that birdhouse just in case. I notice that the birdhouse had nesting material sticking out the hole, but the hole was sealed inside. Sure enough, the cache was inside the birdhouse (Though I wouldn't recommend sticking one in a REAL birdhouse.)
As for today, I met my grandfather and his buddy, also a newbie geocacher, at a cemetery. They were stumped by the one there, it was supposed to be around a bench. The clue said "Pry off" so I looked under the bench and saw a plastic cap covering a benchpost. I pried off the cap, and there it was!
The next one was a multi-cache in a nature reserve, and I easily found the first clue, but was stumped by the second one. I found where I thought it was, an area off a path with tons of old rusty metal, but there was too much to pick through, and we gave up because it was 20 degrees out.
The third place was in a park where they had tried to find it earlier that morning, but couldn't find it. The clue said "Brick not in the wall" and I walked around a brick building and poked at its brick wall. I picked up bricks that were sitting flat on the ground and probably didn't have anything under them. Then I looked at the GPS and it said I was actually about 25 feet to the north of it, so I walked a little south, picked up more bricks, and was stumped. I climbed up a hill to look for more bricks, and behind a tree I spotted a concrete chunk with two bricks resting against it. I knew there was no way that bricks could lie that perfectly against a small chuck of concrete like that, so I knew the cache would be under there, and I was right.
It might help if we get better GPS units, the only ones my grandfather and his friend had were Garmin Nuvis, and those are car GPS units. Car GPS are not as accurate as backpacker GPS units, but they're often cheaper.
Geocaching is like treasure hunting with GPS units. You get the latitude and longitude coordinates from a website, enter them into a GPS, and use it to go find the treasure at that location.
Back in the fall I took a Geocaching non-credit class at my college. My grandfather paid for it. There was three days, and each day had some lecture and in-class time, and some actual treasure hunting time.
The first day we did an easy search of a cache on campus that was located in a hollow log next to a forest path. The third day we did a multi-cache; what that is is two or more caches, and all the ones except the last cache have coordinates in them to the next cache in the chain. In this multi-cache, each cache was actually some kind of sign or post with a clue to the location of the next cache.
The second day was a trick cache. I got to the coordinates and looked around and passed a birdhouse, but didn't think to disturb the birdhouse as I feared there may be nesting birds. I spent 10 minutes and couldn't find anywhere it would be hidden, and was stumped. On the way back I decided to eyeball that birdhouse just in case. I notice that the birdhouse had nesting material sticking out the hole, but the hole was sealed inside. Sure enough, the cache was inside the birdhouse (Though I wouldn't recommend sticking one in a REAL birdhouse.)
As for today, I met my grandfather and his buddy, also a newbie geocacher, at a cemetery. They were stumped by the one there, it was supposed to be around a bench. The clue said "Pry off" so I looked under the bench and saw a plastic cap covering a benchpost. I pried off the cap, and there it was!
The next one was a multi-cache in a nature reserve, and I easily found the first clue, but was stumped by the second one. I found where I thought it was, an area off a path with tons of old rusty metal, but there was too much to pick through, and we gave up because it was 20 degrees out.
The third place was in a park where they had tried to find it earlier that morning, but couldn't find it. The clue said "Brick not in the wall" and I walked around a brick building and poked at its brick wall. I picked up bricks that were sitting flat on the ground and probably didn't have anything under them. Then I looked at the GPS and it said I was actually about 25 feet to the north of it, so I walked a little south, picked up more bricks, and was stumped. I climbed up a hill to look for more bricks, and behind a tree I spotted a concrete chunk with two bricks resting against it. I knew there was no way that bricks could lie that perfectly against a small chuck of concrete like that, so I knew the cache would be under there, and I was right.
It might help if we get better GPS units, the only ones my grandfather and his friend had were Garmin Nuvis, and those are car GPS units. Car GPS are not as accurate as backpacker GPS units, but they're often cheaper.