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Geocachers -
Geocaching
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Wednesday, 11 July 2007 02:39 |
By Christian Berg | Of The Morning Call July 10, 2007
Jim and Linda Wheeler aren't crazy, but they take a lot of pride in being a couple of nuts.
By day, Jim is a custodian in the Southern Lehigh School District and Linda is a clerk at the Breinigsville post office. On nights and weekends, however, the Lower Milford couple morph into ''The Caching Nuts,'' a dynamic duo that travels the region in search of hidden treasure.
The Wheelers are die-hard devotees of a global game known as Geocaching, in which players use handheld GPS navigation devices to locate ''caches'' hidden everywhere from city parks and playgrounds to historic landmarks and remote forests.
The popularity of the free, Internet-based game has exploded since its inception seven years ago, with the number of worldwide caches growing from 75 at the outset to more than 423,000 today -- including an incredible 9,419 within 100 miles of Allentown.
A Web site, Geocaching.com, serves as an online community for hundreds of thousands of players, who visit to download coordinates of hidden caches, keep a running log of their finds and connect with other Geocaching enthusiasts.
A typical Saturday or Sunday for Jim, aka ''The Saner Nut,'' and Linda, aka ''The Nuttier Nut,'' starts with a visit to Geocaching.com, where they select a dozen or so caches they want to find. Next, they carefully plan out a driving route that will pass each cache on their list and hit the road.
''It gives you a reason, every weekend, to go out and see someplace new,'' Linda said.
A thirst for adventure
Linda has always been fascinated by treasure hunting and for years was an avid metal detector user. It wasn't until five years ago, when a friend bought a GPS unit and told her about Geocaching, that she discovered her new passion.
Linda and Jim found their first cache in April 2002 and haven't looked back.
''In that first year, I lost 30 pounds just from the exercise,'' Linda said.
As of last month, The Wheelers had logged an impressive 1,894 cache finds stretching from the Lehigh Valley to California.
Geocaching is a relatively inexpensive sport. Creating a basic account on Geocaching.com is free, and many hikers, hunters, birders, boaters and other outdoor enthusiasts already own a handheld GPS device. Those who don't can buy one of the units -- which receive signals from orbiting Global Positioning System satellites -- for about $100.
''You don't need anything elaborate,'' Linda said. ''You just need the interest to go out and find treasures.''
''And the willingness to spend $3 a gallon on gas,'' Jim added.
Concealment as an art form
Although using a GPS unit will get you close to a cache -- typically within five to 20 feet -- the Wheelers warn finding it may not be easy. One of the biggest problems is dense foliage blocks satellite signals, so geocachers often have to rely on their natural hunting ability once they veer off a main trail to search for a cache in the woods.
''You make a couple turns, and all of a sudden, you're disoriented,'' Jim said.
On top of the GPS signal limitations, many players are expert cache hiders. The Wheelers once found a cache hidden behind an old branch in a tree trunk. The branch had to be removed from the tree, similar to taking a flagpole out of its holder, to reveal the cache inside the hole.
To help players find more difficult caches, owners often post clues on the Geocaching.com Web site. Sometimes, in instances where the Wheelers simply couldn't find a cache, they asked for help from fellow players who successfully found it in the past. (Once a player finds a cache, he returns it to the hiding spot.)
''We're not afraid to phone a friend,'' Linda said.
Some caches are tiny
The Wheelers own and maintain nearly 40 caches throughout the Lehigh Valley, including seven in the Little Lehigh Parkway.
''I have a couple more in the works,'' Linda said. ''I said I'd stop at 50.''
A typical cache will range in size from small Tupperware containers to a five-gallon plastic bucket. Small caches, called micros, may be only the size of a plastic film container, while extremely small caches, called nanos, can be so small they require tweezers to extract from their hiding place.
Regardless of the size of a cache, all contain a logbook for players who find them to sign their name, date of visit and comment about their experience. In larger caches, the logbook is typically a spiral-bound notepad. But in smaller caches, it may be just a long, narrow strip of paper that has to be tightly rolled up like a scroll to fit inside.
Special prize for being first
In addition to a logbook, most larger caches contain a collection of trinkets such as small toys, coins, insect repellent and brochures for local attractions.
Sometimes, caches include money or lottery tickets, and Linda said it's common for a new cache to contain a special prize for the first person who finds it. Geocachers are welcome to take any item they like as a souvenir, provided they leave something behind to replace it.
A recent visit to one of the Wheelers' caches in the Lehigh Parkway revealed items such as an Alpo doggie poo bag, Mardi Gras beads, a red Musikfest 2004 lanyard, National Wild Turkey Federation shotgun shell key chain, Mack Trucks emblem and a plastic stingray toy.
When they started Geocaching, the Wheelers took items from many of the caches they found. Now, they simply do it for the thrill of the hunt, taking nothing and leaving a single, exotic Amra nut to let others know The Caching Nuts were there.
Creative caches
Most caches are fairly straightforward hide and seek propositions, but a growing number of geocachers are taking the game to a new level by creating multi-part caches that require players to visit a series of destinations.
For example, the Wheelers one completed a multi-part cache that brought them to a small building in the woods. Inside the building was a pair of binoculars, which they used to look across a nearby river and read a sign that contained coordinates for the actual cache, in another location.
In other instances, cache coordinates are not listed on Geocaching.com. Instead, there is a riddle or puzzle that must be solved first, with the answer used to reveal the cache location.
A cache in Allentown called ''True Dedication'' requires players to find out the date of the Pentagon building's dedication to determine the correct cache coordinates. Another cache, ''South Mountain Park'' in Bethlehem, requires players to decipher a complicated numerical code to complete the coordinates.
''If you like puzzles, caching is the place to be,'' Jim said.
Endless possibilities
Still other caches add to their entertainment value by using a theme. For example, a multi-part cache called ''Voyage Through the Solar System'' uses the dome of the state capitol building in Harrisburg as the sun and then has caches for each of the nine planets stretching out in a northeast direction from Harrisburg.
The cache listing on Geocaching.com places the size of the solar system in relative terms and notes that if the sun were the size of the capital dome, Earth would measure just eight inches in diameter. The cache description also notes that the speed of light in this imaginary solar system would be about 11.2 mph.
Those who visit all nine of the planet caches can collect clues used to calculate the coordinates of a 10th ''mystery'' cache.
Jim notes the endless variety of caches and cache locations is what keeps Geocaching interesting no matter how long you play. The possibilities of what can be done, he noted, are ''really only limited by a person's imagination.''
A great traveling companion
In addition to helping to discover interesting places close to home, many geocachers incorporate the game into their travels and plan vacations around it.
Al and Nancy Ling of Upper Macungie started Geocaching four years ago as a way to make their frequent day hikes more interesting. So far, the couple, which goes by the caching name ''Treefrogz,'' has found about 1,400 caches in locations that include an old, stone windmill in England and a redwood forest in California.
''It's not the numbers for us,'' said Ling, director of customer operations at PPL Corp. in Allentown. ''We look for ones that take us to areas we're interested in.''
Ling's interest in Geocaching was recently highlighted in PPL's employee newsletter. And this spring, the utility launched its own Geocaching Web site, http://www.pplgeocaching.com , that includes coordinates for caches hidden at all of the company's environmental preserves in Pennsylvania, Maine and Montana.
PPL spokeswoman Meg Welker said Geocaching is a way for the company to increase awareness about the many hiking trails, wildlife habitats and outdoor recreational opportunities available at its preserves.
''It's a phenomenon that is just exploding,'' Welker said. ''It really has attracted a different audience, and generally, a lot of people who are geocachers enjoy the outdoors and they have an environmental ethic. So, it only makes sense to make them aware of what we have [to offer].''
Detour to Montana
Since PPL launched its Geocaching program in conjunction with Earth Day in April, about 300 geocachers have logged visits to the company's caches, which also can be found on Geocaching.com.
Welker said the company is also offering a mystery prize to the first person to log all PPL caches across the nation. Darrell and Sharon Richards of Watsontown, Northumberland County, hope to claim that prize. They have logged all PPL caches in Pennsylvania and Maine and plan to make a detour to Montana this fall when they take their RV to New Mexico for a family wedding.
''We're really looking forward to it,'' Sharon said. ''The PPl caches have been wonderful.''
The Richards were introduced to Geocaching in January by Canadian friends during an RV excursion to Baja, California.
''When you can stand on top of a mountain and see the Bay of Conception as your introduction to Geocaching, it can't help but get you turned on to it,'' Darrell said. ''I'm on my 70th [cache] now, and I just love it. We take the grandkids with us, and it's got us out together, walking around and getting exercise.''
In search of a Dragon
Despite high gas prices and a motor home that gets around eight miles a gallon, the Richards aren't afraid to go out of their way for Geocaching. On their way home from California this winter, they found a Travel Bug in a cache in New Mexico that was headed for a place called Dragon, Miss.
A Travel Bug is an item that can be purchased from the Geocaching.com Web site and planted in a cache with instructions on where it is supposed to go. Players who take Travel Bugs agree to help the item on its way, and Travel Bug owners can track its travels online and change the item's mission after it reaches one destination.
Although the Richards were able to find Dragon, Miss., on a map, they couldn't locate the town once they arrived in the area. Finally, they stopped to ask a bunch of firefighters for directions and learned that Dragon was a passenger train stop during World War I and hasn't existed in decades.
Despite the confusion, Sharon said the experience provided a great opportunity to meet local residents and tell them about Geocaching. She said it also gave her and Darrell a story to share with the geocacher in Duluth, Minn., who owns the Travel Bug.
''We've always been travelers,'' Sharon said. ''This fits right into our lifestyle and adds a bit more interest to the areas we go to.''
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