Geocaching - My Newest Hobbie

A lot of you may have heard of this sport, but most of you probably have no idea of how big it already is and how big it will become. Geocaching is the sport of finding caches that people have hid all over the world. That's right, the world. A cache is generally a small box (usually an ammo box, a jar, or a film cannister) that contains a log of people that have found it and sometimes other objects and trinkets such as pins, keychains, pocket knives, rubber figures, etc. If you take an object you are supposed to leave one, so until I have something to leave I won't be taking anything. There are literally hundreds of thousands of caches in the world (maybe more). In my zip code alone (92127), there are 217 of them, and that's a primarily suburban area.

The way it works is there is an official website, www.geocaching.com, where you can search for geocaches in the area you want to explore. The posting describing the cache will give you the coordinates in degrees, minutes, and seconds, as well as a description of the cache and maybe a few hints on how to find it. The hints are usually coded because the idea is to try and find it without the hints first, and then if you can't you decode the hint for additional help. They also rate the caches in terms of difficulty and terrain. One if found was right underneath a sign at a soccer park. I would consider that to be an easy one. Someone once told me of a hard one that was out 15 feet deep chained to the bottom of Mission Bay, where you literally have to swim out to find it, bring it to shore to sign the log, then swim it back. Most of the caches I have found are buried under a few rocks.

To find the cache, you should have a GPS. I have a Garmin GPSMap 60CS, and it usually gets me within 1 - 4 feet of where the cache is. You input the coordinates as a waypoint (they can also be downloaded directly into the GPS), then you tell the GPS you want to find it, and it tells you with an arrow the general direction you should head, the distance you are from the cache, and the estimated time of arrival to the cache.

After finding the cache I open it, sign the log, say a few comments, and hide the cache the same way I found it for the next person. Then I go home and record my find on the geocaching.com website. To the right you can see my current stats. I've only found 8 so far, but I am hooked. It's like treasure hunting, and some poeple are obsessed with it (hopefully I don't go that far). Some people have found over 1,000 caches already.

There is a lot more to tell, and I can't give all the details now, but I'd be happy to tell you what I know if you ever want to try it out. Hiking is still supreme, and Peakbagging is king, but you might as well hunt for a few caches along the way for an additional challenge!