The Begining!
First thing you want to do is buy a GPS. They range from $79 to $599 and don't let
the price fool you. I started out with the basement GPS and it worked very well
(For the price) Over the years I have moved up to better GPS's but I still have my
first GPS as a back up. You then go to Geocaching.com or Navicache.com
and pick an area that you want to find a cache in. Once you find the area, You can
look for a cache to go find. When you find the cache you want to go get, Print it out.
You want to take it with you on your first hunt as everything you will need is on that print out.
You will then enter the cache. The numbers where the cache is located at is
called the Way point. The way point is the point on the earth which you are now
going to go and find the cache at.
Once you are in the car, I like to bring up the compass. This compass is not like a
hiking compass. This compass points to the way you need to go and will tell you
how far you have to go. It stops working when the car stops unlike a hiking
compass that is a true compass.
For this cache. Once I found the parking spot, I did not
have a long trek to the cache. Again, Just follow the compass.
Here I am down to 122 feet. you can see the little circle between
the 1 and 2 of 122 and the compass is pointing at it. This is telling
me that I need to walk to the right a little to get the compass
pointing straight up and then walk 122 feet .
The compass has me to the edge of the woods. Sometimes the
compass does not point to a trail or access point to a trail. The
compass can not see anything in the way. It is just telling you
how to get there from point A to point B. The path in between
is up to you :O)
Some people will try and make a trail. This is called Lead Piping or
bush whacking. Both of these words are dirty words from the parks
stand point. If you look around you will more or less find a trail back
to the cache. Most of the parks love having us in the parks but not
if we show up and make our own trails. Take a little time and see if
you can find the best way to enter the woods to the cache. Remember
they trust us to do the right thing, Respect the hobby!
Looking at the GPS I can see that it's now right in front of me
and it's only 38 feet away.
I am starting to walk past it as you can see that it's to my right at
only 9 feet!
I can't see the cache so I check my print out again. At the botttom of the
sheet they sometimes have clues. This one has a clue that says to look
under some brush!
Looking under the brush I can see the box!
Being that it's summer at the time I am geocaching here. I go in
slow as I know that I am now in the "home" of wild critters. You want to
look before putting your hand into a hole or under a rock. or into the weeds.
We open up the cache and can see everything is in plastic bags to
help keep the stash nice and dry.
The caches come in all sizes, This is another type of cache. It's an
M&M container with a small log book in it. The cache page will
tell you what kind of cache your are looking for. This little cache is
called a Micro Cache. Caches can be just about any size or type.
I open up the bags and take everything out to see what's in this
cache. You can see it has alot of nice little stuff inside.
Taking a look you can see a Jeep travel bug to the Bottom Right and a
Stormtrooper Travel bug center left. You can see rubber snakes, Fireman,
Coins and alot of other fun stuff. You can take one of these items but you
should leave an item of the same value. This will help make it nice
for the next cache when they find this cache. Then you want to
write in the log what you left and removed from the cache.
(More about that to come)
(Travel Bugs) A travel bug is a dog tag that you can buy from Geocaching.com
It has a number on it so that it can be tracked. What you do is, Pick up the travel
bug and take it home. You enter the number on Geocaching.com and it will put it
into your personal data. When you visit another cache and you drop that travel bug
into that cache, When you go and log it on Geocaching.com, You will see at the
bottom of your screen the travel bug you picked up and logged. Just click on it
and when you save the message, It will put the bug into the cache you are now logging.
Inside of most caches you will find a sheet of paper like this one. This
is a sheet that will tell someone who happens to find the cache who is not
looking for the cache, What geocaching is. If you have no idea what Geocaching
is and you stumble across it in the woods, This is the only thing that will help
tell them the story of why this box is here and the hope they will not take or
destroy it!
Inside the same bag as the sheet about you will find a log book, A
pen and some other stuff. This is where you write your name and
what you took and what you left for the cache. You will see things
like (TFTC=Thanks for the Cache) (T=Took) (L=Left) (TB=Travel Bug)
(TNLN=Took Nothing Left Nothing) As you gain time in this hobby you
will pick up on alot of other letters and lingo.
Things that are good to have! I have a back pack to put all of my stuff in
for my hikes.
I carry stuff like Pens to write with just in case the cache does not
have a pen and almost all micro do not have pens because they are too small
for a pen to fit.
I also carry a note pad. Sometimes I like to write down the things I find
or places I have been to so I can have a story to tell other cachers and
share those places for them to visit/
A flashlight!
And when you hold it the right way it works much better :O)
I take along Geocoins that I have made. I put one of these in every
cache I find. I use to make ID Cards and before that it was a
pen with my ID on it. Next year I will do something different. I change my
logo about every 6 months to fit what I am doing at that time.
Another really nice thing to carry is these: They are
small trash bags. You can but them just about every where.
During the summer I carry bug spray. I like the kids spray as it
doesn't smell as bad as adult spray and it works almost as well. Also
I carry it because my kid loves the woods more than I do :O)
I like to carry those small trash bags for stuff like this! I find
this stuff all the time. Geocaching has a saying (CITO)
which stands for Cache In Trash Out. Alway leave it
cleaner than you found it. Ohio Groups like SWOGO
and MVG do CITO Events each year. Next year it
will be April 29th 2006. These are listed on Geocaching.com
and on the ODNR Website. Other groups around the world
do CITO's at different times and places.
And just like that. I have a small bag of trash and I am
leaving it cleaner than I found it.
The is alot more to Geocaching and we will get into that in
our next chapter. We hope this will help you get started in
Geocaching. If you need any help at all, Please write me
at TeamJedi@swogo.org
Or you can stop by one of these Geocaching Sites
HTTP://MVGeo.com
HTTP://Swogo.org
HTTP://Syberspace.net
HTTP:/Tristategeocachers.com
HTTP://Geocaching.com
HTTP://Navicache.com
If you would like to link to Geocaching 101? please do! If you do and would like
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