Geocaching.com

This is the funnest past time EVER! I heard about it a few years ago in meeting. I hadn't had the opportunity to follow up on it and try it out till recently and it is soo fun! We went geocaching on the 12.25th since there was nothing better to do and this last 4 day weekend went out again. 6 for 6 finds! Sproggs got their first true finds too. 11y/o daughter found one that 2 previous groups couldn't find. How Proud I Am.

Check out some of the Geocaching videos on YouTube.

For Android users: c:geo go there from your droids look for the "open source" version. It's free.

Also: GPS Status Free as well from market.

These are great tools and keep you from having to buy a stand alone GPS device. This weekend the GPS Gods were finding favor in me and I had some serious GeoSense going on.

Fun family activities.

I did some geocaching awhile back. I enjoyed it but I have to admit that I more enjoyed just going to areas I had either never been to before or that I hadn't visited in a long time. The actual searching for the cache, not so much. Might have found the cache-finding more fun if I had sproggs for helpers cuz the dog didn't give a hoot.

At that time, there were a lot of geocaching events across the state. I did one once and it was a lot of fun. You might want to check that out. Great family fun.

There was a geocaching event held at Stewart Park recently (9/10/11 at 12 actually. ) Lots of fun. I have been geocaching for a few years now and enjoy it greatly. Funky is right.. it takes you to places you may never have gone to otherwise. There are a couple of other geocachers that post on GHT as well. There are some great caches around here... I even have a few hidden out there also.

We missed that event. But there was a cache placed for the event. It was out first family find, I believe. Missed it by a week or so. I will be hiding a few out here too. The sproggs love watching youtube videos to get ideas.

Cute. So, I suppose there would be one on October 11th this year at 1 o'clock, then. I don't do it, but it sounds like a nice way to get some outside recreation with the whole fam-damily.

Yeah, this has inspired me to check out my account at geocaching.com and see what caches are around. Since the actual finding of the cache tended to frustrate me, I had thought to try my luck at finding benchmarks. So I might go out and try a couple of those...if the weather ever clear up, that is.

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/default.aspx

Incognita was kind enough to take me on a couple of her adventures...darn close to a decade ago when we had to print out paper instructions. I think the smartphone app is going to make it easier to just go out and do without as much pre-planning.

Here's a cheat sheet for benchmark and other survey markers.

Geocaching!

I haven't been out for a couple of months but most of my caching these days involves hiking (with my kids) some indeterminate amount of miles out in the boonies on any given weekend. We closed in on a couple hundred hike-miles this summer (May through early October)... every trail had a cache somewhere on it.

We hit Ancient Lakes in July (it was OMG hot):



I'm also pretty good at hiking an indeterminate amount of miles out to where there is a cache and not bothering to log it...

I believe there were at least three caches on the trails between Source, Snow and Gem lakes out of Alpental. Members of the party I was with signed two of the three and in theory, we left the cache on the small peak directly across from where this photo was taken for a later date:



I signed a logbook at the lake before the OMG amazing Blanca Lake in mid-September (3400' elevation gain over 4 miles in 90 degree weather - oh, the flies!), but neglected to sign the one at the lake itself:



We also did a virtual cache and a earthcache on the north side of Mt. St. Helens a few weeks later:



The last time I drug out my derring-do was in mid-October. I have a cache on an abandoned RR bridge that had been targeted for steel harvesting. There had been some damage reported (beams cut) and my cache, which had been there since early 2005, had been reported missing. I crawled over the side of the decking and replaced the missing cache container. I took a photo of this sign (left by the vandals?) preceding my cache:



Funky - if you haven't found this benchmark, you should. I was out there a couple of weeks ago... the building in the picture is no longer standing, but the marker is still there:

Benchmark on the waterfront

Ive always wanted to go GeoCaching. Sounds fun.