Introduction to Geocaching:
When I was a kid, my friends and I used to bury stuff and pretend it was pirate treasure. We buried all sorts of stuff around the yard and in the woods near our house. Sometimes when burying treasures we would find trash and debris from long ago, this was very exciting even though it was only stuff like pull tabs from beer cans. One day while out roaming the woods with my friend we saw a man with a metal detector. He walked around scanning the ground and would pause to cut a circular shaped plug in the ground and dig for some piece of metal his detector had found. Mostly he found spent .22 rifle shell casings and then tossed everthing back in the hole he dug and replaced the grass plug. We followed him all thru the woods and as soon as he left, we ran over to all the places he found things and re-dug them up to retrieve the rifle casings. Even though it was just junk, it was really fun to find.




Now I am many years older and have kids of my own, I was considering buying a metal detector so I could take my kids out hunting for treasure. Just as I was about to start watching eBay for a metal detector, I heard about this neat game called Geocaching. This is a game where people go hide containers and publish their GPS coordinates so others can find the stashes later.

The principles of the game are simple: when you find a site, 1 - take something, 2 - leave something, 3 - write in the log. Seems like most containers start with 5 small treasures in them, the treasure being almost anything that fits in the container. Almost anything qualifies as a treasure, even something as simple as a set of shoe strings, or wooden nickle.

The container sizes vary too - the largest ones seem to be 5 gallon buckets buried so that just the lid is accessable and usually covered by leaves and debris to hide them. The smallest container I have heard of is a film canister - this is a "micro-stash". My favorite size is a clear plastic rubbermaid screw top container, about 8" tall and 6" diameter. I like clear containers because that way I can put the intro message in the containers so it can be read without opening the jar. Also just to be on the paranoid side - if the container is clear you can check to make sure there isn't a bomb in there.

Spoilers and Hunting Philosophy:
There has been great amounts of discussion about how much a cache hunter should be told about the cache site & how to get there. Some people feel that only the GPS coordinates should be give out, and others feel everything should be exposed including the starting contents of the cache container. I am one of the "expose everything" types, because the reward for me is the journey to the cache site. The treasure I take (it doesn't matter if it is a simple shirt button, or a fancy GameBoy) is a trophy and reminder of that journey. So if you visit one of my sites, please feel free to publish pictures of your adventure and list the treasures you found and left.


Why are my caches so easy?:
My motto - "Tough to get to, easy to find". After talking to other geocachers about my failure to find sites, I have become aware that many cache sites have been visited multiple times by people and never found. The geocachers don't log the failed visit, so the cache's hider doesn't know how hard their site is to find. Not finding a site is dissapointing, and especially dissapointing if you traveled with kids or came from another state (one of my sites was visited by a couple vacationing from Florida).

When ever I go leave a cache or go hunting for one, I take my kids with me. They get so excited about looking for hidden "Pirate" treasure! We tromp around looking at the arrow on the GPS, watching the compass turn circles, and searching for that hidden box of goodies. I envision other people doing the same with their kids, so I have made a point to make enough clues and pictures available that seeking one of my caches will have a very high probablility of finding it. If you want a dificult time, just copy the coordinates and go hunting by those alone.