Geocaching

The Nilssen Family has a new hobby – “Geocaching.” For those who do not know what Geocaching is, there is a website Geocaching.com.  On this website are coordinates where people have stashed little treasure boxes.  They are all over the place – thousands of them.  Each “cache” has a description and a sign in sheet and maybe a small treasure.  I had heard of it, but never tried it. Here is a screen shot – each “cache’' shows as a box on the map.  You click on it and get a hint of what you are looking for, the coordinates, and you can view a log to see how many people found it and how many people could not find it.

Last week at scouts Soren discussed geocaching with a fellow scout and became interested in giving it a shot.  We downloaded the coordinates for a cache located at Jakes Wetland into the ETrex GPS  and went to look for it.  The ETrex is an early generation device and did not have the accuracy to find the cache, plus is was raining and we did not know what we were doing.
On Saturday we decided to look for “Sierra Canyon 3” the description of the cache was a “camouflaged honey bear” thats it. We set out up the Canyon.  It wound up being a longer hike than we originally planned.  About 2.4 miles round trip 600-feet elevation gain.  I downloaded a GPS app on my I Phone and had the coordinates typed in.  It really put us right on top of the cache.  The ETrex has us 46-feet away.  We would not have found the cache with the ETrex:

Soren was actually the one who located it.  He was so excited – shaking with excitement, "Ohh Ohh, I found it!", our first successful cache!  We didn't know it, but all caches have sign in sheets.  We didn't have a pen, but now we know better for next time.  They also may have small trinkets, so we need to buy something to stick in the cache next time.

When you find a cache, you go back to geocaching.com and log in your results.  It changes the “box” on the screen to a yellow smiley face.  If you don’t find it it changes into a blue frustrated face.  Our cache up Sierra Canyon shows our successful find:

We have been up Sierra Canyon more than a dozen times and usually make it to a stream crossing.  This was the farthest we have ever made it, all so that we could find a camouflage honey bear.  Good bribe.

After church on Sunday we decided that we did not want to go on a long family hike because of the hike yesterday.  We loaded up two geocaches into the I phone and went to look for them.  Liv asked where we were going and I told her to find geocaches.  She threw her arms into the air “I love to find geocaches” and she ran to car. We went back to the wetland and this time we found the geocache. Soren had the IPhone and lead us to the location. It was difficult to find.  Looked like a normal irrigation sprinkler:

Almost went right past it, but since yesterdays experience I knew better what I was looking for.  Luckily before we left house Svea handed me a pen so that we could sign the sheet:

Lastly we went to River Fork Ranch in Genoa to look for one other cache and hike a little.  This one was hard to find.  I was ready to give up.  Svea was about 10’ away from the coordinates and turned over a log.  Success!!! Kind of like a world wide Easter Egg Hunt.

This one had a tiny pink ring.  We need to buy some stuff to put back in these, but we left a mouse skull that we had found.  The value of the ring and mouse skull was about equal value so I don’t feel too bad:

So that’s our new hobby.  Fits our family perfectly.  Combines technology and hiking which is 100% Soren’s perfect match.  He has fun with the GPS alone, this will really get him out.  Dad pointed out it is too bad there are not some neighborhood kids with bikes that they could go around town finding geocaches.  Thats how it would have been back in my time with kids all over the neighborhood, but we really don't have any here - its odd, all old people.  Its exciting and now we know what we are looking for.  I have always been interested in trying geocaching, but have always been a little intimidated.

So this summer in Monterrey, Island Park, Big Trees State Park, we are going to have to bring some coordinates and look for some of these.  We need to stash a few for fun.

Dad – there is one by your house next to the church – you need to go get it.