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Geocaching: hi-tech treasure hunting

What is geocaching? Well, according to geocaching.com it is this:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

This past weekend in Saskatoon, Pearce Kilgour and I went on a geocaching search. There was a couple of caches he hadn’t found that we tried finding. Unfortunately, we had no luck in finding them. He did show me one he had found one the university campus. Of which there are several.

Geocaching is really just a hi-tech treasure hunt. But it’s a great way to get out and see new things. Pearce and I stopped at Raoul Wallenberg Park, just off 8th Street in Saskatoon. Across from the park was a really nice looking church, and a well designed house. Pearce mentioned that coming to the place in the evening was spectacular, as the lights added a great deal to the area.

A problem with geocaching can be it’s really, really dirty. It’s a treasure hunt after all. But don’t go into the field wearing your Sunday best. I learned the hard way you can get filthy by rooting around in a spruce tree. The sleeve of my coat became quite sticky with sap.

When you’re out searching for cache sites, there’s often a few tell tale markers that a cache is out there. Something that gives a bit of a clue as to where the actually box is. And the box can be anything from the size of a matchbox to a coffee tin. Some people leave little trinkets inside the larger ones, and in the smaller ones, there’s just enough room for a small piece of paper. Usually there is at least a log book.

In Saskatoon, there are hundreds of caches, and even in a small town like Outlook there are a few. Eight, from what I’ve learned.

To make the adventure a bit easier, most hunters use a GPS unit. A lot of the cache sites are uploaded to a main site, and then can be downloaded for one’s own GPS unit. Sometimes, however, a cache can be missing or destroyed, either by those not know what it’s for (often called muggled) or by an animal that’s just been curious.

A few of the interesting things that we did find while on our caching adventure on the weekend was the odd things of nature that we saw. Such as the massive tumble weed wedged into a tree. I don’t know if there actually was any way that this thing could have ended up just being blown into the trees on the University of Saskatchewan campus, but it was there. It looked like a small tree itself, really. It also brought about another danger, that being twigs and branches the either smack in the face or poke constantly while doing a search. Some of these caches were in very hard to find places. As you can see, we had to grab a snap of the “small tree” that tried to call itself a tumble weed.