Text of the article:
HIGH-TECH SCAVENGER HUNTS
Geocaching is exploding in popularity in the Kitsap region.
By Chris Henry, chenry@kitsapsun.com, June 10, 2005
If this were the '80s, Ray Reese would be the guy with the metal detector
religiously combing the beach for lost jewelry and coins. These days, he's using
21st century technology - a handheld GPS (global positioning system device) -
and searching for a different kind of treasure. On any given afternoon, you'll
likely find Reese hiking through local woods or across fields, checking
coordinates on his GPS to locate one point after another, following clues that
lead him forward, like a trail of breadcrumbs someone left along the way.
At last the treasure is at hand.
When the device shows he's closing in, he searches likely (and unlikely) hiding
places until - Eureka! - he finds it. He bends to check the cache, opening the
lid to reveal small plastic toys, keychains and sundry other articles of
negligible value.
Not stuff a guy with a metal detector would have been excited about, but then
that's not the point of the mission. For Reese, a Bremerton resident - and the
far-flung network of others like him - the intrigue of geocaching (pronounced
"geo-cashing") is not so much in the stash itself, but the hunt that leads them
to it.
Geocaching, a cross country scavenger hunt aided by GPS navigation, was born
near Portland, Ore., in 2000, and has spread like wildfire across the country
and throughout the world. Its popularity has grown exponentially in Kitsap
County since 2001, when there were but four officially registered caches. Today
there are well over 200, and an untold number of local geocachers.
It's an activity that not only allows for exericse - both physically and
mentally - but it's not all that expensive. And it's certainly more than family
friendly.
On June 18, the county will host for the second time the Bremerton Cache
Machine, a marathon cache hunt held at Schold Farm in Central Kitsap. The event
is expected to draw geocachers of all ages, and all levels of experience, from
around the Puget Sound region.
Playing with cache
Geocaching is an impromptu sport/game that calls on participants to hide and
find weatherproof containers filled with toys, knick knacks and a log book
visitors can sign. Cachers have their own lingo. They jostle over who'll be FTF
("first to find") a cache newly posted on geocaching.com or other similar Web
sites. They tally their finds like counting coup; Reese has 587 and knows
cachers who have more than 2,000.
They welcome "newbies," but are wary of "muggles," non-caching folk, who might -
intentionally or not - disturb their sites. Their game is deadly serious, all in
fun. Cachers list sites and track their finds on the Internet, where they are
known by nicknames, much like the "handles" of CB radio days. Reese, aka
"Fledermaus," maintains nearly 40 caches of his own, most here in Kitsap County,
and delights in confounding searchers with ever more mind bending puzzles.
How sneaky can you get?
The simplest caches require searchers to locate the site using a single set of
coordinates on the GPS. Sounds easy, right? But how many ways are there to hide
a cache? Reese has caches hidden within fence posts, tree stumps and even a fake
log he fabricated. He has micro caches smaller than a matchbook, and macro
caches, in which searchers stand inside the cache (in this case branches of
Kitsap Regional Library). He's even got a cache in an Altoids can attached by
magnets somewhere on the Manette Bridge.
Like other cache masters, Reese has devised caches that require decoding of
encrypted messages. He has caches that can only be found at night with an LED
flashlight and caches in which one has to solve a mensa-like puzzle. One of his
trickiest spells out, "Kiss my cache." Globally, there are caches under the
ocean and high in the Himalayas. And there are probably caches right under your
nose at your neighborhood park.
Family fare
Geocaching is not only for slightly eccentric geogeeks like Reese, a
semi-retired electronics technician who sports a long gray ponytail, a plastic
upside down bat on his baseball cap (fledermaus is bat in German) and a terminal
enthusiasm for the chase. The sport has attracted many families as well. "It
just sounded like something fun to do with my family," said Karen DeLacey of
Port Orchard, who, with her husband, Jim, and sons Josh, 13, and Ben, 10,
adopted the group name "Komfort Travelers."
"We like going on hikes. It makes it more interesting to have a goal. We see
things on vacation we never would have seen if we hadn't been into geocaching."
On a summer trip to the Grand Canyon, the family located a virtual cache in a
semi-remote fire tower. In this variation of the game, there was no cache to
open. The DeLaceys merely submitted proof they were there in the form of a photo
to claim their cache.
Karen DeLacey notes that geocaching exercises the brain along with the body. Her
younger son sailed through elementary geography because he was already familiar
with the concepts of latitude and longitude on which the GPS navigational system
is based.
Caching in
Getting started in geocaching is relatively easy. A functional entry level GPS
will run you around $100, says Reese; prices go up from there depending on the
accuracy of the unit and attendant bells and whistles.
Web sites like geocaching.com give introductory tutorials and more information
than most can absorb in one sitting. Perhaps the best way is to just get out and
take a stab at it, as Bill Kern and his son, Derek, 14, of Poulsbo did at a
recent geocaching class at Belfair's Theler Wetlands. The Kerns had a
discouraging start, having hiked a fair distance in the wrong direction. They
got help from Dick Cockrell and his nephew, Erick Medcalf, of Bremerton, who
nudged them toward a site the two had found earlier. "Under the elbow is where I
lie," read the clue given by instructor Chris Reynolds.
Zeroing in on the coordinates, the Kerns found a bend or elbow in the boardwalk
through a marshy area. Derek leaned over and pulled up an ammo box, opening it
to find a plastic lady bug, a toy boat and quote from environmentalist Bill
Ruckelshaus, "nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our
appetites."
"We don't know what we're doing," said Bill, "but I guess we're having fun.
We're not home working or cleaning house!"
