Kitsap Sun Coverage

[+Bull Moose]

The Kitsap Sun had a nice story on geocaching today. (Registration required, but free.)

It may be the first article I read without the term "buried treasue" in it. In fact about the only error I saw is the fact that the reporter thinks that all 100+ caches in the Bremerton Cache Machine are located in Schold Farm.

Congrats to the "slightly eccentric geo-geekl" Fledermaus on the article, especially after I bailed on him the day before due to a medical appointment.

Edited June 10, 2005 by Bull Moose

[+W7WT]

Yes it was a nice article. But who was that handsome fellow in the picture posing as Ray? Wouldn't it be nice if there was 100+ caches at Schold Farm. Then the Cache Machine wouldn't have to drive all over the place. Dick, W7WT

Edited June 10, 2005 by W7WT

[+soreyes]

(Registration required, but free.)

BugMeNot

[+soreyes]

I Love geocaching, but never quite saw it in this light before just now. I don't know if I wanna be 'That Guy':

 

"the guy with the metal detector religiously combing the beach for lost jewelry and coins"

[+Stump]

I Love geocaching, but never quite saw it in this light before just now. I don't know if I wanna be 'That Guy':

 

"the guy with the metal detector religiously combing the beach for lost jewelry and coins"

Yeah, that's an interesting comparison. Though I have on occasion used a metal detector to find or verify missing a cache it doesn't seem to me to be very similar to the guy on the beach.

[+Bull Moose]

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!"