geocaching for exercise

[emerten]

Hi. I need some advice. I'm a wellness director at a downtown YMCA in Tennessee and I wanted to start a geocaching program at my branch. I recently purchased an etrex Legend thinking that the setup would be self explanatory. Obviously I'm technologically challenged. Do I need to order maps from Mapsource? I figured all I needed was a gps unit. I need the whole process, from turning the device on to following the directions to the waypoints to be as simple as possible so my members can pick up on it with ease. Any advice?

[+DanOCan]

If you have a GPS unit you have all you need -- everything else just builds on top of that to either add functionality and/or to make things easier.

 

Thousands of people got started in caching by picking a cache and manually entering the coordinates into the GPSr and then setting out to find it armed with nothing more than an arrow pointing the way and a distance readout. Heck, that's how I did it for the longest time too.

 

The next logical step typically becomes getting maps. There seem to be two basic schools of maps: the street maps and the topo maps. Street maps (such as City Navigator) are great for urban areas and getting you close to the cache in your car. Topo maps are much more useful for on the trail where knowing the locations of streams and hills becomes more useful. Do they help? Oh yeah, big time. Can you cache without them? Sure, but it will be harder. Maps are expensive which doesn't help either. (I keep both types on my GPSr and switch between them as needed.)

 

Armed with maps most people then move into a paid-membership so they can take advantage of Pocket Queries and/or Caches Along a Route. PQs allow you to download information on up to 1500 caches per day (5 queries x 500 caches). You can then use tools like the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) to filter, sort and manipulate the data anyway you want. Again, it is useful for many people but is by no means necessary.

 

Now, armed with all this data from a PQ, people want to have it with them in the field. They'll either have a newer unit like the Garmin Colorado which will accept the files directly or they'll dump it onto a PDA of some sort. This is the infamous "paperless caching" which is so often discussed on these forums.

 

Every cacher finds their own happy point along this technology scale, based on their own technical skills, the types of caching they like to do, etc. I certainly recommend that people start with just a GPSr and try it out and save the money spent on maps and things until they are sure they will find caching something they want to do.

[+Packanack]

Go to this link:

http://members.shaw.ca/cacheme/pages/groups.htm

 

Find Tennessee and click on the nearest group. Ask them if they know of someone who might be willing to come in and give the soup to nuts talk and explanation. It has been my experience that Geocachers love to yack and love to introduce others to their hobby. Some of them can even be used as a sleep aid.

 

Geocaching per se is not exercise, the exercise comes from the hiking, the biking, the walking, the mix of activities.

Edited September 16, 2008 by Packanack

[cliffsheets]

I think geocaching can be a great exercise. My favorite is in a downtown setting. I recently entered several coordinates of GeoCaches located in Downtown Houston. One afternoon, I walked around Houston for 3 hours and found 8 out of the 11 caches.

 

I would never have walked for 3 hours straight on a treadmill.

 

I hope your YMCA'ers enjoy it as much as I do. I just wish I had more free time to do it more often.

 

For Thanksgiving, when I'm in Utah, my brother and I plan to do a walking tour of downtown Salt Lake City.

[jholly]

I think geocaching can be a great exercise. My favorite is in a downtown setting. I recently entered several coordinates of GeoCaches located in Downtown Houston. One afternoon, I walked around Houston for 3 hours and found 8 out of the 11 caches.

 

I would never have walked for 3 hours straight on a treadmill.

 

I hope your YMCA'ers enjoy it as much as I do. I just wish I had more free time to do it more often.

 

For Thanksgiving, when I'm in Utah, my brother and I plan to do a walking tour of downtown Salt Lake City.

 

To each his own. I prefer walking trails in woods and when I go to the San Francisco bay area going to the regional parks. You can walk for more than 3 hours going after these type of hides.

 

Jim

[+rambrush]

Geocaching for exercise is great, I have done about 20 miles since Sunday. 6 hours retrieving a cache on top of a mountain. So look at the terrain ratings the tougher they are the better for your heart rate.

Guess in your area you would miss out on Cholla and Cat claw which adds to the fun.

[+vw_k]

If you are looking to introduce geocaching to people as a means of excersise then look for a series of caches along a trail or path in your area, this could make a nice walk/cycle and you shouldn't need mapping on your gps if the trail is easy to follow.

 

Taking a paper map along with you is another option, this also enables you to know where you are if your gpsr runs out of battery!

[A.B.E.L.]

Geocaching is great "accidental exercise".

 

[Whacked]

You can also strap your GPSr onto a mountain bike.

Dual purpose the, cruise around in urban areas or off the pavement.

'course not all trails allow mountain bikes so for those you hike it.

 

I bought a bike mount for my GPSr, then bought appropriate tires.

Now i'm set for exercise and geocashing

[+Bad_CRC]

Hi. I need some advice. I'm a wellness director at a downtown YMCA in Tennessee and I wanted to start a geocaching program at my branch. I recently purchased an etrex Legend thinking that the setup would be self explanatory. Obviously I'm technologically challenged. Do I need to order maps from Mapsource? I figured all I needed was a gps unit. I need the whole process, from turning the device on to following the directions to the waypoints to be as simple as possible so my members can pick up on it with ease. Any advice?

 

That's the unit I have. It's a nice starter unit.

 

 

you do not need to purchase anything else to geocache. You don't need road maps, and you don't need to buy any software. Once you start geocaching, you may want to, and you most likely will want to get a premium membership for pocket queries, but not yet. Try it out first, then worry about being addicted.

 

-----------

 

assuming you have a data cable, and can hook it to your computer, you are most of the way there.

 

plug the cable into your unit on one side, and your computer on the other side.

 

Go to geocaching.com and find the first cache you want to search for.

 

On that geocaching page you will see a link "send to garmin" That is all you need. Click that link. You will be prompted to install some software, just keep hitting "ok" on all the prompts that come up, and it'll install at all the default values, which are fine.

 

Now, go back to that page, and turn on your GPS which is still plugged into your computer. Hit the Send to Garmin button again, and your GPS will show "transfer complete" meaning the coordinates have now downloaded into your GPS.

 

If you look at the google map on the cache page, you should see about where you need to go. Once you drive to the starting point for your search, you can turn your GPS on.

 

Once your GPS warms up, click the large button on the top right side until you see the map. You should see an arrow where you are standing, as well as a little treasure chest icon that represents the geocache. if you don't see the treasure chest icon, press the small buttons on the lower left side until you see just the arrow and the treasure chest icon on your screen.

 

Now you'll want to use the joystick on top. move it till you have highlighted the first of the two buttons in the top right corner of the screen, and click. You will get a drop down menu, one of which says "pan map" select this, and you can move a cursor around the screen until it is pointing at the treasure chest icon. Select this, and you will get a new screen with a button that says "go to" hit that button to start your search.

 

From this point, an easy way is to watch the map, making sure the arrow which represents you points at the treasure chest. Some people prefer to watch the "distance from waypoint" and walk in a direction that makes those numbers go down.

 

Experiment a bit, you'll probably spend a lot of time going in the wrong direction until you get the hang of it.

 

Once you get near the waypoint, the GPS will show a message "arriving at destination" from this point you are pretty much on your own. The GPS will not accurately get you closer than 20 feet or so reliably. Start to look around for a location where a container could be hidden. If it's an old geocache, and you are in the woods, it's usually pretty easy to find a trail right to the cache where previous cachers have trampled the vegetation, this is very handy once you start to look for it.

 

good luck.