Advice for a Geocaching Competition?

[Sea to Sea Trail Geocaching Challenge]

Hi folks, I'm with the San Diego Sea to Sea Trail Foundation (www.seatoseatrail.org) - we're helping to build a 140-mile multi-use Trail that runs from the Pacific Ocean to the Salton Sea, CA - the Trail's about 85% complete. We're keen to host a geocaching competition along the entire length of the Trail to help promote not only the Trail but our environmental education efforts and, of course, geocaching. We have a sponsor who's agreed to donate 25 great prizes (so we thought 25 caches) - each cache having a raffle ticket to return to the Foundation for entry into the prize draw. We'd also like to add more goodies to the cache so that not only just one person benefits from finding it. We'd also like to keep the caches going far beyond the end of the competition. My query - has anyone organized a similar competition and do you have any ideas or advice to make this one a real winner. I'd appreciate any feedback!

cheers

Kristen

[enfanta]

You might want to talk to TEAM KFWB GPS. I bet they have much to say about leaving valuable goodies in caches!

 

X is for X, and X marks the spot, On the rug in the parlor, The sand in the lot, Where once you were standing, And now you are not.

[+Don&Betty]

It's tough to rig geocaching as a competetive sport. You ought to avoid any time element that makes it into a race. And, over a 140 mile span, you can't expect people to have an equal oportunity to find many or all the caches along the entire length. Certainly, all the caches placed ought to be permenant ones, and good challenging well hidden ones.

 

Here's an idea. There's more to geocaching than hunting and finding caches. There is the even greater activities of hiding them and of composing challenging puzzles etc. related to determining the coordinates to hunt for.

 

With this in mind, I suggest, that a competition to promote geocaching along the trail, and for parsing out the prizes you have for that purpose, perhaps ought to be aimed at challenging geocachers to place excellent caches along the trail. Then judge how well the cache is presented and hidden, and how much fun someone has in finding it.

 

A prize winning cache placement would be judged (either by a committee or by a vote from cache finders) after considering how entertaining it was to solve, seek and find it. An entrant would prepare and hide a cache, compose the puzzle if there is one, prepare the HTML listing, etc. He would then write a description of all this to submit to the committee, extolling why he feels this is a prize winner.

 

(Everyone isn't equal in HTML, so you can't give too much credit (at this time) for this HTML presentation. The competition wants to be for geocaching, not for HTML coding.)

 

Ideally, of course, the committee ought to merely act as a team to solve, hunt and find each and every one hidden, then judge them for excellence. This way the same judges see and experience them all. Were the judging left to people at large who find them, the same judges would not see them all. Some out of the way cache may not get so many finders and votes. Also, each such judge would have his own likes and dislikes, so probably would not judge based on all aspects equally and fairly.

 

On the other hand, who cares who wins--it's a game. What's important is that good geocaches be placed, a variety of which being challenging and fun in different ways for all different tastes.

[+Don&Betty]

Since this is a worthy cause, and since there will be some worthy prizes, there ought to be a way that people from all over the world (who may not be able to actually get to San Diego to hide or seek a cache) may compete somehow.

 

Perhaps some division of the competition might be limited to submitting the composition of a puzzle for determining the coordinates of a cache (that some other, local volunteer person might then be assigned/permitted to place somewhere along the trail at a later time).

 

Or, a division of the competition might relate to new and novel means of implementing the discovered decoding of successive stages of a multi cache.

[+spinwebby]

With regard to leaving valuables in caches for an event, at our last Cache Bash event in Iowa, we put "coupons" in the caches that people would have to redeem at registration. That way, they are only useful to registered competitors.

 

I do like the idea of people around the world being able to compete, too. Hmmm, I'll have to think on that for our upcoming June 7th event in Omaha, Nebraska.

 

BTW, June 7th is a good time for geocaching activities as its National Trails Day. We've got ours listed on the official NTD web site and hope that'll bring us a few extra people.

 

Good Luck!!!

 

SpinWebby

www.gpgeocaching.com

 

[Sea to Sea Trail Geocaching Challenge]

Thanks for all your advice, folks! It's very much appreciated. We'd like to hold the event annually, thus there's good opportunities for incorporating many of your suggestions - especially opening the event somehow to non-San Diego residents.

cheers

Kristen