Geocaching is something that a lot of people are doing nowadays. It’s easy, it gets you outside, you can pick your skill level, and its family friendly. You simply need a GPS, access to a website such as www.geocaching.com, and off you go on mystery adventure. Once on a geocaching website you select a location and then the level of difficulty and whala, endless X marks the spots. Just download the coordinates into your GPS (pedestrian mode) and take off. Level of difficulty can range from leisurely hike to terrain necessitating climbing skills. Sounds easy enough. I wannabe a geocacher.
My partner in my peripatetic adventures, Matt Aschbrenner, joined me from North Carolina. He’s an avid hiker, photographer, and waterfall hunter. I thought I’d give him a good dose of the Iowa excitement he’s been missing since he moved away so I picked an adventure neither of us were familiar with. After all, I do live the Live Action Sports philosophy of pursuing the adventure in Iowa.
We started the quest at Palisades Kepler State Park, which lies along the beautiful Cedar River in Linn County. The 840-acre park has dramatic river bluffs, deep ravines, majestic hardwood trees, a large variety of wildflowers and an abundance of wildlife. It is a perfect place to show off Iowa, plus its relatively close by and is a Live Action Sports hotspot. In true fortune-hunter style we braved the rain that challenged us upon arrival. We decided to not let the wet leaf smell and mud stop us, but rather be the fuel for the hunt. Because lest we forget, Big Mama Janet insists that a rainy expedition exposes us to another side of nature we don’t typically experience, but SHOULD (she probably thinks there are less zombies out in the rain).
We had no idea what we would be in for so we chose two simple caches. The first one was easy to find with the exception that it was up what appeared to be a tree’s hind end. Matt stuck his hand up there to retrieve the cache; which was a slightly awkward moment between Matt and the tree. This cache was a metal cylinder with a log sheet inside so you could note when you found it and who you are. Then you, of course, put it back for the next cache-seeker to find (probably to the tree’s dismay).
The second cache was a bit trickier. The GPS was telling me that if the cache were a snake it was so close it would be constricting and swallowing me by now. We searched every nook and cranny of the area, carefully avoiding the strange looking bush covered in beetles. So many beetles we wondered out loud if it were some sort of beetle family reunion. With no cache to be seen, Matt crashed the beetle party and found the prize. This prize was a plastic container also with a log sheet inside, only it also contained a small toy ox and, gulp, bones we didn’t try to identify. Oh those crazy geocachers and their wacky sense of humor. Geocaching protocol allows you to either take the prize and replace it (Live Action advice would suggest the cache you leave be less…uh…body-part-ish), or you can leave the prize you found for the next unsuspecting and hopefully good humored hunter. Realizing that neither of us had toy ox or bones on our list of thing missing from our homes or lives, we left the trophies.
Hating to sound like a hater, I didn’t really have high expectations of fun when setting out to geocache for the first time. But you know, like so many things in life, it was a lot more fun than I thought. I recommend it to anyone that enjoys being outdoors, hiking, and exploring. It’s fresh air. It’s fun. It’s a brilliant way to make a hike more exciting for kids. And if you dig deep enough, you can find a community of people that are avid. Not only do they geocache around their locality, they take geocaching trips. In the future, Live Action Sports will post an interview with such a fun-seeker. I’m not sure I gave Matt the excitement he gets when he discovers and photographs a North Carolina backcountry waterfall, but I am sure I gave him an interesting first experience tracking down bones and toys through a bug rave and tree butt.
In the Grand Scheme of Things I think that geocaching makes us feel like excited kids. Like one of the Goonies, or one of the Scooby Doo gang. Tracking down a mysterious treasure. Searching for something but not knowing exactly what you’re going to find. And truly being surprised when you find a toy ox and bones (seriously who the crap set up that cache? wait…I don’t want to know). I suppose it all mirrors life in a way that we are all searching for something. Something that will make us happy, or rich, or content. And it mirrors Forest’s box of chocolates in that you’ll never know what you’re going to get. Are you going to get a creamy caramel center? Or a tiny container of bones?
An extremely reverse point of view on geocaching might be that it’s just plain littering. What if no one ever searches for that cache again and it just lays there like junk rotting in nature? Where it truly doesn’t belong (well, except the bones). Does this infringe upon our steadfast rule of Leave No Trace? Is this just another way for humans to trash nature? Or is it a harmless fun?
Your turn. Tell us about your geocaching expedition. What type of GPS did you use? What did you find? Is it fun or litter? Did you come across any zombies?
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