Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Got a GPS and time? Geocachers find tiny hidden treasures

Julia M. Dendinger News-Bulletin Staff Writer

Belen If wandering across the countryside with a hand-held global positioning system (GPS) looking for hidden treasure is your idea of fun, then geocaching is something you might want to look into.

Needing only the aforementioned GPS and a computer with Internet access, it is easy to begin the international adventure of geocaching - finding hidden containers, taking a memento and leaving one in exchange and signing the logbook.

This year marked the fourth annual Valencia County Fun Days geocaching event organized and hosted by Suzanne McConaghy of Los Lunas.

McConaghy reported that nearly 75 people signed up for the event. "But we're waiting on a few more," she said, waving about a dozen folders with the secret cache coordinates.

While numbers are only half of the 150 participants who turned out last year, McConaghy seems a bit relieved. "That was a lot of ... organization," she said with a laugh.

McConaghy discovered geocaching in 2005 when she went to a Girl Scout summer camp with her troops. "When you go to these big camps, they want you to sign up for classes that will improve your skills," she said. "My thing was outdoor skills — mapping and compass use — so I just couldn't see myself signing up for a crafts class."

Fortunately for her, one class being offered was on GPS navigation. "I reluctantly signed up for it because more and more people were using the GPS and I figured I needed to know how to use one," McConaghy said. "The instructor took about five minutes to show us how to use the units and then we went geocaching!"

She came back to Los Lunas and immediately logged in to the official geocaching web site, www.geocaching.com. Using her ZIP code, McConaghy discovered that 10 caches were located within a 16-mile radius of her home and that the county contained nearly 150 caches.

"I planned the first event for the fall of that year," she said.

Pam and Bryan Terry of Amarillo were in New Mexico on a trip to Angel Fire and made the Valencia County geocaching event part of their trip. The easy-going couple has been hunting for hidden goodies for about four years.

"I was reading an article in a travel magazine, and it was the day before my birthday, so that's what I decided what I wanted," Pam said. "We do it all the time now."

Part of the excitement is that some caches have a "first to find" prize. "Sometimes it's money or a gift certificate," Bryan said. "But you have to be pretty fast to get those."

Pam said they have friends who get alerts every time a new cache is posted in their area. "They will get up at two in the morning to try and be the first to find it," she said.

When caches are posted on www.geocaching.com, the caches are graded according to the terrain and how difficult they are to find. "We tend to stay at the shallow end of the difficulty pool," Bryan joked.

The couple agreed that geocaching is a great way to see something they otherwise wouldn't have. And even without tackling the caches hidden in rugged terrain, there are inherent challenges.

"In Texas, it's pretty flat, so if there's a tree, you pretty much know it's there," Bryan said. "But when you get in areas with lots of trees and mountains, it makes it more difficult. We went to an event in Washington state, and that was some tough terrain. Is it at the bottom of the mountain? At the top? On the other side?"

Mac Goddess and Captain Bligh, also known as John and Susie Doherty of Carlsbad, came to Valencia County just for the fun day. It all started three years ago when Susie's friend told her there was a cache in the parking lot at work.

"We went out and found it, and that was pretty much it," she said.

John, who was busy entering coordinates into the team's hand-held GPS, described the whole adventure as "collecting Tupperware with multi-billion dollar satellite equipment."

Scot Youngblood (Big Scot) of Hobbs has been geocaching for a bit over a year. He is both a seeker and placer of caches. "The trick is to hide them well enough that people don't notice them but not so well that they can't be found," he said. "It really is hiding things in plain site."

Most anywhere is fair game for hiding a geocache - urban, suburban or rural, although McConaghy cautions that hiding caches on bridges and near railroad tracks is pretty much forbidden.

"We don't want people finding them and thinking they're bombs or something," she said. "That's how you end up with roads closed."

Cache hiders and finders also have to be careful of "muggles." Instead of being non-magical as in Harry Potter novels, muggles in this case are people out in the public who are not part of the geocaching subculture.

"The very first cache I hid was near the Bosque Farms Police Department. I went in and told them what I was doing and the area it was in so they wouldn't worry," she said.

And don't think all the caches sit quietly and wait for you to find them. There are "travel bugs" that geocachers can find and log. Some of the travel bugs are dog tags that cachers wear while others are stickers on vehicles. The travel bugs have a code printed on them that cachers can register on the Web site to report the find.

While most caches contain fun goodies to be traded between the people who find the hiding spots, some of the items have a very specific goal. "They have a dog tag attached so you can log-in the find but they are usually attached to an item with the story of where it needs to go," Youngblood said.

If a little toy horse makes it to Alamogordo on time, some lucky little girl will get a real horse for her birthday, promises one tag.

Other caches are just the beginning of a larger adventure. The first find will sometimes contain a second set of coordinates or a clue of where to go next. "That is a fun way to provide a guided tour of an area," McConaghy said.

Of course no geocaching event is complete without mention of the O.C.B. That's Original Can of Beans for those not familiar with the significant icons of geocaching.

Way back in May of 2000, the United States government officially removed "selective availability" from the GPS satellites, thus giving civilian GPS units greater accuracy.

Dave Ulmer of Oregon, Wash., quickly took advantage of the new technology by hiding a container in the back country, posting the coordinates on the Internet with marching orders to "go find it!"

To honor his ingenuity, Team 360 decided a plaque needed to be erected on the site of the world's first cache. During the excavation for the cement footing, the cache was discovered - crushed, bent and riddled with holes was the O.C.B.

Ulmer confirmed the validity of the can and the rest is geocaching history. The O.C.B. now travels to different cache events allowing enthusiasts the chance to take a picture and claim a glimpse of the can.

So with a sense of adventure, a GPS and a sturdy walking stick, there are plenty of caches right here in the county to find. And remember to sign the logbook and post a "TFTC" on the Web site.

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