Geocaching on the trail

[Gipsy]

Does anyone do any geocaching on the trail? If so, tell us some stories!


If by chance you DON'T know what geocaching is... I highly recommend you do a little checking in to it! Its a game that combines hiking/scavenger "treasure" hunting/and a little high-tech (GPS).

Some describe it as... "Using multi-billion dollar government satellites to find tupperware hidden in the woods".

[Delta-Dawn]

Glad you started this thread, this was something I was going to ask myself. We love to geocache and while it might not be feasible to do it the whole trail, I know my daughter would enjoy the occasional cache along the way.

[Old Hillwalker]

Geocaching within the boundaries of the AT Corridor which is under the ownership of the National Park Service is verboten, or at least discouraged. That would be pretty much most of the AT. All of the AT is a National Scenic Trail within the US National Park System.

[Pioneer Spirit]

Or Geocaching's older cousin Letterboxing.
Atlasquest.com

[Sierra Echo]

My friend Ian just got into this. Ian called me a "muggle" because I dont geocache. Ian is a dork!

[Delta-Dawn]

Geocaching within the boundaries of the AT Corridor which is under the ownership of the National Park Service is verboten, or at least discouraged. That would be pretty much most of the AT. All of the AT is a National Scenic Trail within the US National Park System.

That's what I figured, but I know some parks allow it, as long as they were pre-approved cache's. Georgia State Parks allow it, and some National Parks allow it while others do not, ie. yes at Duke's Creek but no at Chattahoochee River parks. Army Corp. of Engineer land is usually open for caches as well, but that depends on the area.

[Gipsy]

Even though there are areas without caches, the parks that allow it will bring added entertainment and adventure to my hikes.

[couscous]

You could load the location of all the shelters into your GPS and treat them as geocaches .. they each have an interesting trail register to open and explore.

[Gipsy]

Thanks "Cous", I had actually considered that!

[ki0eh]

The PA sections of Great Eastern Trail are more friendly to geocaching - see the link (left side) listing geocaches along the trail, on the PA Mid State Trail homepage http://www.hike-mst.org/

[Gipsy]

SWEET!

Thanks a TON!

[garlic08]

I found several by accident and without a GPS on my Pacific Northwest Trail hike a couple years ago. There were a couple in fire lookout towers, just sitting in the open on cabinets. These were in really remote areas, free from muggles apparently. I found another on the same trip in a summit cairn.

On the AZT near Tucson, I saw a weird metal utility cover in the middle of the trail, far from any utilities. I lifted it up and found a geocache, placed by our friend Tugies from Tucson.

I see a lot of them with my wife GreasePot, a top cacher as well as a thru hiker. My wife and I also placed a cache dedicated to the Arizona Trail near Tucson. I got some T shirts and bandannas donated by the AZTA for cache goodies.

On the CDT, we were SOBO through the Gila Wilderness approaching the Gila River, still swollen with spring runoff. We found a remote cache, the first find since the previous summer, and picked up a coveted Jeep "travel bug" (finding it meant you were eligible to win a Jeep in a yearly drawing). As we walked south, we saw a couple of guys hiking north. We were glad to know the river was fordable. A few minutes later we heard a cry of dismay--they had come in just to get the Jeep. They'd been waiting all year, made multiple attempts at fording the river through the spring, and missed it by a few minutes!

[Gipsy]

Great story garlic!

[Delta-Dawn]

That is a great story Garlic! I can imagine their dismay, sometimes those travel bugs are a hot ticket. Speaking of tickets, my all time favorite cache was a local one. The cacher listed it and said FTF got a surprise; tickets for Chastain Park concert-Jack Johnson! Talk about a race for people to get that cache first. Caching is great!

[mweinstone]

i walk by a rock and remember it sometimes. and year after year i pass that rock and think,..why do i remember this rock? or tree, or bend? i been on this trail a while. certian places ,like my home stomping grounds, i know well. in all the scilent miles of contenplative solice, my mind has marked places and things with great detail. if a thing is out of place or a bend in the trail a relo,...i notice.
so years ago, when this geo game started, i started finding weird crossed logs and strange rocks tilted up on stumps and such.they were like indian signposts i imagined to myself before i knew what geocaches were.but i new they were recent and i knew they marked something hidden. so i started breaking into them and finding little tupperware containers with buissness size cards on them with cordinates written on them.there was allways two cards and two sets of cordinates. i figured it was a game for nerds. i never knew it involved prizes or online questions or all the other parts. i still never met a geocasher. ever even once. i know not the rules. i allways put back the peices of paper into their little fartsacs and put the logs or rocks or whatever back the way it was. i now know its a game you guys play. i dont know how much fun that is compared to searching for a spring robin or a peice of the winters first ice to stomp,...but i am sure you may play in PA without worry.

[Gipsy]

There are 1,279,026 active caches and an estimated 4-5 million geocachers worldwide.

I'm sure you know a couple of cachers, you probably just don't know that they ARE cachers. For some reason it seems to be kind of a secretive game.

[perrito]

While you can't hide geocaches on the AT (I believe it's within a distance of 250') you can place an "offset" (mystery "?") cache. You might try going to a shelter and finding some graffiti or something (a number) carved into the wood. This way you give your cache hunters an experience on the AT and a geocache to find. As most shelters are not close to roads, this may be a bit of a hike , the same can be done in the vicinity of the AT parking areas or using a sign somewhere along the AT. I'm sure you can think of other ideas. Anywho, an offset cache may be your best bet.

"Team Perrito Blanco"

[mweinstone]

how many does that come out to per square mile?

[Pioneer Spirit]

My first visit to the AT was a letterboxing event I planned between Clingman's dome and Newfound gap.

Letterboxes consist of log books and hand carved stamps and involve compass reading rather than the high-tech of a GPS. It started in Dartmoor region of England over 150 years ago. Atlasquest.com

[Shiraz-mataz]

I've been geocaching for years! As for caches along the AT they are few and far between these days with most being something called an "earth cache" where you are supposed to find a unique geologic feature and discover a piece of information about it. This gets away from having another "box of junk in the woods" which is a major complaint about traditional caches. Still, as of a couple years ago, there were quite a few traditional caches along the Maryland portion of the AT and I found most of those before they were archived. A related activity is benchmark hunting and I am always running across those on the trail, with or without a GPSr in hand!

One of the coolest caches I've found was a few months ago on an island in the Potomac River, not too far from the AT actually. I'd been canoeing down the river for miles, portaged around two dams before arriving at the small jumble of concrete blocks that were once a train trestle. Tying off the canoe, I scrambled to the top of the block island where the cache was wedged between a couple of boulders. There are too many to recount but my geo-handle is the same as it is here, "Shiraz-mataz" so if you're a member of geocaching.com you can peruse my adventures and photos.