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Submitted by Catherine Redfern, World Bird Sanctuary Naturalist/Fundraiser
Did you know you can go geocaching at World Bird Sanctuary?
We didn't. But you can. So we decided to find out more about it!
Young guests learning about geocaching at a
recent WBS National Trails Day event
Tom Wolpert from the St. Louis Area Geogachers Association tells us what it's all about.
"Geocaching is a high-tech treasure or scavenger hunt which uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) to locate hidden containers. Geocachers like to joke that we use billion dollar defense satellite systems to hunt Tupperware® in the woods.
At midnight on May 2, the government did away with Selective Availability, which limited the accuracy of the civilian GPS signal to about 200 feet. Without Selective Availability, accuracy improved to about 20 feet. The next day, geocaching started. Dave Ulmer, a GPS enthusiast, decided to see just how well the system worked. He stocked a plastic bucket with trade items and a notebook, hid it in the woods, posted the coordinates – the latitude and longitude – on the Internet, and invited fellow enthusiasts to use their GPS receivers to find the bucket. The rules were simple: “Take some stuff, leave some stuff! Record it all in the logbook. Have fun!” Although there have been a lot of embellishments over the years, that’s still the way the basic game is played today.
Virtually anyone can go geocaching, although very small children may need some help from mom and dad. Geocaches (and geocachers) are everywhere. There are over 1.4 million caches – and over 5 million geocachers – worldwide. There are caches on every continent, including Antarctica. In fact, there are about 480 geocaches within a 10 mile radius of the World Bird Sanctuary! There are caches which require long hikes, caches within a few steps of parking, and caches which are wheelchair-accessible. There are caches which are very easy to find and others which might require an extensive search. Each cache has difficulty and terrain ratings on a scale of one to five. This makes it easy to choose caches that fit your abilities and the circumstances.
Read the entire article at www.world-bird-sanctuary.blogspot.com...
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by Heather Bodendieck, photos by David Stonner
I have a confession to make: I am GPS challenged. Still, when the opportunity came up for me to take my boys on a modern-day treasure hunt, I didn’t let that stop me. I had never heard of geocaching before, so I was surprised to find out just how popular it is. There aren’t many family activities that are diverse enough to accommodate a variety of budgets, activity levels and schedules. Geocaching fits the bill on all levels. All you need to participate is a sense of adventure and a GPS unit. Bug spray and sunscreen aren’t a bad idea, either.
In geocaching, participants hide objects to be found by others with the aid of a GPS unit. The latitude and longitude coordinates of the geocache are posted online, along with any additional clues. By typing the coordinates into a GPS device, geocachers are led to the hidden treasure, or “geocache.” Some geocaches are simple to find, while others involve multiple stages and activities such as rappelling or rock-climbing.
Digital Tips and Treasure Trails
First I looked at the Conservation Department’s geocaching page at mdc.mo.gov/node/3379, a good resource for basic information on the game, as well as regulations for conservation areas. Then I visited www.geocaching.com, which allows you to search for caches in your area. I discovered that there were dozens of treasures to be found in my community—and here I’d planned to drive a couple of hours for our adventure!
Armed with two sets of coordinates and a borrowed GPS, my family set out on our treasure hunt. Our first stop was Rockwoods Range, between Pacific and Eureka in western St. Louis County, a five-minute drive from our house. I pass both the range and the nearby Rockwoods Reservation, just north of the range, at least once a week, but I had yet to stop and check them out.
We parked our car at the range and piled out. Excited, a little nervous, and not quite sure what to expect, we entered our coordinates into our trusty GPS and were off on our adventure.
We walked down a pleasant trail, wondering why we had never visited the Rockwoods areas before. They were enchanting and so close to home. Then we reached a point in the trail where the GPS unit signaled for us to go off the trail. I paused, looking into the woods. I am constantly reminding my boys to stay on the path. I knew that I was allowed both on-trail and off-trail access to the area, but I’d spent so much time at parks that I had to give myself permission to break the “rules” in my own head. As silly as it seemed, it was exciting to treat this area as the wild space it was.
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Geocaching isn’t just a fair-weather sport.
There’s a malaise peculiar to January, induced by lying around, eating lots of pot roast and cheap chocolate (that stuff that tastes like lecithin, with the mouthfeel of a crayon), and a precipitous energy drop, which usually occurs around the time that large wads of wrapping paper get stuffed into trash bags.
The best cure for this is simple: Go outside. Move around. Not so easy if you’re feeling logy, especially if there are new consumer electronics in the house. Though if one of those gifts happens to be a GPS device, you may be in luck…
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With GPS in hand, they hunt for hidden 'treasure'
ROY SYKES PHOTO - Chuck Roberts, proud geocacher, displays plush-toy captains Lewis and Clark, and dog Seaman.
As a St. Charles native, Chuck Roberts, 40, couldn't pass up the opportunity to mix geocaching with Lewis and Clark.
Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game for people with an adventurous spirit and a GPS device. You proceed outdoors to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, that contain a log to sign and, often, small toys or trinkets. If you take something you're supposed to leave something behind, as well.
In July, Roberts trekked 7½ miles, out-and-back, in Skagway, Alaska, to find the metal ammo box with "Lewis and Clark" on its side. But the plush toys representing Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Lewis' dog Seaman were missing. According to the unofficial rules of geocaching, they should have been in the ammo box.
After some detective work, Roberts retrieved the captains and dog. They had been shanghaied to St. Paul, Minn.
But now, thanks to Roberts, the geocache and all its contents are on display through October at the Lewis and Clark Boat House and Nature Center in St. Charles.
The Lewis and Clark geocache was created in 2002 in New York with the instruction that it should be moved, when possible, along the route the explorers took in 1803-06. It was incumbent upon those who found it and moved it to enter the new GPS coordinates on the main geocaching website.
Well, the canister didn't quite follow the explorers' trail to Oregon, near the mouth of the Columbia River.
"Its journey is dependent on the whims of the geocachers," Roberts says. "It's like throwing a leaf into the wind."
The geocache eventually made it to Oregon in 2004. Once the Pacific Northwest mission was accomplished, the new goal is for the captains and Seaman to visit all 50 states to hold "councils with indigenous geocaching peoples."
Roberts and his girlfriend, Kathleen Peterson, 39, are 1988 graduates of St. Charles West High School. They travel the seven seas working on a cruise ship that conveys 1,100 passengers to exotic ports. They have logged geocache finds in places like French Polynesia; the top of Manoa Falls, Hawaii; and just outside Machu Picchu in Peru.
The geocache containers often are Tupperware, film canisters or metal munitions canisters. They must be waterproof.
If you are the "hider," you are not allowed to bury it. But you can apply sticks and rocks as "geoflage."
Geocaching started in about 2000 and has taken off in recent years in large part because the cost of a GPS unit has fallen below $100. In addition, new smart phones have GPS applications.
The GPS device will get you within 20 to 30 feet of the hidden geocache. From there, the 'secondary search" commences. You rely on observation and the ability to decipher any clues that might have been given. For example: "It might help if you're tall" means you probably should look up.
The main website worldwide is geocaching.com. There are between 4 million and 5 million geocachers.
On the home page you can enter your ZIP code to find local geocaches to track down. There's no shortage.
There are 1,260 treasures in 63301, St. Charles; 1,166 in 63376, St. Peters; 800 in 63366, O'Fallon; and 611 in 63385, Wentzville.
The geocaches are ranked online in terms of how hard they are to find and the difficulty of terrain. Some can be discovered by those who use a wheelchair.
The best local information source is the St. Louis Area Geocachers Association. The website is slaga.org.
"It takes people outdoors that otherwise would be sitting on their butt watching television," Roberts says. "You also might stumble into a little bit of history. You might have to look up some dates."
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Geocaching is a Natural Activity for RVers
If you thought the thrill of finding hidden treasures belonged only to archaeologists and Boy Scouts, think again. Welcome to the exciting world of high-tech GPS treasure hunts. It’s like Indiana Jones without the sword fights and snake pits.
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SLAGA member Tracy Armstrong (MutherAndSun) is among those interviewed for this geocaching story that appeared in Central Illinois' Herald & Review:
Armstrong said normally when she explains her hobby to others they have trouble grasping the point.
"It's the places you get to see, the people that you meet, the things that you do," she said. "Just to do it. That's the purpose."
"...Geocaching will take you places you were always too busy to go, and I think that's what is really great about it," Armstrong said. "I'll never be bored again."
Read the entire article...
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