Groundspeak Weekly Newsletter – January 18, 2012

February 29 – This Day in Geocaching History

In the 11 years and 9 months since the first geocache was placed, there is single date on which only a small fraction of geocachers have ever logged a cache. We suspect that’s because this particular date has only happened twice in geocaching history; it’s February 29, also known as leap day.

Given our penchant for all things that leap (frogs, horses, excited geocachers), we wanted to mark the third leap day in geocaching history — February 29, 2012 — by seeing how many accounts can log a cache that day.

Last February 29, way back in 2008, 36,696 distinct accounts logged an “Attended” or “Found it” on a cache. Given the growth of the geocaching community since then, we think we can double that number this year. But 73,392 distinct accounts logging a cache is a lofty goal; it’s the second highest number of accounts to log a cache in a single day. The current record, 78,313, was set on 10/10/10. Considering that 10/10/10 was a Sunday and February 29 will be a Wednesday, it is going to require a huge push to reach our goal.

So, talk to your fellow geocachers, your friends, and your co-workers about going geocaching (and logging their find) on February 29. In order to count toward the goal, people only have to log a single cache.

Everyone who logs a “Found it” or “Attended” this February 29 will receive the Leap Day Souvenir on their profile. As an added bonus, Premium Members who love to look at their “finds by date” statistics most likely see a blank square on the calendar on February 29. This is your chance to fill in the square —the 366th day of geocaching!

Outdoor Adventures with Geocaching.com and Tomb Raider®

 

Geocaching.com is teaming up with Crystal Dynamics™, a Square Enix™ studio to promote the 2012 launch of the new Tomb Raider® video game. Read more about the partnership on the Geocaching.com blog, Latitude 47.