EarthCaches draw geocachers to wonders of the natural world – often hiding in plain sight. Gary Lewis, Geoaware, and the Director of Education for the Geological Society of America created of the very first Earthcache in 2004.
Mt. Yasur on the island of Tanna
An EarthCache delivers adventurers to a location found at specific coordinates. But rather than discovering a container and signing a logbook you earn a smiley by undertaking an educational task and learning about the natural environment.
Watch this video to go along with Terry Baker, TerryDad2, who has set up more than 250 EarthCaches in six states and two countries. TerryDad2 takes you on a tour of West Sulphur Mountain Oil Spring (GC1A5E2) in Ojai, California, where oil is naturally seeping from the ground.
TerryDad2 exploring an EarthCache
EarthCaches started with one in Australia and three in the U.S. state of Colorado in 2004 and now there are over 11,000 published EarthCaches. There is at least one on every continent.
Examples of educational tasks are answering questions about the site: how far something has eroded down, the size of a waterfall, or, in the case of the Oil Spring, the affect the oil has on the adjacent plant life.
Have you found an EarthCache? Tell us your favorite EarthCaching experience.
Premium Membership allows you to spend less time at the computer so that you can spend more time geocaching!
Here are four ways that you can save time using Premium Membership features:
1. Search for caches in an area using Pocket Queries. You won’t need to sift through search results to find caches that meet your requirements, because this super-advanced search allows you to specify which cache types, cache sizes, difficulty and terrain ratings and attributes (such as “recommended for kids” or “long hike”) are returned in the results.
2. Receive up to 1000 geocache listings per Pocket Query. You may think, “I’ll never find that many caches,” but having 1000s of listings ready to go on your GPS gives you the freedom to change your mind about where you are going geocaching at the last second.
3. Upload more complete geocache listings to your GPS. In addition to information that Basic Members receive when uploading cache listings, your file includes the cache description, hint and 20 most recent logs. This means you’ll no longer need to print out papers with the cache information!
4. Sort by most “favorited” caches. Do you only have time to find a cache or two and want to ensure that you are seeking the best ones in the area? You don’t need to look at the listings page by page… Premium Members can organize search results by how many Favorite Points each cache has received. Caches that receive a high number of Favorite Points are likely to be quality caches that offer an enjoyable adventure.
Premium Membership is only $10 for 3 months or $30 for one year. See the full list of Premium benefits to learn other ways that these features can save you time and improve your geocaching experience. You can also read what current Premium Members have to say about the benefits of Premium Membership on the Testimonials page.
Courtesy: Wild Canyon GamesCourtesy: Wild Canyon Games
Groundspeak is excited to field a team of seven Groundspeak Lackeys to geocache/bike/run/swim/climb/jump/swing/cliff jump/slide and zip-line their way through the Wild Canyon Games!
The Wild Canyon Games is a team-based adventure race competition. Seven-member teams spend the weekend of June 3-5th competing in events like an Olympic length relay triathlon, a 50 foot canyon swing, a zip-line, the “blob”, an elevated ropes course, and a 170 square mile geocaching adventure (on foot) featuring the largest geocaching grid in the world.
One Lackey says, “The games will be a challenging adventure that will test us physically, mentally and bring us all closer together… especially the geocaching portion. We’re excited!”
Courtesy: Wild Canyon Games
The weekend wraps up with a team relay race called Creek to Peak that features a 7 minute Cyclo-Cross bike ride, an obstacle course, a lake sprint swim, two mountain sprints, and much more.
Companies and individuals look at the Wild Canyon Games as a great opportunity to challenge themselves and build strong bonds among teammates. The extreme adventure allows teams the chance to achieve a common goal together through their wits, stamina and most of all their ability to have fun. At the end of each day, you’ll hear the laughter and see beaming smiles.
Courtesy: Wild Canyon Games
You can join the event, meet Lackeys and be part of the fun too. There are only a few spots left, so assemble your team and sign up quickly if you are interested in being part of the adventure!
Ruins, lost to all but a few for centuries, hide deep in the jungles of Cambodia for geocachers chasing a smiley on the EarthCache “Phnom Kulen National Park” (GC21N8D). Geocachers must navigate their way toward the holiest mountain in Cambodia. GPS coordinates lead adventurers to an elegantly carved stream bed known as the Kbal Spean site. The site was rediscovered in 1969 after centuries of obscurity.
Near the EarthCache "Phnom Kulen National Park"
Aucoin.J created the EarthCache in 2009. The location is just 30 kilometers from Angkor Wat. One geocacher writes, “One of the most beautiful caches and locations I ever did. The jungle was really impressive. We were impressed by the carvings, the butterflies, the water and the whole scenery…”
Carved riverbed of "Phnom Kulen National Park"
Geocachers must answers question found only the cache page and email the owner of the cache in order to claim a smiley.
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on our blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.
The cache page for the first ever Event Cache starts with the modest quote, “Come have a beer and meet the people whose names you’ve been seeing in the log books. Austin seems to have enough people interested in geocaching to pull this off.” The date was March 24, 2001. The name of the event was “Austin Geocachers Happy Hour (GC389).”
As it is defined today, an Event Cache is where local geocachers and geocaching organizations meet and discuss geocaching.
Rich Carlson, Eoghan, along with Rachel Benavidez, Pumpkin Princess, hosted the first event. Rich and Rachel married in 2003.
First geocaching event March 24, 2001
Rich’s instructions for finding the group of geocachers at the coordinates were simple (and still work at Event Caches today): “Look for GPS units on the tables or someone wearing one of the Geocaching.com t-shirts.”
Rich recently spoke to Geocaching.com about that first event one decade ago. He says: “In early 2001, interest in geocaching was really taking off. Lots of creative new cache types were being hidden. Austin went from one cache on January 1st to a couple dozen by early March, including micros, multis, letterbox and themed caches. As Pumpkin Princess and I sought out each new cache listed we saw a similar set of names showing up in the logbooks and started to get curious about what these other people were like. So I posted the coordinates to my favorite pub, offered the enticement of a free beer to the first finder, and hoped that someone would show.”
More than a dozen people logged a smiley for the event. Rich knows why: “We’re social, story-telling animals. We love to tell tales of the hunt and feel a sense of community.” And there’s one more reason he says people love Event Caches: “Swag, of course.”
As far as being the first to host a geocaching event Rich says, “That I was the one to host the first event is more a matter of luck than anything else. Using coordinates and posting the event as a cache was the obvious approach for a geo-get-together. I happened to be in the right place and find out about geocaching at the right time. Just like being FTF a new cache – if I hadn’t done it someone else certainly would have.”
It wasn’t long before Event Caches wove themselves into geocaching culture. Rich says it all happened fast: “…that event has merged somewhat in my memory with the other events hosted and attended shortly after by TresOkies, 3Lanes, AustinExplorer & Coppertone, RoxBob & Martha, DamnYankee, TxHiPowr, GoHorns, and others.”
Rich says Event Caches fill a need in the geocaching community, by building community: “I can’t speak for what others get out of them, but I like that I get a chance to meet people who I know up front share a common interest. I also like getting to see the variety of interesting people drawn to geocaching.”
Rich and Rachel are still active geocachers. They’re attending the Event Cache, ‘10th Anniversary of the First Ever Event‘ in Austin, Texas this weekend. More than a hundred geocachers are expected to attend the event.
Join in the fun of swapping geocaching stories and meeting your fellow geocachers face-to-face. Find an event near you, explore our Geocaching Event Calendar.
