It’s a “Will Attend” that will fuel memories for years to come. We’re inviting the entire worldwide geocaching community to join us at the 2013 Geocaching Block Party on August 17 in Seattle. It’s a Mega-Event not to miss. This year’s Block Party weekend lasts longer, promises more geocaching fun and has plenty of events for everyone. You’ll even be able to grab a cozy spot in front of a giant outdoor movie screen for the first annual Geocaching International Film Festival (GIFF). GIFF will showcase the best videos from geocachers around the world. You and the rest of the audience will choose one lucky video to receive the “Audience Award.”
The Thursday and Friday before the Block Party, you can reserve your spot on a behind-the-scenes tour of Geocaching HQ. You’ll get to find the Geocaching HQ geocache, meet some of the folks at Geocaching HQ and see where all the geocaching magic happens.
Saturday from 11AM to 6PM, you can soak up the fun at the Geocaching Block Party. Activities include a new GeoTour near Geocaching HQ and meeting the Geocaching HQ staff and many of the volunteers that assist the worldwide geocaching community. Sound like a lot? Don’t worry. You’ll be able to refuel at the onsite food trucks. Log your “Will Attend” now, then share this new Block Party Invite video with your friends. We’ll see you there.
Still want more? Wrap up your weekend in Seattle on Sunday with the Going APE Mega-Event. The journey through a long mountain tunnel delivers geocachers to a majestic and legendary location.
Geocaching is ripe for one more acronym. Move aside BYOP* and TNLN** —get ready for GIFF. It’s the Geocaching International Film Festival. The finest videos from the global geocaching community will be showcased as part of the 2013 Geocaching Block Party in Seattle on August 17.
You’re invited to submit up to two entries. All entries should be one to five minutes in length. The GIFF final entries will be judged by geocaching organizations around the world. They’ll vote on winners in five categories, including Most Instructional, Best Cinematography, Most Inspirational, Most Adventurous and Most Creative/Experimental. Those watching the final videos live in Seattle on August 17 will choose the winner of the Audience Award.
Will your video show on the big outdoor screen in front of a projected crowd of more than a thousand geocachers? The answer to that question begins by checking out the Geocaching Block Party website. You’ll find rules and information about GIFF. And get ready to use one more acronym… LCA (lights, camera, action!)
How was I supposed to know the fire hydrant WAS the cache?
Tell us your funniest caption for the above picture of these two geocaching dogs, like, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” You could even win a ‘barely coveted prize’ in the 38th Geocaching Caption Contest. This picture was discovered on the Recent Geocaching Log Images page. You can discover the 1000 most recent images from recent logs.
Submit your best caption by clicking on “Comments” below. Please include your Geocaching username in all entries. Then, explore captions other geocachers have posted.
Barely Coveted Prize… or is it?!?!
“Like” the caption that you believe should take home the barely coveted prize. If you think your caption should win, convince your fellow geocachers, your friends, and family to “like” your caption. Geocaching HQ staff will vote from the top finalists to decide the winner of the contest.
Click on the image to see the winning caption from this Geocaching Caption Contest
The winner receives this month’s ‘barely coveted prize.’ The prize, which might be coveted in many circles, consists of three vintage Signal the Frog pins, including a rare 2007 Happy New Year pin.
Click on the image to your right to discover the winner of the last Geocaching Caption Contest.
Explore all the winning captions by checking out all the Geocaching.com Caption Contests. If you have suggestions for Geocaching.com Caption Contest photos, send a message and the image to pr@groundspeak.com.
Upside-down or right-side-up geocaching can lead you to some heart racing locations.
Geocaching can lead you to see the world in a different way. The symptoms begin early. First you see a location and think, “there could be a geocache right there.” Next you see a a park or a familiar fence line and think, “I’ve found a geocache there.” Finally you see an inspiring location and think, “There should be a geocache there.”
And some geocachers go even further. They see a geocache hide and think, there’s no way I won’t get that. It doesn’t matter that it might mean dangling from a cliff, or climbing a tree or navigating into the darkness of a winter forest.
These are an extreme breed of geocacher. They search for geocaches with a terrain rating of 5. Not only do they enjoy the thrill of turning upside-down or wiggling into a small cave to find a geocache, they also enjoy sharing their geocaching adventures online. Geocaching can be dangerous, so make sure you always take the proper safety precautions. A good example is the final picture of geocachers who brought a guard dog to a mountain top.
Geocaches have difficulty and terrain (D/T) ratings so you can make the decision before you even leave the house. The rating slides from a 1/1, which means the geocache is easy to find in a handicapped accessible area, to a 5/5, which means that after hours of exhausting physical work to get to ground zero involving specialized equipment like a boat, you’re still going to have a hard time finding the geocache. Find more info on the difficulty and terrain ratings.
Below you’ll find images posted to the Geocaching Facebook page of geocaches with terrain ratings of 4 or 5. When you see them, ask yourself, “would I make an attempt to find these geocaches?”
Extreme geocachingExtreme family geocachingExtreme geocachingUp close and personal (Photo Credit:FradoMedia) GC11A56“Triglav 2864″ GC14N3H
The nominees for the April Featured Geocacher of the Month award hail from three different nations, but contribute to one global game. Each offers a welcoming hand to those new to geocaching and creative hides for all geocachers. The nominees come from the United States, New Zealand and Denmark.
Now it’s your turn to help us select the next Featured Geocacher of the Month. Write a supportive comment at the bottom of this blog for the geocacher you feel should be awarded the title. Each geocacher is already a winner and will receive a prize package from Geocaching HQ. A panel of folks from Geocaching HQ will then use your comments to help guide the decision of which geocacher is awarded the honor.
Each Featured Geocacher of the Month will receive an exclusive special edition Featured Geocacher of the Month Geocoin, hat and profile icon. They’ll also get a certificate acknowledging their contributions, signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.
WVTim – Featured Geocacher of the Month
In March, WVTim was named the Featured Geocacher of the Month. He’s known as an inspiration to geocachers for his unique geocaches, excellent maintenance habits and his geocaching YouTube channel. He’s accumulated more than 2,000 Favorite Points on his geocaches and he teaches geocaching in schools and to the Boy Scouts.
Here are your nominees for the March Featured Geocacher of the Month. Some testimonials have been edited for length.
Michael Schwartz “schwartz-hansen” writes, “Our nominee is Olefant (the name is a combination of his first name Ole and his logo a biking elephant – elefant in danish).
He is a retired music teacher from Copenhagen who by now has released nearly 250 caches in Denmark and other countries. He started geocaching in 2009, and has been very active from 2011 until now. He has made a lot of cartoon caches and his FTF-certificates are often laminated pictures of the cartoon figures. At his last event on the 16 of March, he released more than 30 caches, with cartoon series and an Astrology series called the Zoodiak – because the theme of the event was animals.
With his events and his caches, we think that Olefant is a big inspiration for the other geocachers in Denmark, … besides that he is always taking his time to talk to all the persons he meets at events and when he is in the field geocaching.”
MulderNScully – Nominees for the Geocacher of the Month
Cristina Florez, “Mamabear Crew” writes, “My nomination for MulderNScully isn’t just because they’re “nice”… it’s because they take geocaching as a true sport. And their caches… ooooh their caches……. just like their username suggests, they are out of this world! Inventive, thought out, truly educational, and some of them hard as hell. They have been an inspiration to us and we will be trying to follow their lead in making this sport a true adventure!”
Jerry Lynn DellAmic writes, “They have helped me when I got stuck on puzzle caches, but they never gave me the solution. They made me talk out loud. …MulderNScully take pride in their geocaches. For them, it’s not about the numbers. It’s about enjoying life. Taking the opportunity to walk among nature. Go to places that you may not ever get the chance to see. If it hadn’t been for this great hobby, I would never have had the opportunity to meet these life long friends.”
Onslow Fisherman – Nominee for Geocacher of the Month
Natalie Gray writes, “I would like to nominate Jim Greene, also known as Onslow Fisherman, as Geocacher of the Month. I met Jim by mail, when he very nicely answered some question I had about a puzzle cache he had. He invited me to meet him and his wife in NZ and I jumped at the chance. We became friends and he has helped me with computer questions,etc…We’ve even done an “International Cache” together, GC44F7A and GC42HKJ respectively. Jim is well respected in his native geocaching community, always giving back. He ran a GSAK seminar at NZ Mega in October, and also arranged a 4X4 event last year. His caches are great, and he’ll even lend you his GPS to find them. (GC2QAHK and GC2MF3T). He is helpful to newbies and experienced cachers alike, gets tons of favorite points on his caches, and makes our sport better every day. He also has over 1000 caches to his credit, which is hard to do in a relatively small island country. Jim Greene/Onslow Fisherman, epitomizes the best in geocaching and definitely deserves to be a Geocacher of the Month.”
Comment below to tell us who you think should be the April Featured Geocacher of the Month. We will be accepting comments through Sunday, May 7.
If your nominee wasn’t recognized here, please submit your nominations again next month. We’re always looking for the next Featured Geocacher of the Month. To nominate someone, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@geocaching.com and include the following information:
Your name, the name of your nominee, their username
A picture of the nominee
Description (200 or more words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Featured Geocacher of the Month
Please inform your nominee that you have submitted them for the award. Nominations for the next Featured Geocacher of the Month should be received by Monday, May 26.Once Geocaching HQ has received the nominations, we will choose the top candidates and post them on the blog. You will then get a chance to champion your favorite. Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so that we might learn from each other.
Join Us for the Geocaching Block Party Mega-Event
