Category: Community

Geocaching is delightful because of the people who play it — adventure-seekers, makers, parents, astronauts and (sometimes) celebrities. Read their stories.

/ Adela B /

Something Sinister … (Staffordshire) – GCNA9Z – GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – August 13, 2012

The old oak tree, chained up

Caution: The Geocache of the Week may be haunted.

Something Sinister … (Staffordshire) (GCNA9Z) is as intriguing as it is scary. Legend has it that a spell was cast on an old oak tree near the cache.

According to locals in the West Midlands, UK,  a hungry, homeless woman approached Charles, the Earl of Shrewsbury, as he was returning to his castle one winter’s night in 1821. She asked for some money and the Earl angrily rejected her request. She then cursed him and told him that for every branch on the old oak tree that falls, a member of his family will die. The Earl dismissed the curse and carried on his way.

That evening a violent storm broke out and a branch fell from the tree. Later the same night a member of the family became ill and mysteriously died. The Earl ordered his servants to chain up the tree so that no more branches would fall. The tree remains chained up to this day.

A young geocacher visits the spooky tree

The difficulty 2, terrain 2.5 traditional cache was placed near the tree by MarcB in 2005 and adopted by The Bolas Heathens and Dibbler. The cache and the tree have attracted nearly 400 curious geocachers over the last 7 years.

It was the number of Favorite Points that brought the cache to Spanner15‘s attention. After a visit to the spooky location, she awarded it a favorite point and decided to nominate it for the Geocache of the Week.

She writes, “Walking through the woods was pretty creepy. As we got closer, you could hear screams, from the tree maybe? When we arrived it was very thrilling and a sight to see. A HUGE tree, draped in chains. Sadly, we left our camera in the car, so we only had a rubbish photo from our phone. However, the memory has remained in my head ever since. The cache was pretty cool – my first ammo can!!! Definitely a favourite point!”

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com

The cache container next to the haunted tree
/ Adela B /

GPS Awards: Highlighting Quality Caches in Portugal

Awards Medals

Peter!, the Website Administrator and Video Producer at GeoPT.org, said of the Portuguese GPS Awards, “Just like the Oscars, this is to recognize the quality of geocachers’ work.”

What better way to highlight quality caches than to encourage the community to discover and vote for their favorites? In this case, that community includes geocachers across all 20 regions of Portugal.

“We decided to organize the event to improve the quality of geocaching in Portugal and to reward the owners of the best caches,” explains prodrive, another GeoPT.org Website Administrator and Event Organizer.

Portugal experienced a geocaching boom in 2011. On average, over 500 geocaches were published each month, accumulating to more than 6,000 caches that year.

Peter! says, “We have around 18,000 active geocaches in Portugal, but not all take you to a place with an incredible view or put a smile on your face because they took you on a real adventure.”

GeoPT.org, a geocaching discussion portal in Portugal, initiated and organized the GPS awards to highlight quality caches across the country.

Geocachers at the Awards Ceremony

The organizers selected 365 of the Portuguese caches published in 2011 based on the following criteria:

  • Favorite Points
  • GCVotes
  • Average length of logs
  • Number of photos in the gallery
  • Terrain rating

They then encouraged geocachers to go out and discover as many of these caches as they could between February 17 and June 4, 2012. Geocachers who found at least 40 of the caches could vote for up to 20 of their favorites. An incredible 600 votes were submitted.

Voting closed on June 4 at midnight. Five caches in each district were selected as finalists. The awards ceremony took place on June 16, where the winner of each region and a national winner were announced. Over 150 geocachers attended the awards ceremony and crammed into a theater-style hall to recognize the finalists.

The 365 nominees received a bronze icon for their cache page. The 100 finalists received an additional silver icon, and the 20 regional winners received a gold icon for their cache page along with a medal.

You can view videos of the 20 regional and national awards winners here. The big winner of the night was “A casa mistério” (GC34FCJ), created by helderjust.

One geocacher who attended the awards ceremony says, “Our first participation! We like! Not only because we stood on stage but for everything we experienced that night. We liked to see all those fantastic [cache] owners take the stage. Some more than once and without a doubt very well deserved. We kept adding more and more caches to our “to do ASAP” list. A great and fantastically organized event. Many congratulations to the organization that made it all possible.”

With the success of the GPS awards, another awards show, honoring 2012’s best regional and a national cache, is expected to take place in fall of 2013.

2011 GPS Awards Winner, helderjust

 

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching.com Caption Contest 35 – Win a Barely Coveted Prize

“mommy, what can we trade for the furry kitty?” — kthoms0319

Ever find a geocache to only stumble on a bigger surprise? Formulate your most creative caption for this picture. You could win a ‘barely coveted prize’ in the 35th Geocaching.com Caption Contest. This picture was originally posted on the official Geocaching.com Facebook page. Special thanks to geocacher Beverly Six for use of the picture.

What caption would you write for the picture at the top of this post? Submit your caption by clicking on “Comments” below. Please include your Geocaching.com username in all entries. Then, explore the captions other geocachers have posted.

Barely Coveted Prize

Try to ‘influence’ the voting process (*nudge*nudge*). “Like” the caption that you think should win. If you think your caption should win, convince your fellow geocachers, your friends, and family to “like” your caption. Lackeys vote from the top finalists to decide the winner of the contest.

The winner receives this month’s ‘barely coveted prize.’ The prize is a selection of swag from this Geocaching.com swag.

Click on the image to discover the winner from this Geocaching.com Caption Contest

More than 20 Geocaching.com Lackeys voted to award the winner of the 34th Geocaching.com Caption Contest a barely coveted prize. Click on the image to your right to read the winning caption of that 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.

/ Adela B /

Announcing the July Featured Geocacher of the Month

The July featured Geocacher of the Month took matters regarding Trackables in his own hands, spiced things up, and brought a community closer together.

July Featured Geocacher of the Month, De Wijngemachtigde

Congratulations to De Wijngemachtigde for being named July’s Featured Geocacher of the Month!

Guus, a.k.a. De Wijngemachtigde, is recognized for encouraging a record number of geocachers across the Netherlands to participate in Geocoin races.

His creative approach to get the community to put their Trackables in circulation, instead of keeping them at home, allowed the coins to travel across all 415 municipalities of the Netherlands.

As one geocacher put it, “Not only has he [De Wijngemachtigde] put and continues to put a lot of effort in the Dutch Geocoin race, he also frequently gives away Geocoins to other cachers through quizzes and sweepstakes. These initiatives really create a very positive vibe for geocaching in the Netherlands and beyond!”

De Wijngemachtigde will receive a collector’s edition Featured Geocacher of the Month Geocoin, along with a Geocacher of the Month hat and certificate acknowledging his contributions signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.com.

Featured Geocacher of the Month Icon

Thank you to the fellow July nominees and all those who supported them. The nominees not chosen as featured Geocacher of the Month will receive a gift of appreciation from Groundspeak. See a list of all the featured Geocachers of the Month here.

The geocaching community is encouraged to re-nominate those who have yet to be honored as featured Geocacher of the Month.

If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be considered for the honor, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@groundspeak.com. Every nomination must meet the following requirements: Please include your name, the name of your nominee, their username, at least one picture of the nominee and description (in 500 or fewer words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Geocacher of the Month. Please inform your nominee that you’ve submitted them for the award. Nominations for the August featured Geocacher of the Month must be received by the end of the day on Friday, August 10th.

Once we have received all of the nominations, we will choose the top candidates and post them on the Latitude 47 blog. You will then get a chance to champion your favorite. Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so we might learn from each other.

/ Adela B

Taal Volcano – GC1GJ6N -GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – August 6, 2012

Enjoying the view from the top of the volcano

Geocachers will need to travel by boat and on horseback to get to the Geocache of the Week.

Taal Volcano (GC1GJ6N) is part of a chain of volcanoes located on the western side of the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

The difficulty 5, terrain 5  EarthCache was placed by Team1337 in late September of 2008. Since then, it has attracted a number of geocachers to journey out to the volcanic island to claim a smiley.

Taal Volcano presents one of the most charming and picturesque views and is one of the most active volcanoes in the Philippines, with its last eruption occurring in 1977.

Getting to Taal Volcano on horseback

Geocachers who make the trip to this volcano often dive into Crater Lake – a lake inside the volcano’s crater that holds sulfuric content – to celebrate their trip.

A geocacher who embarked on this journey writes, “Unbelievable, amazing, what a trip and very beautiful view!  It was a real adventure to reach the rim of the crater. I used a boat and I walked to the rim of the crater. The questions were a real challenge, but I did it! Thanks a lot for this EarthCache.”

The 112 images on the cache page have done a fantastic job revealing the volcano’s beauty and capturing geocachers’ experiences.

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com

If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com.

Taking a dip in Crater Lake