Geocaching is delightful because of the people who play it — adventure-seekers, makers, parents, astronauts and (sometimes) celebrities. Read their stories.
Groundspeak needs your help acknowledging a geocacher each month that stands out by inspiring other geocachers with their innovation, creative hides and/or logs, respect for the environment, and geocaching etiquette. This person can be your best geocaching buddy, a geocacher you know as a local legend, or a long time geocacher who invites newbies to the geocaching community.
The Geocacher of the Month celebrates geocachers for their contributions and diversity. Geocachers are outdoorsy, technically apt, young, old, parents, single, athletic, intelligent, travelers, grandparents, and more. They are a uniquely eclectic group, unified by their passion for the activity of geocaching.
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 first Geocacher of the Month must be received by August 4th.
Once we have received all of the nominations, we will choose the top three candidates and post them on the blog. You will then get a chance to vote for your favorite.
We’ll name the Geocacher of the Month on August 20th at the Geocaching Block Party in Seattle, Washington, USA. Each Geocacher of the Month will receive an exclusive special edition ”Geocacher of the Month” Geocoin along with a Geocacher of the Month hat and certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by the founders of Geocaching.com: Jeremy Irish, Bryan Roth and Elias Alvord.
Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so as to learn from each other. Let the nominations begin!
The “Greatest RV Event in the World” gets even better. Geocaching.com is sending a team of Lackeys to share the adventure of geocaching with RVers at “The Rally” in Redmond, Oregon. The Rally runs from July 14 – 17. It draws tens of thousands of RV’ers from around the United States and Canada. Groundspeak Lackeys: Nicole (Louie Bliss), Jessie (Firefox) and Lisa (barendje) will be shaking hands and introducing RVers to a perfect addition to their road trip, geocaching.
Watch this video to see the team launch on their road trip down to The Rally. If you’re attending The Rally, make sure to stop by and say hi to the Lackeys.
Darcy Kydd, KaliKydd, describes July 3 as, “A pretty awesome day.” The sunny Vancouver Island, British Columbia day involved the outdoors, geocaching and a daredevil helicopter ride to claim a First to Find (FTF).
Vancouver Island is home to a skilled geocacher named ceebeecee. He has tallied more than 600 FTFs. But there was one new Vancouver Island area geocache that lingered without a FTF for weeks. There was a reason.
The traditional geocache, Mt Shepherd (GC2Y4FK), is a difficulty two, terrain five cache. It’s hidden at the top of an island mountain off the Western coast of Canada. Cachers on Vancouver Island would typically need to take a two ferries, drive a four-wheel drive vehicle up the mountain and then hike steep terrain for hours.
Then inspiration struck geocacher Aranea Van Burik, part of the geocaching team Coombs Wooden Shoe. On July 3, Aranea posted a simple question on the “Geocaching on Vancouver Island” Facebook page. The post read, “HELI CACHING!! DOES ANYBODY WANT TO GO?” The post had a link to the Mt Shepherd geocache. Less then a minute later Darcy responded, “YES!”
Location of Mt. Shepherd cache
Darcy says, “This wasn’t really in the budget, but it was the chance of the lifetime and couldn’t really pass it up.” Soon, Mike, the other half of Aranea’s caching team Coombs Wooden Shoe, and WossVegas joined.The three geocachers called themselves “Team Nuts.” They had never met in person before this cache. The helicopter was booked for the next day.
Aranea wasn’t able to take the flight but says, “The next day or so was nerve wracking, because I sent out the above notice also to ceebeecee, the FTF hound. He now knew what we were up to, so now the race was on! It turns out that Darcy has her own thing going on with ceebeecee and FTF’s, so I didn’t need to tell her what was at stake here. We kept checking the cache page obsessively and continually to see if he had logged it or not. WE WANTED THAT FTF!”
Darcy has been geocaching since 2007 but nothing on the scale of they were about to attempt. She says, “I like to get out in the bush, and out in the mountain and up in trees. The more forest the better, and normally my dogs are with me, but they couldn’t come in the helicopter.”
Team Nuts: WossVegas, pilot Mike, Coombs Wooden Shoe and KaliKydd
Dogs on the ground, the plan to snag a FTF was close to literally lifting off. First the team listened to a safety briefing, and then waited for cloud cover to lift from Mt. Shepherd.
The helicopter eventually got the green light to take flight. What would have been a five hour cache run was reduced to a leisurely ride through the clouds.
The helicopter touched down within 30 meters of the cache. Aranea was listening to the radio chatter when she got the news, “When they radioed back saying that they found it and it was a FTF….I did a happy dance…”
Darcy thanked ceebeecee for being a good sport and wrote in her cache log, “Our cheeks will hurt for weeks from the grins on our faces… Seriously, thanks to everyone for an amazing day!” In the log book for the terrain 5 cache she wrote, ““Quick, easy, find.”
She took this video of the flight as the helicopter was about to lift off.
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WossVegas logged, “Fanfreakingtastic! Found as part of “Team Nuts” with Coombs Wooden Shoe and KaliKydd. What a day! Nice little stroll from the chopper, admired the view, scanned the slopes to see if ceebeecee was closing in, signed the log, snapped photos and loved every minute of it.” Team Nuts claimed the FTF and took a victory tour of the island by helicopter. Darcy shot this video of this flight into the cache.
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Darcy’s advice for anyone interested in helicopter caching is simple. She says, “Find a pilot that’s willing.” And Team Nuts’ pilot might be one of the newest geocachers. Darcy says, “It was his very first cache. He did log the find, and might sign up for an account on Geocaching.com.”
Aranea says she’s ready for the next FTF challenge, ” We go for a FTF at any time, you name it…middle of the night, yup, no problem. We are in! I bought a 20 million candle powered flashlight just for the occasion. This puppy lights up the moon. Anybody that sees this thing asks if I needed to register it with NASA. So I am ready for the next challenge, whatever that might be! I can hardly wait!”
Logan Ripoff, Jeremy Irish, Spider+Spidi and WantedDeadOrAlive at the Memorial Cache site
By: Kelly Ranck
In July of 2001, Thomas Klestil was president, the most popular album was “1” by The Beatles, and the country had recently cheered on David Coulthard as he won the Grand Prix. It was Austria.
And on July 30 of 2001, the Italian Geocacher Giorgio introduced Austria to the cutting edge GPS-enabled treasure hunt called geocaching. His original cache on Mount Niedere in Vorarlberg disappeared a short two years after it was hidden. Local geocachers placed a memorial plaque at the original cache coordinates and hid numerous caches nearby – all under the name ‘A Tribute To Austria’s First (ATTAF)’. These caches were placed in a circular shape along a beautiful path with breathtaking views of the surrounding Austrian mountains.
The group of geocachers included Geocaching.com CEO Jeremy Irish and German reviewer Stash-lab. Dozens of geocachers stopped to take a group photo and toast the occasion. This moment would not have been complete without the stunning mountainous backdrop. What better way to celebrate an anniversary than on an Austrian mountaintop?
Group of geocachers who attended the event
Since the first cache was logged ten years ago, more than 18,000 geocaches have been hidden in Austria. Some caches, such as You have got mail, are so popular that they have accumulated over 170 favorite points.
Geocaching is quickly growing in popularity. As you’ve been reading this article, more than 100 caches have been logged on Geocaching.com from around the world. In fact, 3-5 caches are logged every second!
Because of its popularity, geocaching anniversaries such as Austria’s are continually being celebrated around the world. These anniversaries signify commitment to the activity, consistency, longevity, history, and tradition.
The beautiful mountains of Niedere
Let’s continue to gather together to celebrate this much loved activity.
“A Baldwin Attraction (Otago)” (GCRZ51) takes geocachers to a world record setting street on New Zealand’s South Island.
Baldwin street in Dunedin holds the distinction of being named the World’s Steepest Street. A sign proclaims the Guinness Book of Records™ title.
Geocachers hoping to log “A Baldwin Attraction (Otago)” are encouraged to park their car at the bottom of the hill and then walk up the harrowing incline.
It is a difficulty one, terrain two cache. It was placed in 2006 by GSVNoFixedAbode and has rewarded more than 200 geocachers with smileys. The cache page suggests discretion or the cover of night when searching for this micro cache. The cache owner writes, “As this is a popular and well-populated area a reasonable degree of stealth is required.”
A World Record Street
One cacher from Switzerland who logged this cache wrote, “A really cool place! We enjoyed the walk up the steepest street of the world. Good to know, that it can’t get any worse… T4TC”
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.
