/ 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
/ Eric Schudiske

Geocaching.com Spoiler Alert: Schrader’s Ode to Dayspring

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Click on image to watch the Spoiler Alert video

Watch this Geocaching.com Spoiler Alert video for cache hiding inspiration. The video was shot with cache owner permission.  ‘Schrader’s Ode to Dayspring‘ (GC3NREC) requires a TOTT (tool of the trade). The cache owner, “Herr Potter” was inspired by another geocacher’s creative hides. The cache is an Ode to Dayspring’s Totally Tubular series. The geocache is located along a bike trail in Washington State, USA.

Subscribe to the Official Geocaching.com YouTube channel for the latest tips and tricks in geocaching. Watch the more than 50 videos produced by Geocaching.com on our video page.

/ 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 /

Geocaching.com Weekly Newsletter – August 8, 2012

Write a Log to Remember

Some logs posted on Geocaching.com offer only a snapshot into the geocaching adventure, but great logs produce a panoramic view of the geocaching quest. Great logs inform other geocachers of what they might expect on their caching adventure. They also reward cache owners, who enjoy reading about the experiences of those seeking their caches.

Share your experience beyond a TFTC (Thanks for the Cache) or TNLN (Took Nothing Left Nothing) log by following these 5 tips:

1) See it and Say it – Describe what you saw and experienced on your way to the cache. Did you see a rare bird, a hidden waterfall, or George Clooney? Tell folks about it.
2) Be a Superhero – If there are new conditions in the area, like a fallen tree, warn other cachers.
3) Talk about Trades – Tell people what is in the cache container along with what you took and what you left.
4) Shout Out for the Cache Owner – Thank the cache owner for placing the cache.
5) Learn from Others – As part of the Lost and Found promotion in 2010, we asked people to nominate great geocaching logs. Read the nominations here.

Cache owners can reward those who write great logs by sending them a thank you email through their Geocaching.com profile.

Are you ready to go geocaching now? Visit Geocaching.com to find your next cache, and put your new log writing tips to use!