Thousands of geocachers walk into parks, onto trails, and visit other geocaching-friendly areas around the world to clean up the environment each year. They walk out with bags of trash and a sense of pride. They’re taking part in Cache In Trash Out (CITO) events and helping to preserve the natural beauty of our outdoor resources through litter clean up, removal of invasive species, planting trees, and trail building.
CITO events are held all year long, but you’ll have more than 140 to choose from on April 21 and 22 — the 10th annual International CITO weekend.
This year, more than a thousand geocachers from at least 15 countries are combining in the annual worldwide environmental effort. The locations range from Budapest to Hong Kong, and include 32 U.S. States. Odds are one of the CITO events is near you.
The treasure-hunting adventure of geocaching is finding its way into more community events, adventure games, and even school competitions.
Malibu Creek State Park in California, USA is combining geocaching with mountain biking, trail running, and rock climbing for its first ever “Malibu Adventure Games.” The event is a community effort to raise the funds needed to help keep Malibu Creek State Park protected and open for the public.
Daniel Weissauer with Malibu Adventure Games says geocaching is a perfect fit to showcase all the park has to offer, “We were interested in creating an exciting scavenger hunt for the Malibu Adventure Games using a format anybody could participate in, something combining technology and nature. Racking our heads together, we’d all heard of geocaching from word-of-mouth experiences and knew it’d be perfect”
He adds, “The Geocache Hunt is designed to highlight the beauty of the park.”
Others events, like the Wild Canyon Games in Oregon, USA use a geocaching course to challenge athletes. Geocachers are timed. Teams have five hours to hike, run, and scramble over rocks to accumulate geocaches worth the most points. 350 geocaches are hidden across 169 square miles of wilderness. The geocaches further from the start are worth more points.
Some schools are seeing the academic potential of geocaching. High School science students in Illinois are judged on their geocaching skills. The JV Science Team from New Trier Township High School outside of Chicago just placed first in the state in a geocaching competition.
Geocaching at the 2011 Wild Canyon Games
Geocaching is trial event in the Illinois Science Olympiad. Teams are given a GPS device and allowed 30 minutes to follow a sequence of waypoints to a location. At each way point the students must answer a question related to geocaching or earth science. A couple sample questions are, “What does hitchhiker mean in [geocaching] slang?” or “Who is considered the “Father of Geology?”
Weissauer with the Malibu Adventure Games says awareness of geocaching is gaining ground. He says it was an easy decision to make geocaching part of the Malibu Creek State Park event, “We included geocaching because
of its huge popularity, the unique location and history of the park, and the amount of families coming out. We believe the Geocaching Hunt will grow over the next few years as word gets out.”
If you find yourself in Malibu, California this weekend, space is still available to register for the event.
This cache page reads, “You Must Believe in Magic” and then casts a spell on geocachers. The Multi-Cache “The Enchanted Forest” (GC2P52E) weaves an elaborate fairy tale for geocachers to unravel on Terceira island. The island is located 1500 kilometers (950 miles) off the coast of Portugal. Victor from Team Recanto hid the geocache in 2010, after his 6-year-old daughter sparked his imagination.
He says, “The idea came to mind while visiting the park [where the cache is now placed] with my wife and my daughter. At the time my daughter… was talking about fairies and unicorns, and [said] that one of the larger trees reminded her of a magical tree. That tree is now the final stage for The Enchanted Forest.”
While the idea may have been instant, building the caching experience took weeks. “[Creating the cache]… took 45 days, and 12 site visits. My daughter asked if I could make things move on the cache page, that is why we have the animated dragons.”
Victor's daughter with the handmade cache container located at the final coordinates
Beyond animated dragons on the cache page and photo montages with fairies and dragons, Victor also wrote the cache description in Portuguese and in English. The four stage Multi-Cache challenges geocachers to solve puzzles to discover a handmade cache container.
On the cache hunt
A recent log reads, “WOW!!! totally worth the hike! Congratulations to Team Recanto for another magnificent cache. The amount of work that went in to this truly shows. Thank you for taking us on a grand adventure!”
Victor has advice for geocachers hoping to create an engaging caching experience. He says, “Take your time, visit the Groundspeak forums, do several site visits, make sure the story and containers combine well with the location, attention to detail is very important.”
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.
Detail of cache container
If you’ d 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.
Watch this Geocaching.com Presents video: Unlocking Hidden History. See how the adventure of geocaching reveals a hidden world around you. It happens whether you’ve found a new park, a new viewpoint or unlocked a hidden history.
Go along as two Pennsylvania geocachers lift the veil on the history of a former prison, and discover how similar institutions of reform are found on four continents. Have you ever discovered a hidden history while geocaching?
Click the image to unlock local history
Subscribe to the official Geocaching.com YouTube channel to be one of the first to see new videos about the evolving world of geocaching. Watch the more than 50 videos produced by Geocaching.com on our video page.
March’s featured nominees are a great example of those who take geocaching wide and far. Though many other qualified candidates were nominated, Groundspeak Lackeys selected these three daring, helpful, and inspirational nominees. Now it’s your turn to help select one of them as March’s featured “Geocacher of the Month.”
Magicman65 - February 2012 Geocacher of the Month
Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you feel should be the feartured “Geocacher of the Month.” Those whose nominees were not recognized here are encouraged to submit their nominations again next month.
Last month, Magicman65 was chosen as the February Featured Geocacher of the Month. Magicman65 was recognized for his ability to engage the geocaching community with creativity, commitment, and encouragement.
Here are your nominees for the March Featured Geocacher of the Month. Some testimonials have been edited for length.
Nominated by Hmichel777, “Alexschweigert led the Allerhalligen-Cruises on March, 24th on the fastest ship in the Wadden Sea with 280 cachers on board. That’s the 5th event of its kind involving chartered ships on the north sea led by Alex and his team. Alex shares his love for geocaching and the sea with others by inviting them to experience a geocaching adventure like no other. All events are recorded and can be found in Alex’s blog.”
Nominated by Treknschmidt, “We met Lisdowney aka Arnie and Gerry when we were working on completing a tough challenge cache. They were always willing to share their own experiences with us and to provide us with words of encouragement along the way. It’s not unusual to find one of them up a tree, in a cave, or canoeing to one of Ontario’s remote locations to log a lonely cache. Not only are these two always willing to offer a helping hand but they are truly inspirational to everyone of any age.”
Nominated by BSW2010, “Glenn is one of the best cachers in our area and contributes a lot to the geocaching community. He hosts an event every year on New Year’s Day. This proud Silver Level EarthCashe Master puts a lot of thought and effort into every cache he hides. Glenn keeps us plenty busy and is willing to help with any of his hides.”
Comment below to tell us who you think should be the featured March “Geocacher of the Month.” A panel of Lackeys will use your comments to help decide which geocacher is awarded the honor. Each featured “Geocacher of the Month” will receive an exclusive special edition featured ”Geocacher of the Month” Geocoin along with a Geocacher of the Month hat and a certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.com. We will be accepting comments for March’s award through Friday, April 20th.
If you know an outstanding geocacher you would like to nominate to be a Featured Geocacher of the Month, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@groundspeak.com.
Geocacher of the Month Geocoin
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 a description (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 April Geocacher of the Month must be received by April 30th.
Once we have received all of 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 we might learn from each other.
Thousands of geocachers walk into parks, onto trails, and visit other geocaching-friendly areas around the world to clean up the environment each year. They walk out with bags of trash and a sense of pride. They’re taking part in Cache In Trash Out (CITO) events and helping to preserve the natural beauty of our outdoor resources through litter clean up, removal of invasive species, planting trees, and trail building.
