The warning is clear: “Never go alone!” This difficulty five, terrain five geocache challenges adventurers as they descend below the surface of the island of Mallorca.
The cache page for “DSOM – Minero las piedras” (GC273NE) weaves a ghostly story of phantom voices and those who did not obey warnings turning to stone. ‘DSOM’ stands for ‘Dark Side of Mallorca.’
Pullermann & Tossiman hid the small size cache in 2010. Some 35 geocachers have logged smileys on the geocache and it has received 23 Favorite Points so far.
The cache page tells the story of Pedro, the ghost of the stones. The cache owners tempt geocachers to hunt for the cache: “Do you want to unveil Pedro’s secret? His ghost may live in an old can which is hidden very well somewhere in the quarry. To locate it, you have to follow Pedro’s traces. But be careful, never walk alone…”
Dark Side of Mallorca
To find the final location of this Multi-Cache, geocachers must use clues collected at several waypoints. When they finally reach the location of Pedro’s ghost they discover artifacts which lead them to the final cache container. Geocachers must also use specialized climbing equipment and are advised to take extreme caution.
One geocacher reports completing this geocache took his group seven hours. He also said “DSOM” was one of his favorite caches. Other logs on the cache page read, “Wow wow wow!” Followed by a string of smileys.
Dark Side of Mallorca
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the globe. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com. 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.
Some people find much more than just cache containers when they’re introduced to geocaching. Geocachers may discover parks they never knew existed, the hidden history of their community or even the sting of stepping in poison ivy. But some geocachers wander into something else. They’re lucky enough to find the person they’ll marry.
It happens. It happened to one of the founders of Geocaching.com. Bryan Roth attended a geocaching event ten years ago today. Fellow founder Jeremy Irish encouraged Bryan to attend.
Bryan says, “This was the first of 41 total geocaching events that I’ve attended so far. Jeremy had suggested that I attend and I figured it’d be a great opportunity to meet some members of the local geocaching community. I really didn’t know what to expect but, of course, that day has changed my life forever.”
Event in 2001 where Bryan and Hydee met (Hydee far left of picture)
Bryan’s “will attend” log read, “I will be there (with chocolates).” Bryan says he wasn’t fishing for love with those chocolates, “Not at all. At the time, I don’t think I was even looking for a date. I was only thinking about meeting geocachers and getting more involved with the local community.”
But Bryan says he soon met a geocacher named Hydee and her son Dylan. He remembers his first thought, “Yeah [my first thought was] – she looks like trouble. I was right, of course. ;)”
She later told Bryan the chocolates helped cement her intuitions that he was the right person for her. She loves chocolate.
Jon Stanley, Moun10Bike, hosted the event where Hydee and Bryan first met. Jon says, “That event is actually where I first met Bryan. I didn’t know that the spark had been lit at that time, but I soon found out. Hydee and her friend CameraThyme kept referring to “AFM,” which stood for “Action Figure Man.” After a while I discovered that this was their code name for Bryan. Then all became clear!”
The Roth's 10 Year Anniversary geocoin
Hydee’s friend CameraThyme also played a key role. Bryan says, “Thanks to CameraThyme for letting me know that Heidi was single.”
Bryan and Hydee would marry. Today they’re co -hosting a “10 Years Since They Met!” event in the Seattle area with Moun10Bike and Avroair. Nearly a hundred people are expected to attend.
Bryan says, “I feel so fortunate to have met Hydee and adopted Dylan. Our youngest son Nicholas is almost six and I can’t believe what a wonderful ten years it has been for all of us. A really cool aspect of it is that many of the people at the event ten years ago will be there today, so it’s really an anniversary for all of us. We’ve built some wonderful friendships along the way and we have geocaching to thank for it.”
Jon says Bryan and Hydee are lucky, geo-love can be a rare commodity, “I attend a fair amount of events, though, and while I’ve heard of people meeting through them, Bryan and Hydee are the only ones I personally can name who linked up as the result of an event, let alone stayed together happily for ten years!”
Still want more love? Watch this video about others who met through geocaching.
Some people pack a GPS device or smartphone, a pen and some gear to hit the geocaching trail. Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious who geocache under the team name TheVillains also pack mustaches, sunglasses, and comic books. Their geocaching alter ego is all about spreading the joy of evil geocaching. Their logs and cache pages are populated with quotes like this, “Horrible Hunting…. Muhahahahahahaha!!!!”
When asked by Geocaching.com “How evil is your evil geocaching?” Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious simply replied, “Very.”
TheVillains humble beginnings
TheVillains beginnings are humble enough. They started geocaching in February of this year. Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious write, “Well it all started with comic books. We wanted to leave a trademark item and we decided that comic books were awesome and so were the villains in them. So we decided to become villains ourselves with awesome disguises and take over the world of geocaching.”
Like all great comic book villains, the geocaching team has a simple, yet universal villain goal. They say, “Our goal is to dominate the world of geocaching by finding every single geocache in the world!!!! So one day your own geocache will be dominated by TheVillains!!!!! BEWARE!!!!! We also leave every geocache with our calling card and a villainous comic book (if it fits).”
They’ve definitely left a mustachioed mark on their geocaching community. They write, “We get a few emails from other geocachers after finding their ‘difficult’ geocaches, challenging us to find others. We also have quite a fan base, and get photos of people who have found our own geocaches… or not… posing as if they had a cool mustache like our own.”
TheVillains cache page log photos
With their alter egos TheVillains injected some… well… theatrical, villainous flare into the Southern California geocaching scene. They even square off against arch enemies.
Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious write, “We published our most well know geocache Mrs. Mysterious’s Mustaches (GC316RZ) where there is a series of false geocaches that when you find them, they have similar logos to our own, but the wrong mustache! We got a message from a fellow geocacher saying that she recently published a cache nearby and it was just found by our arch nemesis’s BBsquared and Spoons1 and that they are probably on their way to ours to be the FTF right now!”
It’s at this point where the evil geocaching duo sprang into action. They say, “So we put on our disguises and jumped in the car and drove over. Sure enough, there they were crawling under bushes and looking in trees trying to find our cache. We rolled down the window, they recognized us obviously, and we gave them a few foreboding hints leading them in the wrong direction and drove off with a Muhahahahahaha!!! It took them over an hour to find it.”
TheVillains, the next generation
BBsquared logged the cache and wrote, “We hopped like bunnies, searched in trees, TheVillains stopped by and laughed at me. We searched and looked and laughed, our clothes are pretty dirty but Spoons1 and I weren’t leaving until we logged a smiley. T4T [thanks for the] very devious and horrible $ – Muhahahahahahahahahahahahaha.” He finished by saying, “Happy – errrr I mean Horrible hunting.”
TheVillains are still in their first year of geocaching, they’re gaining notoriety and a following. The photo to the left was fresh crops of villains was recently uploaded on their Facebook page.
Even TheVillains mustaches are open to change. “We have been through a plethora of mustaches we recently grew these new handle bar ones, what do think? But we are always looking for new styles. But as far as costume changes go, we are sticking with the glasses and ‘stashes as our trademark logo shows.”
TheVillains at a night-cache
If you’re thinking about a career in evil geocaching, or creating an alter ego in your geocaching community, TheVillians have advice. “We can always use more henchmen…. But really, just be creative. No one likes finding lame geocaches, try to make everything you do interesting and create a theme, maybe one day you can be as cool as us….. not…..”
Then they signed their email with their trademark sign off, “Horrible Hunting,- TheVillains”
Three little letters: an A, a P and an I are helping to expand your geocaching adventure. An API (application programming interface) is kind of like the genetic code that runs Geocaching.com. Select partners are using our new public API to bring Geocaching.com to you on new platforms and allow you to use Geocaching.com in creative ways.
Do you want to geocache using your BlackBerry? Check out: CacheSense. Interested in validating solutions for geocaching puzzles? Certitude is for you. The desktop application GSAK even offers an all-in-one geocaching management tool.
We currently have over 100 independent developers testing applications and services using the API. These services and more will be made available to you in the coming year.
New Geocaching.com Feature
There were a lot of exciting updates in last week’s Geocaching.com release, but perhaps none was more anticipated than the change to Mystery and Multi-Cache pages. Puzzle lovers will be pleased to see that they can now change the initial coordinates on a Mystery or Multi-Cache page to the coordinates for the next stage or final location of the cache.
To use this feature, click on the pencil icon next to the coordinates, paste the new coordinates into the field and click ‘submit.’ Don’t worry about spoiling the cache for others. The new coordinates will only be visible to you.
When you download the GPX file from the cache page, your new coordinates will be included. Pocket Queries will add this functionality in an upcoming release. For more information, click here.
Try to resist a geocache called, “Taiwan’s Secret Abandoned Theme Park” (GC2GKP2).
The difficulty three, terrain four Multi-Cache was hidden by wynando. It entices adventurers with this description: “Destroyed by the 1999 earthquake and left abandoned, this Dutch-themed amusement park is a must visit. Be prepared to feel like Indiana Jones as you venture deeper into the park, walking through thick vegetation and broken remains of the park to try and find the caches. You will be amazed by what you will see here and will wonder what this place used to look like before the earthquake!”
Eleven geocachers logged smileys on the geocache since it was hidden just over a year ago. Cachers are advised to wear long pants and bring mosquito spray. For those who complete the cache, the journey into a forgotten world is the reward.
Taiwan's Secret Abandoned Theme Park
One cacher logged, “This is an unbelievable and incredible cache among the caches I visited. It’s is very unique and classical for all our local geocachers to visit. When we approached the final stage, we intruded into giants’ realm. Visit yourself to experience the wonderful kingdom.”
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the globe. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com. 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.
