Near the top of the world the islands of Svalbard rest inside the Arctic Circle. The archipelago is home to a couple thousand hearty Norwegians. It’s also home to more than two dozen geocaches.
The traditional cache, “This is Mine 2” (GC14EEQ), collected the most Favorite Points among them. The difficulty two, terrain four geocache was hidden in 2007 by TVE & Martin L.
The hunt for this geocache leads adventurers back into the island’s coal mining past. Construction on the mine started in the early 1900’s – and is marred by deadly coal explosions and bombardment by World War Two battleships. The mine is now vacant and sealed for safety.
The cache page encourages cachers to be courteous, “Remember that all these old buildings and artefacts are important parts of the cultural heritage of Svalbard and treat them with respect!” More than fifty geocachers have already logged smileys on the small-size cache.
This is Mine 2 - geocache
One geocacher who logged “This is Mine 2” wrote on the cache page, “What a place! Thanks for placing the cache up here, otherwise we probably would have missed this interesting place, even though it was visible from our room window. The climb up and back down was not that easy but surely rewarding. Took a lot of pictures and did some investigation.”
This is Mine 2 - cache page photo
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.
September's Featured Geocacher of the Month, SuperGoober
Last month the geocaching community voted SuperGoober as the September Featured Geocacher of the Month. According to those who nominated him, “he is a model geocacher which all of us in the area and beyond can be proud of. He is always willing to lend advice/help to any cacher that approaches him or contacts him.”
The featured Geocacher of the Month recognition celebrates geocachers for their contributions to the activity. A panel of Lackeys had the difficult task of selecting three of the most outstanding nominees. Now it’s your turn to help name one of these nominees the featured October “Geocacher of the Month.”
Geocacher of the Month Geocoin
Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you’d like to see as the featured “Geocacher of the Month.” Those whose nominees were not recognized here are encouraged to submit their nominations again next month. Read the testimonials below and leave a comment with your suggestion. Some testimonials have been edited for length.
“seping is a very active geocacher, he lives in Catalonia / Spain, in his native [country] many geocachers know him! He has found more than 18,000 caches all over the world and has over 240 caches hidden!
seping also already has organized two Mega-Events, including the recent Mega Catlunya 2011, and brought together geocachers from around the world. I met seping. He’s a very friendly and helpful man, and I think that’s he’s seen similarly by many other people.”
“They have hosted multiple events, hidden excellent caches, all at various levels of difficulty, and are always aiding fellow cachers when in need. Tom currently serves in the Canadian armed forces so not only is he promoting geocaching here in BC, Canada, but he is also contributing world wide. They head up a local organization, Mid Island Geocaching that just recently had a summer end event “The Geo-Poker Rally” which was held in conjunction with Our local BCGA year end Blitz. Even though he is currently overseas on a mission supporting world peace, he is still staying in contact and helping people back home who geocache. They are both very dedicated and very well respected in the community.”
“Around Chester County PA, caches by bpp_picnic are notorious for their unique locations and even more interesting camouflage. bpp_picnic hosts a great event at the Brandywine Picnic Park (his family’s place) every September, and though his park, Big Red (his truck), and the event were flooded out this year by all the rain in SE Pennsylvania, bpp_picnic was still gracious enough to feed those of us who showed up with his amazing bbq pork and brisket.”
Comment below to tell us who you think should be the featured October “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 certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by 2 of the founders of Geocaching.com. We will be accepting comments through Monday October 24th.
If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be the Geocacher of the Month, send an email to
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 November Geocacher of the Month must be received by November 3rd.
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.
Each October, the Groundspeak Lackeys commence planning for the following year. We want you to help us make sure we’re on the right track.
In the next couple of weeks, you may receive a link via email to a survey titled “Groundspeak Member Survey.” The sender is survey@groundspeak.com and the email will be sent via SurveyMonkey.com.
We hope that those of you who receive the survey will take 5-20 minutes to complete it. The time depends on the level of detail you wish to provide in the open-ended questions.
It’s been about a year and a half since our last major survey. In that time, 500,000 new geocaches have been hidden and the number of logs posted in a 30-day period has grown by more than 30%. In an activity growing so quickly, with thousands of people introduced to geocaching each day, a year and a half can mean a lot of major changes!
Thanks in advance for responding to the survey. And happy geocaching!
Click on the image to see the geocaching team's official site
Nine geocachers invested months of planning and preparing for a single day this weekend. The group based in the Netherlands included Team Mac Bean Stash, The Heuv, Ellino, Mr. Loggy, Demostar, The Axe Factor, and Fine-Line. They all launched on their mission on October 9, 2011. (That day can also be read as 9/10/11 – if written day/month/year.) Their goal was simple and extraordinarily complex.
Every geocacher enjoys the game their own way. Some enjoy spending months on one puzzle cache or hiking for days to find a dozen caches in the wilderness. This group wanted to challenge their wits, endurance and planning abilities to claim a world record in the geocaching community. The geocachers researched the most countries any group logged within 24 hours. Geocaching.com does not keep nor endorse official records.
Latitude 47 posted this article in August about a group of three geocachers who logged geocaches in ten countries in 24 hours. A reaction came back that a group of geocachers from Sweden accomplished 14 countries in 24 hours.
The geocaching group from the Netherlands set out to break the record. They say on their official website that they beat 14 countries in 24 hours. The group says they geocached in 15 countries in 24 hours. They countries, in no particular order include, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland in 24 hours.
They also promise more details will be available soon. After a cache run like that, there must be time to re-coup. Check back for updates in the story as they occur.
From the cache page with the caption, "It's not just books that can be found here!"
The husband and wife geocaching team ofNickie! & Brian~! hid the Multi-Cache “The British Library” (GC2M0AF) back in January of this year. Bryan writes, “I’ve been given co-credit for the cache, but it was really all Nickie’s work, I just tested out some of the maths involved. ”
The difficulty three, terrain one geocache was placed with the permission of the library.
The geocache is one of the largest caches in Central London and quickly tallying up Favorite Points. “The British Library” takes geocachers on a tour of the famed institution. Geocachers are directed around the library to gather clues. The answers to questions like, “Outside in the piazza, there is a statue of Newton. The last number on the plaque will give you A.”
Geocachers then explore several more stops in the library to discover clues in paintings, plaques and signs. They even discover the visual illusion of Paradoxymoron to help lead them to the geocache.
Once geocachers accumulate the answers to all of the clues, they plug the information into a formula found on the cache page to locate the geocache. The cache page reads, “Once at that location, you will find a small keysafe with directions back into the Library to find the final cache. Leave enough time to enter the building before it closes to sign the final log book! The final container is quite large (5 gallon) and can hold many swaps and Travel Bugs.”
The statue of Newton at the British Library holds one of the clues
Geocachers who logged the cache wrote, “Wow – excellent and worthwhile cache.. loved the challenge on this one… and what a contatiner / location.. brilliant – 10 stars from us.”
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.
