IGO Hike N Seek 2014 Event Cache

This is IGO's 11th annual Hike and Seek event being held for the first time at Camp Okoboji on the campus of the University of Okoboji.

The headquarters for Hike and Seek 2014 is the Camp Okoboji dining hall which is the large building overlooking Emerson Bay with a large deck past the basketball court. You may park on the basketball court or on the grass in front of any cabin. Camp rules prohibit pets on campus. No alcohol is allowed in the dining hall, although it is permitted in the housekeeping cabins. WIFI is available. See the hns2014 website for more details including accommodations available in the area.

Caching will occur for 9 hours on Saturday, September 13 from 8am until 5pm. Starting at 8am, cache coordinates and descriptions in official diaries will be available at IGO Hike and Seek 2014 headquarters at the posted coordinates, the Camp Okoboji dining hall on the west side of West Okoboji. The hosts will have several computers available on site from which the master GPX file may be downloaded --- bring your own special cables if necessary. USB thumb drives drives will also be available for file transfer. Hosts will be available to answer questions throughout the day. Participants must check back in at headquarters by 5pm

In general, points for the GeoBOJI Cache Fishin' event will be awarded for each find based on the cache ratings and distances from headquarters, but in any case the points will be defined in the official diary. Each participant records his finds in his official diary using punches, stickers, or other method provided at each cache or waypoint as described in the diary. Participants are expected to total their own points in their diaries before turning them in by 5pm at the posted coordinates. Awards will be presented and diaries returned in the dining hall at approximately 9pm after supper. Rankings of all attendees will be published on this website shortly after the event.

There will be 85-95 new caches in addition to the 200 existing official geocaching.com caches of various types and sizes within 15 miles of HnS 2014 headquarters. Notable existing caches include active webcam caches, library caches, puzzles, and the IGL cache trail. Links to bookmark lists of these existing caches are available on the right edge of this page. Efforts are being made to publish all the new caches shortly after the beginning of the event sometime Saturday morning, but publication by geocaching.com is not guaranteed.

Participants may choose to try to find any of several official multi-point “mystery caches.” Details of those will be found in their descriptions in the diary. The challenge cache will involve visiting at least 5 published waypoints at historical markers and finding the final cache in order to meet the challenge. For three other "mystery" caches, 6 locations must be visited to gather information to search for the final cache. Themes include history, art, etc. Special recognition will be given to all participants who find at least one mystery cache. Points will also be awarded which will be included in the overall total.

A "Poker Run" contest will be run concurrently with the main caching event. Those who wish to participate in the poker run must register for this special event at the time they pick up their diaries. At that time they must also ante either a cache container or TOTT into the pot. During the day, participants visit any or all of the 5 caches designated for the poker run. These caches contain limited stashes of colored poker chips; registered finders should retrieve one, and only one colored chip at each cache they find. At the end of the day at around 5 pm when the diaries are turned in, the participant draws up to five cards from a deck of cards (depending on how many chips he has retrieved) and the dealer records the best poker hand made from those cards in the player's diary before returning the cards to the deck for the next player. The player who drew the best poker hand wins the whole pot of containers and TOTT. Players are also awarded points for the overall contest based on the value of the particular hand they drew and additional points for each of the 5 designated poker run caches they find.

At the hns2014 website is a schedule of several other events held near to HnS2014 headquarters on Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, September 12-14.

Activities are also being planned especially for kids.

Check back to this page often for updates