Geocaching is an inexpensive outdoor treasure hunt (by yourself or with your family) that uses smart phones with GPS apps to locate containers hidden at a particular set of longitude and latitude coordinates all over the world. We will start with the Spring area.
Let’s take a look at different types of traditional cache you might find. This type of cache is represented by the green lid shoebox icon and is the most common cache type. If you've follow the coordinates on your smartphone correctly, you should have arrive to a lamp post in the middle of a parking lot in the back! This is called an LPC - a Lamp Post Cache, Lamp Post Cover, or a "Skirt-Lifter". The metal boxes at the base of lamp poles are rarely attached to anything. They're just cosmetic metal skirting used to hide the bolts that attach the pole to the concrete base. You should be able to just slide them up. Watch out for Muggles- Non-geocachers. They are everywhere. You may have to think quickly on your feet to explain what you are doing lifting a lamp post cover, (you’re an official lamp post bolt inspector?).
Slide the skirt up and remove the container from underneath. Congratulations, you just found a geocache.
These types of caches are known as PNG – Park and Grab, quick finds that will take a few minutes.
Inside it, you will find a piece of paper. That's the log sheet. Some caches have notebooks. Others have a thin strip of paper. The common denominator is that there will be something for you to sign to prove to the cache owner that you actually found it. Sign log sheets with your Geocaching account name or just your account initials if it's only a thin strip of paper. Don't use your real name, because the cache owner won't know which signature goes with which log online.
Always bring a pen with you. It is a TOTT - Tool of the Trade. As you find more caches, your TOTT items tend to increase (GPSr – Global Positioning Satellite receiver, flashlight, etc.). LPCs and other small caches don't have enough room to keep a pen.
Now that you've signed the sheet, put everything back the way it was before you were there. The sheet needs to be back inside the container, and the container needs to be put back inside the lamp skirt.
To get credit for your find, you're going to need to look at the cache page on the Geocaching website again and click "Log your visit" in the upper left hand corner. This will take you to the "Post a New Log" page. Under type of log, select "Found It". For Date Logged, you want to put in the date you signed the log sheet, not the date you're filling in this form. (Some people find several caches over multiple days before they sit down to log them all at the same time.) In the large text box type in whatever comments you have about your find. CO – Cache Owner, love reading the comments other geocachers write. If anything interesting happened on your adventure, tell the CO. Now click "Submit Log Entry" at the bottom of the page, and you'll be taken back to the main cache page. You've now logged your find and have received credit for it in your account.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the cache page you will see other people's logs. There may be some terms you're not familiar with.
DNF - Did Not Find. This means the geocacher did not find the cache. This is also an option in the drop down list when you're on the logging page of a cache. When you don't find a cache, it is a good idea to say so online because it may not be due to any fault of your own. It is possible that the cache was taken and if this happens the cache owner will need to replace it. Cache owners have no way of knowing their cache is missing without DNF logs.
SL – Signed Log, a quick way of telling CO that you signed the log.
FTF - First to Find, a great honor to achieve, if you are fast enough to be the first to signed the log.
TFTC - Thanks For The Cache, a common term used by beginning geocachers.
TFTH - Thanks For The Hide, I usually used this term along with my DNF log.
Congrats to Team Red J for the FTF!!!