25 Years! Las Vegas, Nevada
A 2025 Community Celebration Event!
If you have been around geocaching for any amount of time, then you might wonder how it all began. Well, that is a long story which would take quite a bit of time to tell, but here is a summary: The U.S. Government decided it was time to let people use the geo-locating satellites which were used to pinpoint latitude, longitude, and elevation on the earth. Selective Availability was the intentional degredation of the Global Positioning signal. On May 1, 2000, Selective Availability was shut off, and instantly GPS receivers had a tremendous upgrade in their ability to precisely pinpoint their location. Prior to May 1, Selective Availability limited the GPS signal by imposing an error of approximately 50 meters horizontally, and 100 meters vertically to GPS signals. After Selective Availability was turned off, the error was lowered to approximately 3-5 meters (and could be lowered further with the application of WAAS, the Wide Area Augmentation System).
Only two days later, on May 3, 2000, the first geocache was hidden. Twenty-five years later, there are more than 3 million active geocaches, and more than 1.8 million people have found at least one cache within the past year.
Its time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "throwing the switch" on Selective Availability, and 25 Years of Geocaching!
James Regional Sports Complex
March 16, from 14:00 to 16:00 (2 pm to 4pm)
Southeast corner of the James Regional Sports Complex
West Robindale Road and Cimarron Road
Please bring a lawn chair. I'll have cold waters, snacks, and giveaways for all attendees!
Feel free to share your geocaching stories, and bring your collections of signature items for others to see.
If you haven't found a Community Celebration Event this year, you will also earn a new souvenir!
Community Celebration Events - 2025
This Event is part of a limited release of Community Celebration Events to celebrate 25 years of geocaching. Geocachers hosted events between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025. Learn more about Community Celebration Events on the Geocaching Blog.