Geocaching

If you're one of the few who haven't heard of this hobby yet, it basically involves hiding a container full of goodies in the great outdoors, and posting the coordinates on the internet. Others then find the container, and exchange some of your goodies with some of their own, and sign the log book.

This is great fun. Geocaches range from unambitious 10-minute excursions into the woods from an easily found parking lot, to complicated puzzles that take hours to do and involve hacking through the woods off-trail.

For someone whose greatest loves are (1) nerdy technology and (2) the great outdoors, it doesn't get any better than this, there's something addictive about holding a GPS receiver in your hand that displays an arrow and a distance to a mysterious point just over yonder hill, and following that arrow until you get there.

The supply of publicly accessable wilderness is not great these days in populated parts of the world. Driving through an unfamiliar area, you might well get the impression that it is all privately owned and off limits. But if there are geocaches there, you can usually count on them being in some little nature preserve, crown land or unposted publicly accessable land. So you can get off the highway and enjoy the little scenic jewels of the area just like the locals.

Here are some links:

The Geocaching web site

Caches I have hidden

Caches I have found

Another fun thing to do with a GPS receiver is degree confluence hunting. You can read about this on the web site or you can go straight to this very neat map that shows all documented confluence visits. Basically, it's a tiny little photomosaic of the civilized world. So far I've only visited one confluence, a relatively easy one, written up here.

April 18, 2003

I've gone and retrieved the audio from my Skyline Trail Audiocache. I originally thought I'd have to take the tape recorder home (since I don't have another recorder like it) to play it into the computer, but my brother is visiting for the Easter Weekend and he has a good laptop. So we just toted that into the woods and transcribed the tape on the spot. It sounds tinny as it was coupled across with the tape recorder and the microphone wrapped in a fleece jacket.

Skyline Trail Audiocache Audio Logs as of Friday April 18, 2003 (8 minute MP3, 1.5 megabytes)

September 16, 2003

I've photographed the log book of my Canadian Shield Stash cache on the second anniversary of the cache's placement. See it here.

September 20, 2003

I've photographed the log books of my Skyline Trail Audiocache (images here) and of my High Point cache (images here).

September 21, 2003

I managed to coax the tape recorder from the Skyline Trail Audiocache into working intermittently, and retrieved the rest of the recordings from it.

New Skyline Trail Audiocache Audio Logs as of September 20, 2003 (2 minute, 22 second MP3, 574 kilobytes)

August 22, 2004

I've photographed the log of my First Try geocache. See it here.

August 31, 2004

I've scanned the log of my Greenbelt Treasure Hunt geocache. See it here.

September 1, 2004

I've photographed the log of my Dog Walker's Paradise geocache. See it here.

October 10, 2004

Logbook photos from my Lakeside Loot cache are here.

October 23, 2004

Loogbook photos from my Lac Mousseau Bushwhack cache can be seen here and those from my High Point cache can be seen here. Both caches had been damaged/destroyed by wildlife and the logbooks were in rough shape.

March 7, 2005

Logbook photos from my Gone Fishin' cache may be seen here.

April 17, 2005

Current log book of my Skyline Trail Audiocache may be seen here.

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