Geocaching Veteran Shares Advice for Olympia Searchers

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By Courtney Murphy

oly ortho logoHidden under rocks and in trees, on stoplights and under the eaves of buildings, geocaches are often inconspicuous, unremarkable on the outside and remain unseen by the average commuter. You probably pass by several each day without knowing. However, to those who search for them, these small, secret containers represent treasure, success, and adventure.

Although geocaches come in all shapes and sizes, they usually contain several similar items. No matter the size, all geocaches must contain a logbook for people to sign. If size allows, caches will also contain a pen or pencil, trackable items, and small trinkets. The rule for these is take something, leave something of equal value.

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Joy explores some rock formations on the way to “The Geology of Capitol Reef,” an Earth Cache in Utah.

Geocaching, which is celebrating its 15th birthday this year, began in May of 2000 when selective availability was removed from satellites around the globe. Because this allowed personal GPS devices to become much more accurate, GPS enthusiasts brainstormed new and exciting ways to use the improved GPS technology. One enthusiast thought of a simple, yet intriguing idea: hide a container in the woods and record the coordinates where it was hidden. The enthusiast named this activity “The Great American GPS Stash Hunt,” and hid his first cache near Portland. This idea caught on, and soon many people were hiding containers and posting the coordinates on internet forums. In September of 2000, the term “geocaching” was adopted, and geocaching.com was created and had 75 caches listed. Since 2000, the activity has grown immensely. Fifteen years later as of June 10, there are 2,644,547 active geocaches in the world and over six million registered geocachers.

With the geocaching.com headquarters are in Seattle, Western Washington has always been a hub of activity. Because of this, a strong geocaching community has formed in the Olympia area comprised of geocaching veterans and new cachers alike. One such veteran in the area, who goes by the screen name ohjoy!, has been geocaching since November 3, 2003, when geocaching was still a new pursuit. After she read about the new GPS activity in both the newspaper and the AARP magazine, and heard about it from her daughter, she decided to try it for herself and enjoyed it immensely. Joy’s first cache was called “Circle the Wagons,” and though it is now archived, she placed a new, very similar cache to commemorate it.

“In those days it was hard to find them, because there were maybe 30 total in the Olympia area–I’m talking Lacey, Tumwater, Yelm, the whole big area–there were hardly any of them” Joy said. “If a new one came out, there’d be a congregation, we’d have a social time because it was like, ‘Yes, we get to find another one!’”

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Joy’s love of completing EarthCaches has brought her to some amazing locations. On this trip, she visited the Mammoth Hot Springs in Wyoming. The dark rocky area behind her is called Devil’s Thumb.

Since her first cache, Joy has found over 25,000 caches and hidden around 800, many of which she has adopted out to other interested and responsible caches. Besides the Olympia area, Joy has hidden caches in Forks, Vashon Island, and many other places throughout the state. She also frequently offers advice to people who cannot find her caches or who need some extra help.

What appeals to Joy most about geocaching now are its social and educational aspects. While it is no longer a goal for her to find many traditional caches, she is branching into different types of caching.

“I basically go after earth caches…because I can learn,” Joy said. Earth caches are not containers and don’t contain logbooks; instead, the geocacher finds an interesting geological feature at the posted coordinates. Then the cacher usually must do some research, make an observation, or answer a question about the natural place or phenomenon and emails the cache owner with their findings. Besides being educational and beautiful, earth caches also encourage interaction between geocachers.

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In urban settings, geocaches are often disguised as every day objects in order to remain unseen. How many times have you walked past this creative cache at Always Safe & Lock without noticing?

Although Joy has spent time as a teacher, a scuba instructor, and an Amazon guide, among other things, geocaching has brought her to many places she would never have expected. She once swam a mile to a cache, after which she learned to kayak, and on a separate occasion ended up 40 feet in a tree searching for one.

Another experienced geocacher in the area, Mark Hill, picked up geocaching when he moved to the Olympia area for a job. He enjoys geocaching because of the places it has taken him, among other things.

“Until we tried geocaching, there were cool places we never knew existed in our own back yard,” Mark said.

The geocaching community is for the most part one of support and friendship. Both Joy and Mark related becoming “instant friends” when they met while searching for a cache, because they bonded through the shared activity.

“(The community is) diverse,” Joy said. “A little bit of every kind of person you can imagine, every walk of life.”

If you are interested in geocaching, download the free app on your phone or visit geocaching.com.

 

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