Cache me if you can
A half-million
thrill-seekers worldwide are using Global Positioning System to play
high-tech games of hide and seek
Staten Island Advance - March 11, 2005
Eric Dietrich and Ryan Eanes crunch across snow,
barrel through branches and halt to obey their digital treasure map.
Crouching with his handheld Global Positioning System, Dietrich
reaches into a rock mound in the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge
and yanks out a camouflaged PVC pipe.
Eureka!
The guys empty their post-modern treasure chest and inspect the
booty: Seashells, toy car, amusement park token, miniature pink
tambourines, glowstick. We’re obviously not talking gems and gold
here.
“It’s not really the tangible reward you’re after so much as the
sense of adventure that comes with it,” says Eanes, a 23-year-old,
Brooklyn-based Web editor for Fox New Channel’s “The Bill O’Reilly
Show.”
The duo nabs the thrill of a hunt via geocaching, a high-tech hobby
that’s propelling thousands of amateur explorers in search of hidden
“caches” — most of which they proudly admit are worthless.
“It’s not so much what little trinkets you find,” says Dietrich, 27,
of Travis, a self-anointed computer geek with an outdoors bent.
“It’s a puzzle, so it exercises my mind and my legs.”
How’s it work?
Geocachers download longitude and latitude coordinates from the
Internet into GPS receivers and follow the signals and a list of
clues into woods, cemeteries and even rusted-out, abandoned cars to
scour for goody-filled Tupperware containers, Altoid boxes and film
canisters.
“People are explorers by nature, but there isn’t a whole lot you can
discover that someone else hasn’t discovered by now,” said Jeremy
Irish, founder and president of Groundspeak, the Seattle-based firm
that runs the leading Web site,
www.geocaching.com.
“You can’t be Lewis and Clark and try to find the source of a river
or do space exploration or go under the sea. There are few final
places that people can still explore. This kind of plays on that.”
The rules are simple: Caches are hidden, not buried Take or leave
something if you like. Sign the log book.
Geocaching took off in May 2000 after the Clinton administration
removed restrictions on the GPS, which was originally developed for
military navigation. The change cleared the way for commercial
receivers which now sell at most department stores for $100 to
$1,000 and are accurate within 20 feet.
Since www.geocaching.com
launched the same year, a half-million-plus people have digitally
scavengered in 213 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The site
lists 147,471 active caches a term dating back to slang used by
16th-century French Canadian trappers.
About 20 caches are active in this borough alone.
In the past year, Steven Okulewicz, a geology professor at the
College of Staten Island, planted caches behind rocks, under logs
and in the knots of old trees in Willowbrook, Hero and Silver Lake
parks.
Not all terrains are so tame.
Okulewicz rode the Colorado River to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
last summer in pursuit of a virtual cache: A spot players visit not
to find something, but to observe. When he reached a designated
coordinate, Okulewicz tied his row boat and hiked up a hill to one
of the most “spectacular” views he’s ever seen.
“The challenge is getting there: Surviving the rapids, not getting
bit by snakes and not falling into cactus while trying to find these
things,” Okulewicz said.
Virtual caches are especially popular in urban settings where hiding
tangible, potentially suspicious looking packages, might be frowned
upon — to put it mildly.
Note: Geocaching.com requires players to submit all coordinates of
potential caches to network administrators who check environmental
regulations. Caches may be placed in New York City parks without a
permit. State parks require authorization. Call (518) 474-0456 for
updated guidelines.
Margaret Collord incorporates geocaching into vacations with her
6-year-old twins, Lauren and Brian. On a recent jaunt to Los
Angeles, the Annadale trio tracked a virtual cache to LAX Airport.
“The neat thing about it was being summoned to a place where all you
had to do was look up — 40 feet above your head was a jumbo jet
coming in or an landing,” said the 43-year-old vice president of
marketing for SYMS clothing stores.
At Rosedale Cemetery in Linden N.J., the Collord family hunted
another offbeat treasure — a Mercedes-Benz-shaped tombstone. To
prove their discovery, they logged the license plate numbers and
sent them to the cache ‘‘owner.”
At first, Brian thought geocaching was a bore. But with 19 finds
under his belt, the first-grader has changed his mind.
“I’m really good at it. It’s Cool,” bragged Brian, who is apparently
among the sport’s youngest players.
Eric Dietrich, a computer tech for the Bergen County (N.J.) school
district, and Ryan Eanes said most of the rugged techies they’ve met
are in their 20s to early 50s.
Off the trail, geocachers hook up at events like the “Kiss Me, I’m
Irish” meet and greet on March 14 at Connolly’s Irish Pub in Milton
Manhattan.
Although Dietrich and Ryan Eanes haven’t checked out a cache bash
yet, they already feel they’re part of something special.
“There’s a sense of community that grows as you return to a site,
because everyone who’s found the same cache will log what they
observe,” said Eanes. “You never know exactly what you’re going to
find but it’s always a challenge.”
By Jodi Lee Reifer
Reprinted here with permission from the
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