The Coffee House

So considering that there's teams, competitions, and hiking/exploration involved I'd say geocaching counts as a sports/exercise/leisure activity.

to that end it's about time a thread was created about it, especially given it's global reach.

so what is geocaching?

well basically in the summer of the year 2000 somebody hid the first geocache up in the state of washington USA, an ammobox, and put out a challenge for people to find it with a set of coordinates, longitude and latitude.

then several more appeared, and thus geocaching was born.

basically it's a treasure hunt where people hide stuff in containers of all shapes and sizes all over the world and list the Coordinates online for people to find, sign the log saying they were there, and move onto the next one.

there's literally hundreds of thousands of them too!

hell in just my home city alone there's like 150 of them...

sometimes you find neat stuff inside that people leave for other people to find, sometimes it's things that have tracking info as the item makes it's way from cache to cache traveling, and sometimes you find... well nothing since people who aren't in the know sometimes trash them...

but it's a fun hobby/sport nonetheless!

Wikipedia entry for more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

so here's the discussion thread, talk about the hobby, what caches you've found, any adventures you've had, etc.

to start...

I found this one yesterday


Image taken so as not to reveal the hidden location, inside was the cache log, a pink golf ball, some stickers, and my grandfather who went with me to find this one left a cache token

(09-22-2021, 07:52 PM)Spook of the lost Wrote: [ -> ]So considering that there's teams, competitions, and hiking/exploration involved I'd say geocaching counts as a sports/exercise/leisure activity.

Yeah, I'd say this is the most appropriate place. Even if you're not doing it as part of a competition, it's still a physical activity !

Anyway, it's not something I've ever tried myself, but it might be fun to give it a go one day. There are a few near me, which I guess would give me an easy start .

I'm actually planning to check out a puzzle cache soon, my local library has one where the clues are hidden in specific tomes scattered throughout the bookshelves and you need to find them to get the final coordinates, I'm really excited for that one and was going to go find it with my gf who's hugely into literature.

(09-23-2021, 08:53 PM)Spook of the lost Wrote: [ -> ]I'm actually planning to check out a puzzle cache soon, my local library has one where the clues are hidden in specific tomes scattered throughout the bookshelves and you need to find them to get the final coordinates, I'm really excited for that one and was going to go find it with my gf who's hugely into literature.

Sounds like good fun !

Not sure that my local library could do that very well. It's rather small, so any such challenge would be quite easy .

I've already solved this one and found the cache but here's an example of an easy geocaching puzzle

****************************************************************
To find the coordinates, count the number of letters in the words that fill the following blanks:
 
A = __     __________ Trout: Salvelinus fontinalis
 

B = __     __________ Trout: 2004 US National Amateur Welterweight Champion
 

C = __     Greenback __________ Trout: Colorado's State Fish
 

D = __     __________ Trout: (Fictional) science fiction author who is the embodiment of perseverence and creativity in several Kurt Vonnegut novels.  Also a brand of neck tie.
 

E = __     __________ Trout: 2012 American League Rookie of the Year
checksum: 31
 
Are you sensing a theme here?
 
Coordinates:
Lat: N 40 01.A(B-A)(D-2)
Long: W 105 15.(D-B)C(E-1) 
**********************************************

that first one actually tripped me up because there are two answers but only one of them is correct for this puzzle, the other makes a difference of about 2 blocks northward which is less than helpful and why there's a checksum.

(09-24-2021, 06:16 PM)Spook of the lost Wrote: [ -> ]I've already solved this one and found the cache but here's an example of an easy geocaching puzzle

****************************************************************
To find the coordinates, count the number of letters in the words that fill the following blanks:
 
A = __     __________ Trout: Salvelinus fontinalis
 

B = __     __________ Trout: 2004 US National Amateur Welterweight Champion
 

C = __     Greenback __________ Trout: Colorado's State Fish
 

D = __     __________ Trout: (Fictional) science fiction author who is the embodiment of perseverence and creativity in several Kurt Vonnegut novels.  Also a brand of neck tie.
 

E = __     __________ Trout: 2012 American League Rookie of the Year
checksum: 31
 
Are you sensing a theme here?
 
Coordinates:
Lat: N 40 01.A(B-A)(D-2)
Long: W 105 15.(D-B)C(E-1) 
**********************************************

that first one actually tripped me up because there are two answers but only one of them is correct for this puzzle, the other makes a difference of about 2 blocks northward which is less than helpful and why there's a checksum.

Sounds like quite good fun !

I have to admit, I don't know any of those answers off the top of my head; however, I think I'd enjoy looking them up (and hopefully, I'd learn a few new things along the way, which is always a bonus !)

So here's a couple I've found recently, the first is one I found last month, it was in a place I needed my jeep to get to and was placed way back in 2006



it was across the reservoir from here.


then there was this big one I found a couple weeks ago


another unusual kind I've been finding lately are these which are magnetic and often attached to the underside of metal utility boxes and the like.

Wow, that first one really is looking worse for wear... I'm not surprised it looks like that after 15 years !

Sounds like you're having a good time with this, though .

(10-30-2021, 09:23 PM)Spook of the lost Wrote: [ -> ] oh yeah, I mean it was tucked inside a crevice in a pile of rocks about 20 or 30 feet off the jeep trail up a hill.

kinda crazy but really cool.

in fact my gf was the one who located it before I could, I was searching a nearby pile of rocks and she practically zoned in right on it.

Ah, well done her, then !

How long has she been into it for?