By Alyssa McCoy
For Murphy News Service

Who knew that playing a geocaching adventure game could take you to a bucolic spring setting where the morning sun shines on crunchy fallen leaves that lie at the base of now-naked trees as water in a nearby Minnesota lake gently laps against its sandy shore.

But on this day there is little time to soak up nature and its beauty – there is hidden treasure to be found nearby.

Geocaching outdoor adventure games combine outdoor recreation, technology and social networking. Players use global positional system (GPS) devices, akin to a modern-day treasure map, by plugging in specific sets of coordinates to navigate to a geocache – a hidden container with a souvenir inside.

The treasures, or “swag,” found inside geocaches vary.

“I’ve found gift cards, toys, a Blackberry phone, coins, foreign and domestic, small electronics, flashlights, hand warmers, bug spray, and Handi-wipes,” Kirsten Bergs, an eight-year geocache player, said.

There are nearly 2.4 million active geocaches and more than 6 million geocachers throughout the world, www.geocaching.com, the official website of the game, reports.

Geocaching began May 2, 2000, the day when then President Bill Clinton announced that Selective Availability (SA) would be turned off, intentionally degrading the signals of 24 satellites and improving the accuracy of GPS technology, Geocaching.com said.

Wanting to test the accuracy of the satellites, Dave Ulmer, a computer consultant and GPS enthusiast, created the “Great American GPS Stash Hunt” the day after SA was disbanded. The idea was to hide a container in the woods and document the GPS coordinates on the Internet.

Ulmer placed a black bucket containing not-so-very-valuable trinkets to be found in the woods of Beavercreek, Ore., near Portland. Posting the coordinates, N 45° 17.460 W 122° 24.800, to his website, Ulmer started the origin of the interactive game that would become known as geocaching.

Mike Teague was the first person to find Ulmer’s stash. He began documenting sets of coordinates from around the world on his online home page. Jeremy Irish, a web developer for a Seattle company, later took over the site and created what is today Geocaching.com.

Geocaching is a growing recreational activity and memberships of the website increased. In 2000, Irish launched a new company and gaming website called www.groundspeak.com. With the goal to make everyone an explorer and put an adventure in every location, Groundspeak said its mission is to inspire and encourage geocachers to create story-worthy moments.

Geocaching.com remains the official website of the hunt, however, additional information can be found at Groundspeak.

Joshua Johnson, a retreat director at Youth Frontiers, is a six-year cacher and a geocaching video blogger. Johnson has traveled all over the country to enjoy his hobby, including the stomping grounds of where it all began.

“It was pretty exciting when I found the location of where the very first geocache was hidden in Portland,” Johnson said.

Enthusiasts can take part in the adventure through Geocaching.com and other online communities or in local groups such as Minnesota Geocaching Association (MnGCA) of which Johnson is a member.

The purpose of non-profit groups such as this is “to provide a resource for geocachers to organize activities and events that will improve the credibility of the sport, protect our natural resources and strengthen the community of geocachers,” MnGCA said.

There are three rules of geocaching:

• When taking a treasure from the geocache, one must leave behind something of equal or greater value,
• Write about the find in the logbook located in the cache,
• Put the geocache back exactly as it was found.

There are only those three rules, yet there are special guidelines that exist, a sort of geocache etiquette,

“Caches must be hidden on public property and at least 528 feet apart from other caches,” Bergs, a board member of the MnGCA, said. Caches can be neither buried, nor damage property or trees and must remain at least 150 feet from railroad tracks, she added.

The content of a cache must always have a logbook for finders to sign.

“It’s about the adventure, it’s really not about the treasures, but the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of finding something,” Johnson said.

Johnson has tracked down about 3,100 caches. The farthest he has traveled for a cache is more than 1,500 miles to Santa Cruz, California.

High-tech treasure hunting has turned the globe into its playground, with caches constantly being hidden and found worldwide. The United States and Germany lead in activity, followed by Czech Republic, Canada and the United Kingdom, Groundspeak said.

It is common for caches to be hidden in locations that are important to cache owners.

“When I think about where to hide a geocache I think about bringing someone to a place where I would want people to be brought, if it’s a great place to bring somebody.” Johnson said.

“I’ve hidden 93 geocaches so far! I have hidden several extremely difficult puzzle caches. This means that someone must solve a puzzle to get the coordinates before they can attempt to go and find the geocache,” Matt Herald, a systems engineer for Extension Healthcare in Fort Wayne, Indiana and a 10-year cacher, said, adding, “ Most of my placements are for the final stages of my puzzle caches, so they tend to be out-of-the-way places,”

Johnson said, “The thing is geocaching is becoming so popular, there are more than 2 million caches hidden, so there’s not a lot of room left for geocaches anymore. It’s a real challenge nowadays to find a place to hide a geocache, because all the great places are kind of taken.”

The New York Times called geocaching “a family-and budget-friendly adventure.”

“I love going geocaching with my kids,” Johnson said. He had gone earlier on the day he was interviewed with his 7-year-old son and found a cache in the men’s bathroom at a park in Minnesota.

Groundspeak has not limited the locations where caches can be. The locations are very diverse ranging from parks, tree trunks or a hike up a mountain.

“I’ve crawled through storm sewers, waded across rivers, taken boats to islands, climbed trees, walked for miles, hung out over the edge of a 60-foot cliff and have even been run off  by very angry dogs,” Herald said.

Bergs said the craziest location she’s traveled for a cache was a cave near Houston, Minnesota, that had paw tracks of a big cat and the remains of one of its meals.

“It takes you to places that you didn’t know before,” Johnson said.

The hobby does not end at finding caches. Members of geocaching communities also hide caches; anyone is eligible to do so. Local associations hold events, small and large, in their areas, such as geocaching competitions where enthusiasts race from cache to cache.

Geocaching.com conducted an activity in February in which adventurers could hide a cache for one specific person and, once found, could not be found again.

Johnson planned an elaborate hunt where he led his friend on a journey through town, where the geocache was hidden inside of a magic store. At the store the magician did a magic trick to reveal the cache. He called it a “Magic Geocache.” A video, as well as 300 others, can be seen on Johnson’s blog site at www.geocachingvlogger.com,

And every caching occasion includes Cache In Trash Out (CITO). CITO is an environmental cleanup initiative supported by the geocaching community. International CITO weekend occurs every year, celebrated by cachers worldwide in their local areas by cleaning up the earth. This year International CITO weekend fell on April 26.

“Since 2002, geocachers have been dedicated to cleaning up parks and other cache-friendly places around the world. Through these volunteer efforts, we help preserve the natural beauty of our outdoor resources!” Groundspeak said.

Geocaching is not just a hobby for some. It is a way to stimulate the mind, make friends, spend time with family and see new places.

“ I like that I am never bored, as there are always caches to hunt no matter where I am. I like the thrill of the hunt. I like the fact that geocaching tells us nerds that it is jut fine to go outside and play!” Herald said.

“My favorite thing about geocaching is the adventure, seeing new places, meeting great people, and getting exercise in the beautiful outdoors. I have made some great friends I would never have met any other way, and solving all the geocaching puzzles has made me smarter!” Bergs said.

“Geocaching means exploration, it means family, it means friendships, it means adventure,” Johnson said.

Alyssa McCoy is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.