Hunting buried treasures family style

Vibrant Life, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Celeste Perrino Walker

What do pirates and children have in common--aside from deplorable table manners? Shiver me timbers, you're right! They just happen to share a love of buried treasure. So imagine my somewhat fiendish delight when i discovered a sport that combines a healthy dose of hiking and/or biking with a treasure hunt. And not just any treasure hunt. A global treasure hunt.

The premise is relatively simple. Someone, somewhere, takes an ordinary plastic container--or, in some cases, an ammo box--puts in some "loot" to get the game started, and hides it in the woods. Many of the hiding places are off established hiking or biking paths, some are on waterways, and the occasional daredevil adventurer will place one in a remote area accessible only by bushwhacking and sheer determination.

How, you might ask, do you find these containers? That's where it gets interesting. You see, coordinates--longitude and latitude, which, I know, forgive me, bring to mind boring geography classes--are posted on the Internet at www.geocaching.com. You can search for caches placed closest to your location.

The only piece of equipment you need is a Global Positioning System (GPS). Now, before you throw up your hands and say, "Too expensive!" do a little creative thinking, because it's possible at least one person you know--very likely someone of the male persuasion--owns a GPS that you can borrow on semipermanent loan. Like most techno-gadgets, GPS systems have come a long way, and earlier versions could be yours for not much money. Check eBay.

Once you have a GPS, there's very little else to know. You can get as technical as you want--plotting out waypoints and other fancy stuff. But all you really need are the coordinates. You walk until the readout in your hand matches the set of coordinates posted on the Web site for any particular cache and start hunting until, Ahoy mateys, that she blows!

Inside each official "Geocache" you'll find a logbook of some sort to record your visit, maybe some travel bugs--items with numbered tags you must record on the Internet and redeposit in another Geocache--and lots of goodies to choose from. TSLS (Take Something, Leave Something). Or take nothing, if you wish.

While most caches are single stage, meaning you use one set of coordinates to find the only cache, others are multistage, meaning the first set of coordinates brings you to a small cache containing the next set, and so on, up through the stages until you hit the mother load. My kids loved one multistage cache in which each set of coordinates was found in the belly of a small plastic frog they had to locate at each stage. Special prizes are sometimes left for the FF (First Finder).

I find it helpful to keep a backpack all ready to go, stocked with the GPS, notebook, and pencil for writing coordinates during multistage caches, as well as the starting coordinates just in case we get lost. I always toss in extra batteries for the GPS, a compass (for emergencies), water bottles, any travel bugs we're carrying, whistles for the kids to wear, a bell for Max (my dog), bug repellent, sunscreen, a Leatherman multitool ('cause you never know), and, of course, our trade items.

Finally, before you go you should pick a Geoname. My kids loved this part. We are the GeoHobos. Josh is GeoHogger, Rachel is GeoQT, I'm GeoMama, and Max is GeoPaws. Once you get started you may want to bury some treasure yourself. So cache the fever, find some treasure, and we'll see you on the trails!

According to her GPS, Celeste perrino Walker and her most valuable treasures live in Rutland, Vermont.