by Bernhard Baumgartner , Omicron, Austria
Art, Sport & Entertainment
hobby
94
The
Challenges
of Geocaching
I was totally stunned when
I suddenly realized how
many castles and medieval
ruins are located around my
home. Geocaching can be a
wonderful experience, so
why not try it yourself?
It is great fun and I am sure
you will enjoy it.
But be careful! - It is highly
addictive.
PAC.WINTER.2009
Bernhard Baumgartner,
solving a geocaching riddle
Geocaching –the beginning
It all started on St. Nicholas Evening about a year ago. I was sitting
in a nice restaurant in Rankweil, a
village in Western Austria. Together with friends and former workmates I had a great time reflecting
on old stories and experiences. After a while Martin, a good friend of
mine, mentioned that he is actually
working on a GPS receiver – a personal creation. “Well, what do you
need this thing for“, I asked him.
“Well, Geocaching”, he answered.
“Geo.. what?”.
Well, this is how I got to know
about Geocaching, a great sport
and fun for the whole family. In
the mean time my kids, my wife
and I have also become Geocachers.
But be careful “Geocaching is very
addictive, so don't start”. So you
might want to stop reading this article now.
OK, you decided to continue
reading. Which is great, because
Geocaching is one of the greatest
things you can spend every free
minute on. It is a GPS Treasure
Hunt, where you use GPS receivers
and other gear to detect Treasures,
mostly small plastic containers,
hidden by other Geocachers.
I do not plan to go into a lot of
details about the principle behind
Geocaching in this article. My plan
is to mainly share the experiences
of our Cacherfamily with you. But
I think some basic explanations
might be helpful for those of you
not familiar with Geocaching.
Introduction
Each Geocache, most of the time
just referred to as Cache, needs to be
published on a web page. The most
famous one is www.geocaching.
com but there are also other pages
such as www.navicache.com. Every registered user of a Geocaching
page can download or print out the
cache listing and start his search.
There are several types of Geocaches but the most used ones are
Traditionals, Multi-Caches and
Mystery-Caches.
The Cache listing for a traditional cache contains the exact GPS
coordinates where the Geocache is
95
hidden, as well as a description of
the location the cache is hidden.
Traditional Caches are mostly used
to show a beautiful spot in nature, a
great building or any other place of
interest to the community.
A Multi-Cache listing contains
the coordinates' starting point and
several way points that need to be
visited one after another. At each
way point data needs to be collected
which is needed to either calculate
the next way point, or the coordinates of the hiding place of the
Final Cache. The purpose of MultiCaches is for example to introduce
a nice town or an interesting hike to
a Geocacher.
A Mystery cache listing usually
consists of a riddle, which needs
to be solved to calculate the coordinates of a hiding place, or of a
place where the next hint is hidden.
Mystery-Caches can be used to introduce a historic person, special
knowledge or a specific field of science. But most of the time it's just
a great riddle, which you are eager
to solve especially if you know the
Geocacher who has hidden the
Mystery Cache.
More details: The cache sizes
vary from very small (size of a lithium battery) to large (old military
boxes). For each cache a difficulty
rating and a terrain rating is manda-
tory, this helps the persons looking
for a cache to prepare themselves for
the Cache hunt. While the difficulty rating mainly indicates how difficult it is to find a cache when you
arrive at a cache location, the terrain
rating indicates how difficult it is to
get to the cache. While a terrain 1
Cache can be usually reached via a
walk or drive on paved roads, a terrain 5 cache usually requires special
climbing, hiking or diving gear in
combination with good endurance
of the Cacher. For example there
are caches on many mountain tops
around the world - on the Uhuru
Peak of the Kilimanjaro a Geocache
(Identification Number GC10CTQ)
with the terrain rating five is hidden at 5894m above sea level.
Each Geocache contains a logbook in which the finder logs the
date and time of his find together
with his Cacher Nickname (My
Geocacher Nickname is Baumi_B)
and a short message to the owner.
Further on most caches of the size
small, regular and large contain
small trade items. Especially kids
like to trade small toys. Back at
home you log your find online on
www.geocaching.com. In the online log people usually share the experiences they had looking for the
cache and sometimes even photos
with the community.
I like Geocaching,
because it is a hobby for
the entire family and
you can practice
it nearly everywhere.
2 Caches come in different shapes and sizes
At the time this article was written I had logged
527 caches which brings me to rank 144 in Austria, rank
5634 in Europe and rank 18042 in the world.
In general,
Geocaching
is not an
expensive
hobby. All you
need to start is
The adventures began...
Okay, these explanations must
do it for the moment. Let's go
back to the start of my Geocaching adventures. After I returned
home from the St. Nichlolas get
together, I could not get this Geocaching thing out of my mind – so
I started my computer and visited
www.geocaching.com. And after a
few minutes I found out that there
were about 100 Geocaches hidden
within a radius of 5 miles around
my home. If you look up your place
of living on a cache page I am pretty
sure that you will find out that you
have passed dozens of cache hiding
places without knowing it.
Amazed by the high number
of caches I ordered myself a cheap
hand held outdoor GPS receiver the
same night. I did go for a cheap receiver since I was not sure if I would
stick to my new hobby or not. Well,
I did not know how addictive Geocaching is at that point in time.
The next morning I told my kids
and my wife about the new sport.
“Sport?” my wife smiled, “this
doesn't sound like a sport to me”.
Well she changed her mind after
the first few caching tours. Geocaching is a sport but a scalable one,
because you decide for yourself on
a terrain and tour length when you
plan your Geocaching trip. Here in
the Austrian Alps it is maybe a little
bit more of a sport than in urban
areas where you can reach more or
less every cache location nearby by
car. While my wife was skeptical,
my kids got excited. Looking for
treasures in the woods and mountains sounded quite interesting to
them and they started to bug me on
PAC.WINTER.2009
a hand held GPS
receiver and a
computer with
access to the
Internet. But to
be serious, you
will need some
money for
walkie-talkies
and tons of
other outdoor
gear.
But as long as
you have a set
of rechargeable
batteries, all
you need now
and then is
the cost of
transportation
to get you near
Geocaches.
Art, Sport & Entertainment
hobby
96
a daily basis to take them out treasure hunting as soon as my ordered
GPS receiver arrived.
A few days later my GPS was
delivered and I searched and found
my first cache “Dornbirn central”
(GCPV9H) - in the middle of the
night close to the church of my birth
town. From that point an interesting change happened in my life. My
wife is a nurse and therefore she
works weekends quite frequently
and it is my task to entertain our
kids during the weekend. When I
would tell my kids that we would
go for a walk they were always quite
bored. But since we are Geocaching, they are really eager to go out
and search for treasures.
Addictive & inspiring hobby
Within my first month of Geocaching I found about 40 Geocaches and my wife also got infected
with Geocaching and started her
own Geocaching account under the
nick name GM70. GM is short for
Gangster-Maggy and the way she
got her nickname is quite interesting. It was late at night on January
12th, a Saturday evening, when my
wife and I drove home from a nice
evening with friends, when we had
the idea to quickly search a cache at
the local Cineplexx (GC17AQ6).
So we parked our car and started
to look for the cache. The cache is
categorized as a micro. Micros are
usually 35mm film canisters that
just contain a small logbook and
so there are many potential hiding
places for a small film container at
and around a building.
Despite the late time, there were
many Muggles around. OK, another thing to mention: Muggles are all
people who are not active Geocachers. And it is a rule in the geocaching community that you never tell
your real motives when a Muggle
asks you what you are doing, while
you are looking for a Cache. This
rule adds a lot of fun to Geocaching and helps to avoid that a cache
is muggled (= stolen or disposed
as trash). To avoid the attention of
any Muggles we operated in Stealth
mode. But my wife must have overacted answering virtual calls on a
mobile phone every minute while
standing close to parked cars. I had
some reception problems due to reflections caused by the big Cineplex
building therefore I moved away
from the building to get a better signal. At this very moment my wife
walked up to me and told me that a
dark car is following her around the
parking lot. Suddenly the dark car
picked up speed, rushed in our direction and stopped with smoking
tires. Blue lights went on and two
police officers stepped out of the
if you are active, you
have to travel further to
find Geocaches you have
not logged so far !
car. The officers immediately started to question us. They wanted to
know why we are hanging around
the parking lot, and why my wife
was making suspicious phone calls
close to parked cars.
Well, I really would like to tell
you that despite severe questioning
I obeyed the muggle rule and kept
my mouth shut. But unfortunately
I have to admit that I cracked down
within the first 5 milliseconds.
I told the cops everything about
Geocaching and showed them my
GPS receiver. And now a very funny thing happened, the cops where
really interested. They asked a lot of
questions about my Hobby. First I
thought that they are just question-
3 Geocatching challenges and unforgettable experiences...
PAC.WINTER.2009
by Bernhard Baumgartner , Omicron, Austria
97
ing us. Therefore I offered them
more than once to show them my
ID – but they were only interested
in Geocaching. After half an hour of
relaxed small talk the police officers
wished us good luck for the search
and left. Since the officers got suspicious due to the intended stealth
mode of my wife, I nicknamed her
Gangster-Maggy and she decided to
use the abbreviation GM70 as her
nickname at www.geocaching.com.
Another great thing to do are
night caches. Night Caches should
only be logged at night. To ensure
that these caches are only searched
at night, the Cache owners usually
only provide a starting point from
where you have to find a reflector
with your pocket torch. As soon as
you have located the reflector you
walk there and start from your new
position to look for the next reflector and so on and so on. For sure
you have to solve riddles on the
way to calculate new way points.
The owner of a night cache in Switzerland mounted a laser pointer
below a pedestrian bridge. If you
press the laser pointer’s button the
laser beam marks a telephone pole
on the other side of a river where
you can find the coordinates for
the next way point. But for sure the
most romantic experience for me
was when my wife and I celebrated
our wedding anniversary by seeking a night cache in the Ötztaler
Alpen. My wife picked the hotel for
our stay due to the high number of
the caches hidden in the closer vicinity. Immediately after arriving at
the hotel we asked the receptionist
for the trail over the Ochsenkopf,
which is a small mountain close to
Obergurgl in Tyrol. The receptionist answered that there is no trail
over the Ochsenkopf. Well there is
a trail - clearly marked with bright
reflectors. And so my wife and I
walked through the dark forest to
find a cache called “The key to Happiness” (GC15P4N).
A brief retrospective
It is strange how your perspective changes when you start Geocaching. I can remember that I really
hated it when I had to participate in
night marches and maneuvers during my military service time. Today
I enjoy to meet with Cacher-Friends
and to hike through the woods at
night for hours just for the pleasure
of logging a night cache. If you like
motorbike riding in the mountains
you possibly should keep your eyes
open for so called MoCaches. MoCaches are Geocaches which are
hidden near great motorbike routes
or on passes. In the Swiss Alps
alone there are more than 100 hidden MoCaches that just wait to be
discovered by motor bikers. So you
might ask yourself, who is hiding
all these caches? Are there people
that are paid for hiding Geocaches?.
And this is the great thing - all active Geocaches are hidden by Geocachers. In fact every Geocacher is
allowed to hide a Cache as long as
he obeys some simple rules available on the Geocaching Webpage.
Before a cache listing is published
on the web a voluntary reviewer
checks if all rules are fulfilled.
At the time this article was
written exactly 698,176 active
Geocaches were listed on www.
geocaching.com – all of them hidden
by Geocachers. For sure Geocachers
are interested to meet each other,
therefore regional Geocaching
events are organized on a regular
basis. Such events are good opportunities to exchange tips and tricks,
as well as discussing difficult or extraordinary Geocaches. Geocaching
Events are usually visited by people
from all ages, singles, groups, teams
and families with kids. Some
events are spiced up with Geocaching competitions.
Since most Cache Owners hide
their caches at beautiful locations or
at places of public interest, it is very
likely that you got to see much cooler locations than the ones described
in your tourist’s guidebook.
Bernhard
Baumgartner
(GC - Nickname:
Baumi_B) was
born in 1971. He
lives together
with his wife and
two kids in the
Western part
of the Austrian
Alps. Bernhard
holds a degree in
electronics and
marketing and
works for
OMICRON Lab, a
new business
division of OMICRON electronics. Prior to this
assignment he
worked as R &
D engineer and
Product manager
in the terrestrial
broadcast
business for 15
years. Bernhard is
in the lucky
position that his
family shares
his passion for
Geocaching.
4 More challenges & fun 5 You can end up at fun places, you never intended to visit
Since most Cache Owners hide their caches at beautiful
locations or at places of public interest, it is very likely that you got to see much
cooler locations than the ones described in your tourist’s guidebook.
PAC.WINTER.2009