Almost to the top of Mount Carleton, the highest peak in my home province of New Brunswick of a whopping 2,680ft. This is just before finding the cache at the top!
Well first I’d like to say that the amount of random adventures that take place in my life are out of control and I love every bit of it! I have so many different people in my life that I share so many different types of adventures with and I am unbelievably thankful for it!
So first off let’s talk about how much my boyfriend and I love to GeoCache! Not sure if you’re at all familiar with this activity or not, but it’s a great way to get out in nature, especially during times like these! So if you don’t already know, it’s kind of like a scavenger hunt only you’re given coordinates, that you can either obtain from the website or their handy app, where they’re already set up, and you can use your phones or other gps to find the location of the ‘cache’! Geo=Earth…Cache=Hiding! First termed Stash hunt in May 2000!
So essentially, you hide a container, of any size in the woods, mark its coordinates, give it a fun name and a hint and upload it to the site! Inside you can find anything from just a log book, which you’ll always find, to toys for trading for the kiddos and trackable items, which you can see how far around the world they can make it! These caches can be as tiny as your pinky fingernail, to the size of a Rubbermaid tote!
We have a friendly little competition between us and a couple friends to see who’s topping the leaderboard on finds! But what we love most is the places it takes us! We will open the app over morning coffee and check out the locations where we’d like to hit up that day, or maybe head back to some areas with caches we couldn’t find before! We have also hid some caches of our own this year! Let me tell you there are geocaches all over the world and I don’t think you could ever finish them in a lifetime! There’s one couple in their 70’s that have over 70,000 caches! Insane! They plan their travels all around caching! We live in a small little province in Canada and I don’t think we would ever finish the caches that are hidden there! Take a peak at the map on the app for caches in your area and it will blow your mind, there are likely hundreds just outside your door, city or country!
In the country you don’t need to be stealthy, but in towns and cities, cachers request that you try to stay as incognito as possible so that ‘muggles’ (non-cachers) don’t see you, and possibly wreck a cache after you’ve left! This can be kind of exciting and seems silly but totally gets your heart pumping a little! There are also a few different types of caches out there, mysteries – where you need to solve a little something in order to get the right coordinates, an earth cache – which is usually talking about a historical or popular geographical location of sorts, in which case there’s no actual cache, but you take a photo with yourself and the earth cache and easily send it to the owner so you can claim your cache. And many other kinds of caches out there and they add new styles all the time it seems!
Below is what a map would look like! The green is caches to get, you click on them find out all about the cache, have a search, hopefully a find and log it as found and once you do, it will turn into a smiley face! If you don’t find it, it will be a sad blue face! Quick tip, if you are new don’t post as a DNF (did not find) you may just be over looking it being new and all, but if you’ve been there for 20 and have a few caches under your belt, then go ahead and log it as a DNF, this will prompt the cache owner to have a look for themselves! And don’t forget to check the activity on a cache, if there’s a bunch of DNF’s then chances are it’s lost or stolen! Stolen you ask?? That’s right, this past summer I had 4 caches go missing, my boyfriend had 1 and our friend had 1 that were all taken, or they left the log book but took the containers, so lame! Don’t do that lol
Anyhow I really encourage you to try and get out and try this, it may not be for you, but you never know it could be right up your alley! It does take a few caches to get the hang of what to look for, and where to look for it but takes no time catching on to it! I hope you’ll give it a try some day, if you have any questions about Geocaching, feel free to hit me up!
My Humble Abode 