THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2007
NEWS
》 GEOCACHING
3A
Tired of analog treasure hunts? Grab your GPS and go!
Say goodbye to the old map and compass and hello to a new, hightech way of treasure hunting called Geocaching.
Geocaching is an adventure game for Global Positioning System, GPS, users. The user logs onto the Geocaching Web site, www.geocaching.com, and puts coordinates into the GPS unit.
The "sport" was created in 2000.
Since then the Web site lists 1,217
local users who have found lock boxes, which is the prize at the end of the search, in Lawrence.
Mollie Osborne, Tonganoxite, freshman, has been Geocaching twice with a friend who has a GPS. Osborne said that although the concept may sound easy, the hunt can actually take hours.
"Even if you are right on top of it, you still have to search," Osborne said.
The process is a lot like playing hot or cold with children; telling them
they are freezing when they are looking in the wrong direction and steaming when they are close.
"We just walk in the direction that it says." Osborne said. "And if it says we are going the wrong way, we turn around."
Searchers can log their experience on the Web site, rating from one to five stars how difficult finding the cache was and how rugged the terrain. They can also leave hints to future Geocachers.
A cache titled, "Rock Chalk
Jayhawk," most recently found by Dr Jay Kenney, a cacher under the screen name "Caverdoc," was led by his GPS to the picnic area behind Carruth O'Leary.
Kennedy said he had been Geocaching for a little more than a year but had already found more than 200 caches, most in Kansas, but some were as far away as British Columbia.
Kennedy said he had found "lots of neat toys" but Geocoin, metallic coins specially minted for use in geocaching and trackable on-line are the
most exciting to find.
"I've had Geocaches hidden at drive-up telephones and others where I had to hike half a mile, find the opening to a cave, rappel 98 feet alone into a vertical cave and find the cache," Kennedy said. "Then climb out with my ascenders."
Kennedy said he had been a "very seasoned caver" practicing for more than 30 years. The cave cache was found in Kentucky, which he recalled as his favorite adventure so far.
"It's called 'Plunge Extreme' if you
want to find it on the Geocaching site," Kenneday said. "Only two finds to date."
Kennedy said he caches alone or with others, usually accompanied by his 5-year-old son.
"I go with my wife and 2-year-old daughter, Natalie, if the cache is very easy"
Kansan staff writer Bethany Bunch can be contacted at bbunch@kansan.com.
- Edited by Will McCullough
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