Treasure Map in the Sky
After yesterday's serious and sad entries, a happier story for today, about a new adventure aelkiss and clubjuggler and jklgoduke introduced me to...
The endless blue of Lake Huron behind us, we climbed up the stairs in the woods, led on by the last of a series of clues we had pursued across the shores of Mackinaw Island. And at the top of the stairs, under a small rock, we found the X that marked the spot, the little chest which contained the treasure, and left our own little footnote.
Over hill and dale, along lakeshore and riverside, through green and sunshine, today's entry is about the moving puzzle hunt many friends introduced me to, the hobby called Geocaching. Enjoy. :-)
GPS -- the Global Positioning System -- is a navigational system based on a constellation of orbiting satellites. With a GPS tracker, one can find their exact position, in latitude and longitude, anywhere in the world. Alternatively, one can plug in a desired destination, in latitude and longitude, and a GPS tracker will give one the exact direction and distance from your current point to the destination. One can navigate their car, their plane, conduct land surveys, or even bury treasure and mark the near-exact spot with cues from above, leading other folks along a treasure map in the sky.
Geocaching is a very simple idea -- it's playing "X marks the spot" with a GPS tracker, hunting hidden treasure marked by a set of latitude and longitude coordinates and a few clues. For someone like me who grew up a Boy Scout, loves the outdoors, and finds puzzles irresistable, Geocaching is a perfect combination of all of the above. All you need is a GPS device and a website like Geocaching.com and you're off. :-)
Geocaching began just three days after accurate GPS signals became available to the general public in May of 2000. On the Usenet group sci.geo.satellite-nav, the idea for the first Geocache was posted, along with it's coordinates and clues. It has now grown to a worldwide hobby, with nearly one-half million caches hidden all over the world.
For me, the really neat thing about Geocaching is crossing the enjoyment of nature and the cameraderie with friends one finds in hiking with the excitement of the hunt. Especially in a place like our hometown Ann Arbor, where our town is surrounded in easy walking or driving distance by huge swaths of rolling, forested hills cut with gently flowing rivers. In pursuit of local caches, aelkiss and I have been able to explore nooks and corners of our home town that you'd otherwise miss just driving or hiking through. Indeed, much of the fun of Geocaching is in the creators of the cache picking unusual locales and spectacular views to deliberately guide hunters to.
We've also had the chance to go Geocaching on Mackinac Island, during our trip last year (as told in Sun, Sea and Stars), moving from point to point along our hike admist the spectacular backdrop of the Straits of Mackinac. There on Mackinac we got to explore extremely well-made puzzles, where the initial coordinates led to cleverly hidden geocaches, each containing new coordinates for the next puzzle in sequence. The GPS coordinates get you to within thirty feet; the rest is careful sleuthing and hunting and interpreting of clues.
Many of my friends are also fans of the hobby -- clubjuggler and jklgoduke are active Geocachers, with literally hundreds of hikes and explorations on family adventures with their son. It's great exercise, great fun, a wonderful way to enjoy the outdoors, and definately recommended. :-)