Several years ago, my daughter, Chelsea, found a container hidden near a rock in
Colorado on one of our hikes. Neither of
us knew what we were looking at and we opened it. There was a little notebook and some
trinkets. As I opened the book I read a
little and realized we had stumbled onto a Geocache. I had never heard of it before but we
followed the directions in the notebook and signed our names and the date and Chelsea
swapped one of her trinkets in her bag for one in the cache and we put it back
where she found it. Now that she is
older we have taken up the game again and you’d be surprised how many
geochaches there are to find in Charleston!
With our handy new Garmin Oregon 650 GPS Device we have had more fun and
it has made our adventures much easier.
In essence, Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure
hunting game using GPS-enabled devices, such as the Garmin Oregon 650. Players
navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the
Geocache hidden at that location. These
can range from a Micro, this size of a chapstick tube, all the way up to a
lunchbox sized box or tube or even bigger.
The cache usually has a minimum of a log book but the small to large
sized ones normally have items to trade.
The basic rule is, if you take something out replace it with something
of equal or greater value. In some of
the caches, you might find what is called a “trackable”, this will have a
serial number on it and you can log it on the website and see where it has
been. Since the game is played around
the world, you never know where your find might have been.
The basic premise is, go to the website, www.geochaching.com, and register for the
free account. You can then search by
your zip code and a map will show you all the caches near you. You can then download the coordinates into
your device and then the game is on!
Once you get close your GPS device, we have used iPhones before, the
coordinates will guide you to the cache.
Now the coordinates may or not be spot on but the cache is usually
pretty close to the numbers. It takes a
little looking to find them sometimes.
Non-geochacing players sometimes find the caches and take them or
destroy them, while you are looking for a cache try not to make it very
obvious, lest the cache get “muggled”.
Once you find the cache, you should sign the log book and make sure you
go back to the website to log your find.
Chelsea and I loaded up a few caches on our Garmin Oregon
650, and headed out to see if we could find them. We didn’t have as much time as we would have
liked so we settled on two. As we
arrived to the first location we navigated to the coordinates and looked around
for a good long while. We did not find
the cache but this is a well known one and is prone to being muggled. We decided to try again on another day and
after grabbing some lunch at Poe’s Tavern on Sullivans Island, we headed to our
second cache. We parked and started our
walk. Once out of sight of people
walking the trails, we turned on the Oregon 650, touched the Geochaching link,
selected our cache and the screen immediately pointed us in the right
direction. We made our way down the
trail and arrived at our coordinates. We
stopped and looked around. As we started
to spread out and look around I heard a squeal of delight and Chelsea’s face
was lit up and she was pointing at a tree.
I made my way over and there it was!
We carefully removed it from its hiding place and opened it up. We signed the log book and swapped out
trinkets and carefully replaced the cache where we found it. We have decided we are going to make our own
Geocache and place it somewhere around Charleston, so you may be looking for
ours one day.
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Most devices these days have a geocaching feature built into
them but recently I got my hands on a Garmin Oregon 650 to help me find caches
around Charleston and anywhere else I may travel. I have never been so impressed with a
device. This GPS is so easy to use I
literally gave my old one away. Working
from a touch screen it is super easy to navigate and find what you need and the
icons are easy to read even in sunlight.
Running on 2 AA batteries, it comes with two rechargeable ones, but will
also run form alkaline batteries as well.
The three inch screen is easy to see and it even comes pre-loaded with
topographical maps of the entire US including Alaska. I was very surprised that is has a built in
8MP, autofocus camera with a flash that also doubles as a flash light. If it gets dark you now have a back up
flash light and the camera lets you document your adventure and finds. I have used a lot of GPS devices in my day
but this one takes the cake. It is light
yet powerful, and so simple to use. Some
of the older units take some getting used to and require the manual to really
make it work. This full color device is
ready to go as soon as you take it out of the box. I was literally able to take it out, turn it
on and navigate to a cache mere minutes from my house before I came home and
then looked at everything it could do.
Garmin has REALLY outdone itself this time!
Garmin offers an entire line of handheld GPS devices ranging
in size, features and price. There is
one for everyone and all of them are equally easy to use. There are several dealers here around
Charleston, and you can also buy from the website at https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/index.ep
. Garmin offers not just handhelds for
Geochaching but a vast array of devices for any kind of navigation on land sea or air. Check them out and start your own adventure!
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