THE OUTDOORS ISSUE
A
Modern
Treasure
Hunt
Geocaching
B Y C A RL S E G E RS T RO M
I
’m in a church parking lot just north of 13th Avenue
in Eugene, staring at my phone, circling around the
lot, looking at a little dot on my screen and wondering
why I can’t find what I’m looking for.
Two of my nephews, ages 6 and 9, are wondering
if what we’re looking for might be the trash in the bushes.
The 2-year-old has a can to play drums on and couldn’t
care less.
I’m getting frustrated and quite frankly a little embar-
rassed. I feel like one of the Poké-zombies that stalked
pretty much every city in the world last summer. You’ll
remember them if you use the bike path or ever wondered
what the heck was going on outside of Bier Stein in July
and August.
But our prize isn’t a Charizard or Pikachu. The name
for this treasure on the app is “Get a Kick Out of Cach-
ing!” and the prize that we eventually find is a 3-inch-long
plastic foot with a screwtop. It has a piece of paper that
some people sign and some put their own personal stamp
on. People from as far away as Australia have left their
mark on this little treasure hidden near downtown Eugene.
Geocaching is a modern treasure hunting game started
by an Oregonian, Dave Ulmer, and now played by millions
around the world. The idea of geocaching is that one player
hides some sort of logbook or treasure and posts the GPS
coordinates for other players to find.
In its early days it was a fringe hobby embraced by te-
chies and early GPS adopters. Today, geocaching is one
free download or cheap app purchase away for anyone, and
it’s accompanied by a whole suite of products — including
scenic and historical tours, as well as geology and natural
history lessons.
The Northwest is a sort of geocaching mecca, with the
game originating here and the offices for the geocaching.
com based in Seattle. There are over 200 geocaches posted
on the Geocaching app in the Eugene area, though some of
the ones posted years ago may not still be there (as I found
out on multiple occasions).
The basic allure of geocaching is two-fold: you get to
use your technology outdoors and you get to play a game
that includes points and sometimes even prizes. The ubiq-
uity of the game, which you can access on any smartphone,
also means that you can play pretty much wherever you
are. In Lane County, you can find geocaches from the coast
to the crest of the Cascades and all over Springfield and
Eugene.
Recognizing the growing popularity of the game,
Travel Lane County has organized geocaching adventures
throughout the county. While the local tourism organiza-
tion is scaling back from the more extensive geo-tours of
the last few years, it will continue to offer four geocaching
trails which should be ready by the end of May.
These trails take tourists and locals on geocaching-in-
spired tours of the McKenzie River Highway, Oakridge and
Westfir, the Territorial Highway and Florence. The trails of-
fer opportunities for people to visit and treasure hunt in parts
of the county that they might not otherwise see.
“It combines outdoors with technology,” says vice-
president of tourism marketing for Travel Lane County,
Natalie Inouye. “What an awesome way to get people into
the outdoors and to get kids and families out there.” Inouye
has led the development of the organization’s geocaching
program, which has garnered interest from visitors and
residents alike.
The trails take about two days to complete and are
aimed at getting people out and about in the county and
extending the stays of tourists passing through. A focus of
the activity has been to cater to families and offer trails that
are accessible to people of all physical abilities. “I see us
as being kind of an intro to geocaching,” Inouye says. “It
lets people play around and get familiar with the game.”
She says she’s heard plenty of stories from people who
have fallen in love with geocaching and used the activity as
a way to get exercise and also entertain younger children.
While geocaching has broad appeal as a way to enter-
tain kiddos, tour unfamiliar locales and play a game out-
side, for me it didn’t really lend itself to immersing myself
in nature. As someone who enjoys hiking as a time to re-
flect, relax and detach I found myself getting annoyed as I
stared at my phone in pursuit of elusive caches.
Geocaching was a fun way to entertain my nephews
with a little treasure hunt, but not something I’m likely to
do next time I hit the trail. But that’s the beauty of geocach-
ing: You can do it just about wherever or whenever you
want, and as soon as you’re over it, all you have to do is
put your phone away. ■
GEOCACHING IN DOWNTOWN EUGENE
CARL’S TOTALLY
BEGINNER TIPS FOR
GEOCACHING
• If you’re with kids, check out the
general area first and bring hand sani-
tizer. We ran into some spots that weren’t
worth digging through because of all
the litter.
• Switch the app from street view to
satellite. It will be much easier to identify
landmarks to help you find the caches.
• Start small, especially if you’re cach-
ing with kids setting a goal of three or
four caches is a great place to begin.
• The newer the better! When you are
searching for caches check to see when
they were placed. Many of the older
ones are either very hard to find or no
longer there.
• Stay on the trail (even if the cache
isn’t). Not only will this help keep the
trail intact and stop you from disturbing
plants and wildlife, it’s a good way to
avoid poison oak (trust me, I have the
rashes to prove it).
14
May 18, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com