C10
Journey Through Grant County
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Geocaching 101: On the hunt for fun
Exploring
activity takes
Wengers off
beaten path
A container
holds
Lauren
Wenger’s
‘stash’ of
cache –
from her
family’s
geocaching
adventures.
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
Contributed photo/Tanni Wenger
1188
Brewing Company
Beer
Wine
Appetizers
Soup
Salad
Sandwiches
Entrees
141 E Main St., John Day • 541-575-1188
Friends Lauren Wenger of Canyon City and Morgan
Wyllie of John Day find a geocache near Canyon
Mountain Trail in the Canyon City area.
CANYON CITY – Tanni
Wenger, her husband and
their two daughters recently
started the trending fami-
ly-friendly activity of geo-
caching.
It’s said to be the world’s
largest treasure hunt with
over 2 million geocaches
worldwide.
Tanni had read about
geocaching and, after her
some encouragement from
her friend Kimberly Walker,
she and her family gave it a
try last March.
Since then, the Wengers
have found 75 caches, us-
ing a smartphone app – GPS
units can also be used.
A visit to www.geocach-
ing.com is the way to get
started.
It’s free to sign up, and
the instructions and coordi-
nates for nearby geocaches
at the website.
Coordinates are added to
the phone or GPS, and the
hunting begins.
Geocache
containers
come in all shapes and siz-
es, and they usually include
a log book for the hunter to
sign and a trinket to take,
with the expectation that an
item of equal or greater val-
ue will be left behind.
Nine-year-old
Lauren
Wenger showed a plastic
container holding all their
finds so far, including small
sunglasses, a dollar bill, key
chains, Hot Wheels cars
– they even found a 14-kt
gold ring.
Tanni said they like to
leave behind Grant Union
Junior-Senior High School
bottle-cap buttons they’ve
made, or other small items.
Lauren said geocaching
is a lot of fun.
“I like finding them,
looking at the new trinkets
and exploring new places,”
she said.
She added, one of the
hardest to find was near the
Whitney cemetery, placed
by a stump.
Using the phone app, a
signal goes off when they
are within 30 feet of a
cache.
Tanni said they often
stop to geocache while trav-
eling out of town.
One of her favorite finds
was near a local “shoe tree”
(where discarded shoes
hang from branches), and
another was at Phillips
Reservoir which led them
down a path to a scenic
view.
Geocaching at night was
something they tried recent-
ly – it was set up by Can-
yon City resident Tammy
Bremner.
They used the flashlight
on their phone, which gave
directions on where to shine
the light – it led them to
reflectors in trees, and the
nearby cache.
Tanni said one cache
caught her husband by sur-
prise. The container was a
small velvet-covered rab-
bit bank, and, at first, he
thought it was a real rab-
bit.
“It’s a nice family activi-
ty, and it shows you off-the-
grid locations where you
may not go to otherwise,”
she said.
Already, Tanni is teach-
ing others the joy of geo-
caching.
She and some Grant
Union summer school
teachers led a group of stu-
dents to find six geocaches
around John Day.
“I saw them out later
that evening, geocaching on
their own,” Tanni said.