Geocaching Part 1: The Bucket List
Part 1 of the Geocaching Series
by Kari Frisch
Geocaching (pronounced “geo-cashing”) is an activity that is growing in popularity and is attracting people of all ages. What exactly is it? According to geocaching.com “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.”
But to understand where geocaching is now and why so many people are joining in, it helps to understand its grass roots beginning.
Up until the turn of the century satellite signals were controlled by the government. Public and private sectors had very limited access. This was known as “selective availability” or SA. In May of 2000, President Clinton removed the selective availability restrictions resulting in greater public access and 10 times more accurate readings for the average person who had a global positioning system, more commonly abbreviated GPS. In his official statement from May 1st 2000, Clinton explained, “Originally developed by the Department of Defense as a military system, GPS has become a global utility. It benefits users around the world in many different applications, including air, road, marine, and rail navigation, telecommunications, emergency response, oil exploration, mining, and many more. Civilian users will realize a dramatic improvement in GPS accuracy with the discontinuation of SA…. This increase in accuracy will allow new GPS applications to emerge and continue to enhance the lives of people around the world.” Gaming may not have been his original intention for enhancing lives, but it certainly became one of the end results.
Geocaching first started near Beaver Creek, Oregon in May 2000 when a computer consultant, David Ulmer hid a black bucket filled with a variety of random items in a wooded area after hearing about President Clinton’s decision. He marked the coordinates of the bucket using his now more accurate GPS and then posted his challenge online to other GPS users to find his “stash”. When found, people were to sign the logbook he’d left in the bucket. He coined it “The Great American GPS Stash Hunt”. The only other rule for the finders was “take some stuff, leave some stuff”. And thus began the idea of geocaching.
Within 3 days two individuals had found his stash, the first being Mike Teague. Teague watched that first week as others not only found Ulmer’s stash and talked about it online but started hiding their own containers and throwing out their own challenge to GPS users. So Teague compiled a bucket list—the coordinates to Ulmer’s bucket as well as the other challenges that had been posted that month in response to the original challenge. He posted it all on his own personal homepage. Now the stash information could be kept in one spot and a mailing list for interested individuals could be created.
Teague’s service provided a spot not only for information dissemination but for community development. Sharing the adventure experiences online with each other became an integral part of the hide-and-seek adventure. It also became a space for idea generation and group in-put. One such contribution was to change the name to “geocaching”. “Geo” a familiar term for earth was combined with “caching” which had a dual meaning; the older French origin meaning “hiding place” and the newer association with a computer’s memory or “storage space” for frequently used information. So the new name seemed ideal and the group concurred. The site attracted more people to the sport which was now just a month old. One such person was Jeremy Irish.
Irish came across Teague’s site, saw there was a cache nearby which he quickly found and was suddenly hooked. As a web-developer he realized there was more that could be done to help fellow geocachers; like consolidating information into a database. A database could be searched by characteristic, thereby allowing individuals to enter a zip code in order to find the nearest caches. So he undertook the project and began work on what became geocaching.com, the official homepage to geocachers around the world. Yet another step of bringing people and information together and in doing so advance the sport.
When these individuals improved the communication system for fellow geocachers they did so, not for a fee and not looking to get anything in return other than to support one another in this brand new adventure. Irish launched his site less than six months after Ulmer’s bucket was placed. When it opened there were 75 identified caches around the world. Today, nine years later, the site hosts 801,490 active caches (2,527 of which were posted in the last four days alone). Since Minnesota is home to 10,380 of these caches, people are usually closer to one than they may realize.
Geocaching.com continues to be a free site and the sport is available to people of all ages and all abilities. The only item that is needed is a GPS, limited access to the Internet and a little know-how. So stay tuned to find out more about this craze that’s not only sweeping the nation, but blazing the world.
Geocaching is often a family activity.
Here 4 generations gather around their group find.
Stay tuned to Northern Community Internet for more about geocaching in Minnesota.
READER RESPONSES:
"Thank you for your informative article. My husband and I are cachers and very much enjoy it and it was fun to learn were it all started." - Holly
by Kari Frisch
Geocaching (pronounced “geo-cashing”) is an activity that is growing in popularity and is attracting people of all ages. What exactly is it? According to geocaching.com “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.”
But to understand where geocaching is now and why so many people are joining in, it helps to understand its grass roots beginning.
Up until the turn of the century satellite signals were controlled by the government. Public and private sectors had very limited access. This was known as “selective availability” or SA. In May of 2000, President Clinton removed the selective availability restrictions resulting in greater public access and 10 times more accurate readings for the average person who had a global positioning system, more commonly abbreviated GPS. In his official statement from May 1st 2000, Clinton explained, “Originally developed by the Department of Defense as a military system, GPS has become a global utility. It benefits users around the world in many different applications, including air, road, marine, and rail navigation, telecommunications, emergency response, oil exploration, mining, and many more. Civilian users will realize a dramatic improvement in GPS accuracy with the discontinuation of SA…. This increase in accuracy will allow new GPS applications to emerge and continue to enhance the lives of people around the world.” Gaming may not have been his original intention for enhancing lives, but it certainly became one of the end results.
Geocaching first started near Beaver Creek, Oregon in May 2000 when a computer consultant, David Ulmer hid a black bucket filled with a variety of random items in a wooded area after hearing about President Clinton’s decision. He marked the coordinates of the bucket using his now more accurate GPS and then posted his challenge online to other GPS users to find his “stash”. When found, people were to sign the logbook he’d left in the bucket. He coined it “The Great American GPS Stash Hunt”. The only other rule for the finders was “take some stuff, leave some stuff”. And thus began the idea of geocaching.
Within 3 days two individuals had found his stash, the first being Mike Teague. Teague watched that first week as others not only found Ulmer’s stash and talked about it online but started hiding their own containers and throwing out their own challenge to GPS users. So Teague compiled a bucket list—the coordinates to Ulmer’s bucket as well as the other challenges that had been posted that month in response to the original challenge. He posted it all on his own personal homepage. Now the stash information could be kept in one spot and a mailing list for interested individuals could be created.
Teague’s service provided a spot not only for information dissemination but for community development. Sharing the adventure experiences online with each other became an integral part of the hide-and-seek adventure. It also became a space for idea generation and group in-put. One such contribution was to change the name to “geocaching”. “Geo” a familiar term for earth was combined with “caching” which had a dual meaning; the older French origin meaning “hiding place” and the newer association with a computer’s memory or “storage space” for frequently used information. So the new name seemed ideal and the group concurred. The site attracted more people to the sport which was now just a month old. One such person was Jeremy Irish.
Irish came across Teague’s site, saw there was a cache nearby which he quickly found and was suddenly hooked. As a web-developer he realized there was more that could be done to help fellow geocachers; like consolidating information into a database. A database could be searched by characteristic, thereby allowing individuals to enter a zip code in order to find the nearest caches. So he undertook the project and began work on what became geocaching.com, the official homepage to geocachers around the world. Yet another step of bringing people and information together and in doing so advance the sport.
When these individuals improved the communication system for fellow geocachers they did so, not for a fee and not looking to get anything in return other than to support one another in this brand new adventure. Irish launched his site less than six months after Ulmer’s bucket was placed. When it opened there were 75 identified caches around the world. Today, nine years later, the site hosts 801,490 active caches (2,527 of which were posted in the last four days alone). Since Minnesota is home to 10,380 of these caches, people are usually closer to one than they may realize.
Geocaching.com continues to be a free site and the sport is available to people of all ages and all abilities. The only item that is needed is a GPS, limited access to the Internet and a little know-how. So stay tuned to find out more about this craze that’s not only sweeping the nation, but blazing the world.
Geocaching is often a family activity. Here 4 generations gather around their group find.
READER RESPONSES:
"Thank you for your informative article. My husband and I are cachers and very much enjoy it and it was fun to learn were it all started." - Holly
Labels: bj_lw, brd_lead, brd_lw, cl_lw, gr_lw, ir_lw, rg_lead
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