Geocachers? How does one "cheat" ??
 

I don't geocache myself but have heard of this activity where you look for certain coordinates and then go find what's there.

On vacation recently, I was kayaking on the west coast, and I did a channel crossing across a bay then landed and explored the tip of a peninsula. On a trail that I found, I found some graffiti which read:

"Off to the next location to cheat, X-terra cacher? Shame, shame. :-("

Which to me, begs the question. How, exactly, does one "cheat" at geocaching? What, the guy used a sextent instead of a GPS handheld??? Ok I'm sure THAT's not it, it must mean something else.

PS. Maybe the fact that I drive an X-terra made me notice the graffiti even more. But as I have never ever geocached myself (don't even have a GPS toy), I can honestly claim that I *think* I have never cheated at it. :lol:

I can't find them usually, would love to cheat ! Sometimes reading too many of the comments will provide a little too much information.

Could someone explain what geo chacheing is? Im very confused and intrigued at the same time.

Ok maybe someone who actually plays should answer, but here's my attempt.

If you have a GPS toy ..er .. tool, you obviously have the ability to know what geographical coordinates you may be standing at, at any time you want.

So geocachers have some fun with this, I guess they'll have coordinates posted somewhere, and if you're ever near such a spot, you have to look for a secret "cache." Maybe it's just a guest book that you sign, maybe it's something else. Maybe you're supposed to leave something of your own for the next person to find. This is kinda muddy to me.

But it basically involves finding "secret" locations.

It kinda sounds fun, if I ever pick up a GPS toy ..er .. tool .. It's something I could see myself playing around with.

Here's the wikipedia page, maybe with a better description (I'm only just reading it right now myself): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

As far as "cheating", I cannot fathom how reading comments to help lead someone to a spot would be judged "cheating" enough to motivate someone else to commit an act of vandalism in a form of protest (that sort of defeats the purpose of "leave no trace" in itself??). That's just .. well.. plain odd to me. Guess there's some story behind the spot where I was, but I guess I'll only be able to guess.

Want me to ask them? I have been doing there website design for years.

One way of looking at it is using multi-billion millitary hardware to find tupperware in the forest.

:rofl:

that and McDonalds Happy Meal toys :razz:

I have GPS now i want to play, whats the website?

http://www.geocaching.com/

It's a hoot.

Richard (medican) and Jim Barry know ALL....they are geocaching freaks !!

local calgary cache site
 

here are sites for local ( Calgary ) geocachers.

http://www.calgarycachers.ca/
http://members.shaw.ca/caching/pages/caches.htm ( which you can access from Emily's link as well )

It's actually an interest event to take your kids out for some treasure hunting and to have fun with the expensive toys, namely GPS or million dollar military equipment...like that comment..LOL.

Each item is given a location ( or called way point in the GPS world ) and hints or tips to help you locate the item. When you found the item, you can take it and put something else in or just leave it there for the next person.

I don't know if the graffiti was referring to Geocaching or not. I would really be surprised if a cacher was out making a mess of things... eveyone in the hobby seems to do it because they love the outdoors... no one is doing it to get rich off of the McToys that are left in the caches.
The only real 'cheating' that a person can do is to log finds on the internet that they didn't really find - just to increase their count I guess??? Many cache owners will check the log books at the cache site to verify that they were signed - if not, they delete the logs. I once found a cache in Edmonton that was locked with a combination lock to prevent muggles from getting into it. Unfortunately, I didn't read what the combination was on the web page and I was stuck out in the trees without a way to get in. Because I still 'found' it I logged it along with an explanation as to why the logbook wasn't signed.

On that site I go by 'F1sh' - the more conventional spelling was already taken ) :

- Chad