Our Nerdy Hobby, Geocaching Without Gadgets

My wife and I have been into the sport of Geocaching for a few years now. It is a great way to get out and get exercise and be rewarded by finding hidden caches of small treasures. It encourages us to discover hidden places off the beaten path and notice things in the outdoor environment that we would never have paid any attention to. An example of this is when we recently went Geocaching in Austin Texas on the Barton Creek Greenbelt. One of the caches was hidden along a trail that hugged the edge of the cliff.

One of the clues was to look for honeycomb on the ground. We thought this was bizarre but did find a spot that was littered with pieces of honeycomb and dripped beeswax. Just above the hidden cache, which was an old ammo box full of trinkets, toys and music CD's, was a beehive way up on the cliff wall. According to the clues left about the cache by the person who hid it, the beehive was over two hundred years old.

It is little discoveries like these, along with the fun of finding little "treasures" to keep and leaving ones to be found by another geocacher, that make the sport so much fun.

Freeocaching is Born

Recently however our GPS quit working. The handheld unit made by Garmin only cost about a hundred bucks but we were strapped for cash just after the Christmas holidays and couldn't afford a new one. We decided to try a new twist to the sport. "Freeocaching" we call it, or Geocaching without a GPS.

For many years before Geocaching a similar hobby called letterboxing was enjoyed by a small number of people including some scouting groups. Letterboxing is similar to geocaching except that detailed clues are provided about the location of the letterbox. The letterbox is often a book that you sign, to show that you were among the people that found it. Geocaching added the element of technology and goodies. From time to time Jeep even sponsors a geocaching promotion with tokens that may win the finder a new Jeep.

We decided to try and find geocaches in our area with just a topographic map, a compass and the clues provided on the Geocaching.com website. The website provides links to topographic maps that you can print out.

To find a freeocache you just need to use the clues given in the description about elevation, vegetation, etc, and use your common sense to imagine where in the general area the hider would have chosen to place the geocache.

I have found that the maps on the geocaching.com site will get you within about 200 feet of where the cache is located. Your odds of finding the geocache are not as good but we both enjoy the challenge. It is not always about the finding.

Since we began our new take on geocaching, "freeocaching" we have found over fifty caches without a GPS. It adds a whole new elemnet of challenge to the sport.

What You Will Need For Freeocaching

It really helps if you have a partner to zero in on the cache. It also helps if you have two way radios. We use a pair of Midlad GMRS radios and a headphone / mic setup. A good compass is also essential. Wear long pants to protect you from thorns and poision ivy, take lots of water and plan on spending a little more time to find a cache than with a GPS. If you try "freeocaching" you just might like it. Visit http://www.Geocaching.com and sign up for a free account.