High-tech treasure hunters give throughout the year

By Linda Bell
Correspondent

Small gift exchanges are available all year to the growing number of people participating in the hide-and-seek sport of geocaching. It's a high-tech treasure hunt giving the finder permission to take something, leave something and say something.

A geocache--typically a weatherproof container with small items for exchange, a pen and log book--is placed in a hidden spot, usually on public land. The hider places the global positioning system coordinates and perhaps clues for finding it on a web site, like www.geocaching.com.

A cache was often used by early explorers, hunters and miners to hide items they wanted safe or would need later, as in the origins of the name Cache la Poudre River.

A quick search of the web site using the zip code for Red Feather Lakes, 80545, revealed 71 pages of sites radiating out 100 miles and extending into Wyoming. The number of records for that zip code was 1,403. Most of the sites were on U.S. Forest Service or Colorado State Forest land.

With the help of Chuck and Nancy Bell and their GPS unit, the novice Team Bell chose a site near Lost Lake on national forest land. The site is about 3 miles northeast of Red Feather Lakes and cached by Team Fegel on March 7, 2005. The geocache, named Lost Lake View, is at N 40º 49.9222 W 105º 32.536. It showed an icon for a "travel bug" at the site.

There were hints: "Route planning can make the difference between an uphill walk to the cache and a difficult ascent." An encrypted, longer hint said: "Some people misspell it as bonzai, but it really should be spelled bonsai, and is pronounced 'bonesigh.' The container is not actually in a bonsai, but it sure looks like it."

Three hours later, after many false starts up and down boulder fields, through slot canyons, pushing and hoisting an English setter over sheer rock, Team Bell finally stumbled upon the "uphill walk" where signs of a large, newly broken branch off a ponderosa signaled that others had come before. Soon the GPS sounded a celebratory beep--Team Bell had arrived.

As novice geocache hunters, Team Bell neglected to plot the route on a geophysical map of the area. But this didn't detract from the enjoyment of the chase or the fun of finding the cache.

The cache ammunition box was well camouflaged in the low branches of a windswept, bonsai-shaped ponderosa. The 360-degree views were incredible. Team Bell signed into the logbook and was surprised to learn it was the sixth entry. The cache had an FTF (first to find) entry for March 19.

Contents of the cache revealed a small boxed jigsaw puzzle, miniature magnetic kitchen utensils with funny faces, two postcards from Wisconsin, a magnifying strip, but no travel bug. A read of the log revealed "Grandma Phyllis took the dog tag back to Wisconsin with her in exchange for the two postcards from Lake Superior."

A travel bug, which looks like a dog tag, is a trackable device that can be carried from cache to cache. Perhaps Team Fegel has some idea through a tracking mechanism where it is now.

Team Bell followed the informal protocol of leaving something in the cache --a Poudre Wilderness Volunteers pin--and taking something away. Nancy Bell said their easy downhill descent was a welcome contrast to finding the cache.

A topic paper on geocaching prepared by the Rocky Mountain Region of the USDA National Forest Service states that at present there are no regulations governing geocache sites on Forest Service land. Points of concern are that "pack it in, pack it out" and "leave no trace" practices are not supported by geocaching. The paper also notes that caches are off the developed trail systems and could cause unauthorized trails.

The paper concludes: "There is no limit as to how long a cache remains in a location, and there is no guarantee that it will ever be removed even after the hunt has come to an end. Some caches are even considered permanent."

The geocaching web site cautions users against placing caches in designated wilderness areas or other specially designated botanical, wildlife and archaeological sites.