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This geocache container was hidden under the stump and contained trinkets to swap as well as a paper to log in your find. Photo by Joan Young.
By Joan Young, MCP contributing writer
Does this sound like a book for elementary school kids? Maybe it could be.
Being a geocaching neophyte, I had a lot to learn. In theory, I knew what geocaching was. I’d found a few caches accidentally. I’d been with a couple of friends when they searched for them on purpose. But I’d never downloaded the app, selected a cache and gone to find the small waterproof container stashed somewhere, slightly hidden.
In case you don’t know, the idea of a geocache is that someone has hidden a small container containing at least a log sheet where finders record their name and the date. Sometimes there are tiny trinkets to swap. The person who hides the cache gives it a name and registers its location (latitude and longitude) on the official Geocaching app or website. Then other people try to find it.
Some geocachers have found thousands. It’s a fun activity that gets you outside, and most of the caches don’t require a lot of walking.
Sue Crawford and Joan Young successfully find a “Pull Me Down” cache. Photo by Sue Crawfrod.
Then there’s GeoArt. The idea of this got me a little more excited than finding an individual cache. On the app, there’s a picture drawn in the style of a dot-to-dot worksheet. You try to find all the caches associated with the image to complete the picture. There’s one in northeast Mason County called “Cider Apples.” Each cache is named for a variety of apple used to make cider. The description is even educational, explaining a little about each type of apple. And there was humor. We all know about Northern Spy apples, but have you heard of a Finkenwerder Herbstprinz? No, I did not make that up.
Thinking it would be good to have someone with more knowledge about the activity, I called my friend Sue, who has found more than 4,355 caches, doesn’t mind driving on terrible two-tracks and would think it’s all great fun even as the mercury nudged past 90 degrees.
She said, “When are we going?”
A few days later, we met at a parking area, climbed into her thankfully air-conditioned vehicle and began hunting for caches. The app not only gives you the coordinates but also visually helps you zero in on the location with a directional arrow and the distance to the cache.
After finding a few caches associated with the picture—which was a perfectly shaped apple with a stem—we realized the actual cache locations were not going to draw the picture. They were all in the general vicinity, but the latitudes and longitudes that created the drawing were not located along the two-track roads. At first, I was disappointed. Then I decided bushwhacking three or four miles would definitely fall on the un-fun side of the experience. I’ve since learned that’s perfectly normal for GeoArt.
An official explanation goes like this: GeoArt icons don’t appear in the same places as the physical containers. The dots on the map represent the posted coordinates needed to draw the picture, while the physical cache is hidden elsewhere. Single-location geocaches, however, are located where the icon appears on the map.
Anyway, there were 33 caches to find in order to complete the apple.
“How long will it take?” I asked innocently.
“All day.”
Sue was right.
The actual locations of the caches to make the apple
We had a blast. Most of the containers were small plastic bottles hanging in saplings, but we also encountered larger containers tucked under logs or inside hollow stumps. There was even a tiny one hidden in the groove of a stop sign post that barely held the log sheet. They were all spray-painted dark green or brown to make them more difficult to spot while also helping them blend into their surroundings instead of looking like litter.
Then there were the four caches whose hint simply read, “PMD.”
We drove all the way around the apple and found every cache except those four. Even as an experienced cacher, Sue didn’t know what PMD meant.
This is the art- the picture you see in the Geocache App.
An inordinate amount of time was spent at those locations, poking around and wandering well beyond the normal margin of GPS error. Pink Metal Drum? Plastic Medical Dispenser? I found an attractive patch of moss growing on a log. Pretty Mossy Ditch? Purple MicroDot? Sue suggested they might be higher in a tree. We still couldn’t see them. Private Mail Drop? We were pretty much done guessing.
But we wanted to find them all.
Finally, after getting one bar of cell service, I looked it up. PMD means “Pull Me Down.”
They really were hanging high in the trees.
Armed with that information, we quickly found the remaining four caches, guzzled the last of the drinks we’d brought and called it a day well spent.
One final fact: You need a premium membership to the Geocaching app to access GeoArt and the similar Geocaching Adventure Lab experiences, which are geared even more toward education. You can still locate and log individual geocaches for free, but the modest subscription fee could be well worth it by adding an educational component to an already enjoyable activity for families and friends.
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