The Emergence of Geocaching tourism.

You know for the many years there have always been the die hard geocachers that take the time to travel to specific places to find specific caches or to accomplish specific goals.

Early on we had geocachers that tried to get every cache in the state, or every cache in the county.  As the numbers began to increase in certain areas more traveled. 

Events appeared and cachers from gathered at locations, Mega Events drawing people and tourists from around the world to the events to cache and meet others. 

Recently we see another interesting development that seems to be growing.  Most likely because of the growth of the number of caches concentrated in certain areas cachers are drawn to them.  The sheer number of cachers draw some of the cachers to them.

I was thinking about that this weekend when Alamogul was moving through the area looking for caches.  With over 46,000 caches the reason he is here is to look for more.  It was intersting to think about. Someone traveling to this area to look for caches. 

I pulled up the Shakespeare/McGuiver road, and started to look at the cachers that have visited.  Of course we have cachers from around Utah that stopped and visited the caches.  I found others.  Of course people have visited from nearby states, that did not surprise me:  Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona.  Those were the ones that did not surprise me.

However the others, people from California, Missouri, Washington, Oregon, and others that I did not take the time to look through.   Those were the ones that were drawn here.  

I published a hiking trail that has 150 caches in north of vernal.  That area had never held an interest to me, now there is a string.  Something that would take me a day or more to hike, and the caches that go along with it.  Suddenly I have an interest to spend a day or three on the trail getting the caches.  It is funny how those things work out.

Garmin Chirp and Beacon Attribute.

Geocaching had a surprise last week, when in the middle of the week Garmin announced the chirp. 

Chirp is a tiny electronic beacon that would broadcast about 50 characters onto your Oregon, Dakota, or GPSmaps62.

Designed for use with geocaching, Groundspeak found out two days before it was released and was trying to find out more information about the product, and what they were to do with the new product. Friday when Garmin made its announcement we were discussing in the forums how to deal with this obviously commercial product.

We were asked to treat as a commercial product early on, to allow it but it could not be the only way to find the cache.

By the time they got back in the office Monday morning they posted a plan.

1. A new attribute for a "beacon" will be added as early as this week. Any caches that use a Chirp (or any future similar device) should use this attribute.
2. If a cache owner puts a Chirp in a traditional cache and geocachers have an alternative method to find it without using the Chirp, then OK. Remind them to use the attribute.
3. If they insist on not providing an alternative means of finding it, it must be listed as a mystery with the beacon attribute.
4. Cache descriptions may mention the "Chirp" as long as the text doesn't go on and on with "overtones of advertising, marketing, or promotion."
5. We do not plan to add a new cache type just for this.

By the afternoon a new attribute appeared for caches that have a broadcast.

There is still a bit of trying to figure out what to do and how to deal with it but there is a bit of a plan in place and groundspeak is still working to anchor how to deal with the different caches that may appear. It is not every day that a new interesting cache product appears.  Many of us are still surprised that they had not discussed the matter with groundspeak, it seems surprising.

Some argued that it is open source.  Apparently in response Garmin told another it is only to be worked with Garmin units and the chirp.  So there will be no third party apps, at least for the foreseeable future on the product.

We will see what the future holds.

I am back, chirp, ....Boom

UNPC 100th Anniversary Of Scouting Event

Well I made it back from my excursion at scout camp.  Everything went well.  No one died in my troop, no one lost much hair due to fire, and the frost nearly killed us in Heber, but we suffered through the ice cold nights (actually colder than ice).

One of my scouts placed a cache (jasonhappy), within a few minutes Jeocacher had found it.  Too be fair he was teaching geocaching for two days at the event, and he was sitting in his car a few hundred feet away when it was listed.  I had a good discussion there with him (actually many).  Later Souldominator showed up and we shared new stories with each other as the boys wandered back from their letterboxes with the sheets showing they had found the ten caches.

It was cold sleeping in a field in Heber Valley in October, but I had an enjoyable time.

Chirp...Chirp... Chirp

Nope not a cricket or a bird... but a chirp.  A Garmin chirp. 

It is the newest release from Garmin.  There apparently was no or little advance warning of the product. 

It is a small device that when your Oregon will ping when it is close.  The chirp can then send info to the actual reciever.   There are a number of possibilities of letting you have a multi cache using one or more chirps, having the location of the a final, or sending a puzzle.  These would be transfered to your device.

There are a lot of interesting possiblities, so we will see what happens with it.  Currently they run about $20.  They are a commerical product and run afoul of the guildelines.  Any cache using them would need to have another way to solve them alongside the chirp. 

The advent of this product has led Geocaching to consider a new cache type.  A quote from geocaching.com's Users Voice by Jeremy said "For it to be supported on Geocaching.com there will have to be a new type created since it definitely requires a proprietary device and special equipment. I'd suggest keeping it more generic as a Beacon Cache so other wireless concepts can be supported. I know some wifi and bluetooth caches that have been created in the past that would fit this new type, for example, and the concept of "fox hunting" has been around for years."

So we will see what happens.

Blown up cache

A cache was blown up near an elementary school in California Saturday.  It was at the far end of the school parking lot far away from the school, but still on school property.  So the bomb squad was called in and blew it apart.

Please note... unless you are a teacher, do not place them on school property.  If you are a teacher, we can go through a process to make sure that your principle, grounds crew, and office is aware that it is there as a school project and to avoid the same situation.

BSA Geocaching Badge and Pamphlet

Here is the new geocaching merit badge and the pamphlet from the Boy Scouts...

When I have a moment I will write a bit more.

A week off.

I needed to take a week off writing because of the many things have came up.  Though I have really enjoyed writing, it really does place about 4th on my list.. Family, caching, work, all seem to be up above it in importance.

Caching

In the caching front I went to three events this weekend and had a great time at them.  There was a lot going on.

I thought I would take a moment and mention what fun they all were.  I stopped at the Halloweenies event in springville. Mostly at the last second.  I forgot that it was going on so I swung by when I had a chance after work. 

Later the next day (Saturday) I had a small event that only had a few cachers up near the Idaho border.  I wanted to meet a few of the people that I had been hearing of.

then Saturday I stopped at the one that was being held in Kaysville.  They were all a lot of fun and I saw a bunch of familiar and new faces.

Springville

Jacobs halloweenies event in springville