Harry Evans spends his days hunting for and eradicating pests. It results in a paycheck at the end of the week. But in his spare time, the J.C. Ehrlich Pest Control technician, based in Baltimore, likes to participate in a unique modern-day treasure hunt that has an entirely different prize.
Five years ago, Evans watched a show on the Discovery Channel about geocaching, which piqued his interest. He looked the subject up at geocaching.com and learned the term meant a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game using global positioning system (GPS) devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates to find the geocache (container) hidden there.
Evans then learned there was a geocache very near his home.
“I found the first one without a GPS,” he recalls. “I read the clue and had an idea where to look. It was a big Tupperware container filled with Matchbox cars.”
Evans was hooked. He bought a handheld Garmin GPS device and now spends a substantial portion of his free time searching urban, suburban and rural areas for hidden treasures.
The hobby began in 2000 when GPS devices became available to the public. According to Evans, an enterprising individual hid something in the middle of the woods, posted it on the Internet, along with coordinates, and said, “Hey, if you find it, it’s yours.” Many went out into the woods looking for it. The first person to find it claimed the prize.
How it works
To find caches, Evans needs to know the coordinates. He begins the search online by visiting geocaching.com, where people upload the necessary information, including the GPS coordinates of the hidden prizes. GPS systems aren’t exact, so even if a searcher reaches the indicated spot, the treasure might be 20 or 30 ft. away. Additionally, the cache is usually hidden. It might be camouflaged, in a tree, partially buried underground or under brush.
Caches have been buried on all seven continents, according to the geocaching website. Some “treasures” are trackable, via a code that allows the finder to log onto the website and see where that object has been. It might be on a journey from its original location to another site. The finder then hides the object in a cache a little closer to its final destination.
Geocachers are “a good, fun-loving community,” Evans says. “When you go to places you’ve never been to before, you’re going to see something you never saw.”
Evans recalls one time being out in the woods hunting for a cache and finding little more than trees. “All of a sudden, there are these stone structures that are falling down,” he says. “There used to be a house there — 100 years ago.”
A new devotee
After hearing Harry Evans story, the author of this piece had to try it for himself. He checked geocaching.com, grabbed his wife, put the leash on the dog and headed up the street to a nearby cemetery to look for their frst prize. They couldn’t fnd it. Then, heading back a couple days later — sans dog — They were able to locate the small cache: a pill bottle painted black, tied to the branch of a bush. It contained a paper to record the name and the date of the fnd. To date, the author has located eight caches around Northeast Ohio. pmp
Jacobs is a freelance writer and contributor for PMP. Contact him via wnepper@northcoastmedia.net
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