Geocaching revisted

geocachinging-logoI dabbled with geocaching about 8 years ago when I bought an attachment for my old Palm V. With Robbie and I both owning a G1 now (AKA Google Android phone), I’m starting to get back into it.

Once I learned how to how to download waypoints from Geocaching.com to my PC (a current bug prevents downloading via the G1’s browser) and then import them into a $10 app called Geodroid, things got a lot easier.

There are currently 46 caches hidden within a 3-mile radius of Northfield’s 55057 zip code. On Thursday, I thought I’d try one in the Carleton Arb.

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I failed to find one called In the Arb with a difficulty rating of 3 (left photo: a Google map of my tracks on the G1; see the actual map of my tracks here). So I tried an easier one, Geese Island Hunt, and put an AhaDiscounts card in it (right photo).

FYI, Carleton has some guidelines on hiding geocaches and letterboxes in the Arb. What’s letterboxing?

5 Comments

  1. Felicity Enders said:

    Yes, there are even several new caches in town in the last month or so. But I think the web must be getting close to full – caches must be a minimum distance from other caches (.1 miles?).

    Letterboxes were the original version of geocaches. I’ve never visited one, but my understanding is that you have to bring a stamp to log your visit – no swag or travelbugs.

    For any who are interested, the iPhone geocaching app works as well as our Garmin under most conditions, and is MUCH more user friendly.

    Ok, obviously you got me going on a favored topic…

    June 20, 2009
  2. Felicity Enders said:

    Ps- Patrick adds that the Ghost of Ytterboe is our favorite Northfield cache to date.

    June 20, 2009
  3. Griff, A Walk in the Arb is our cache. I see you didn’t log it as a DNF, so we weren’t aware there was a problem with it. Can you share the issue?

    Or are you one of those geocachers who only logs his successes? 😉

    June 20, 2009
  4. Griff Wigley said:

    Felicity, I’m delighted to hear that you and Patrick are into it. We’ll have to team up!

    Tonyia, I actually did log my failure but I see the problem now. There are two caches similarly named:

    I linked to yours when I should have linked to the other (link fixed now). Thanks for the nudge! We’ll get out there to yours next.

    June 21, 2009
  5. Griff Wigley said:

    Robbie and I went geocaching in Nerstrand Big Woods State Park yesterday. We couldn’t get the Geodroid app installed on her G1 before we left but the state parks have Garmin GPS units for visitors to use – no charge – so that was a nice surprise.

    I was able to include my location with a Tweet:
    http://twitter.com/griffinjay/status/2258062183

    June 21, 2009

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