Great Northern Tier Geocaching Tournament

The Great Northern Tier Geocaching Tournament is coming to Franklin County on June 9th and 10th. The Franklin County/ Northern Tier Eco-tourism committee has run successful tournaments in the North Quabbin region for the last two years and this year a tournament in Franklin County is being added. Expert and amateur geocachers, individuals, and families are all invited to join the hunt for “caches” hidden throughout the forests, parks, farms and cultural sites using a hand-held GPSr (Global Positioning Satellite receiver) unit and a list of coordinates.

This tournament will be based at Camp Kewanee in Greenfield and will be sending several hundred participants throughout the county looking for geocaches that are found by using hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) units. Geocaching is a relatively new sport that is growing in popularity. This tournament is run by a committee of volunteer organizations including the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce County Chamber of Commerce, WHAI/Bear Country, Rep. Steven Kulik’s office, Greenfield Business Association, Turners Falls River Culture, The Shelburne Falls Area Business Association, Franklin Land Trust, The Kiwanis Club of Greenfield and The Franklin Regional Council of Governments. Franklin County is an area rich in natural and cultural history. This tournament is being held to encourage entrants to come discover the wealth of opportunities to recreate and learn in this fascinating part of the state.

For this event, there will be caches in Shelburne Falls village, Greenfield, Turners Falls, Deerfield, Northfield, Charlemont and points in between. Geocachers spend the weekend looking for sites listed in an extensive event guidebook. Each cacher receives points based upon how many sites they find and prizes are awarded to tour participants. A barbeque dinner will be provided Saturday evening. Pre-registration is required for dinner.

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt. A set of coordinates is entered into a hand-held GPSr unit and a system of satellites lead the user to the treasure, known as a cache. More than 50 new caches will be hidden throughout greater Franklin County. The caches will contain information relating to the natural and cultural heritage of the area, as well as a stamp to confirm that a team found a cache.

Tournament registration begins at 8AM on Saturday, cachers will be given their list, and will be off on a hunt to ‘use multi-billion dollar satellite technology to find Tupperware hidden in the woods’. Score sheets are turned in by 7 on Saturday, but there will be ‘night caches’ to find at the camp. Sunday begins at 7am and all score sheets must be turned in by 3pm. After scoring is finished, prizes will be awarded. Cachers can participate on both days or on only one.

For people who have their own GPS, but don’t know how to use it or who want to know more about geocaching, several training sessions are scheduled. On Wednesday June 6^th at 6:30PM there will be training at the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, 395 Main Street, Greenfield, and at 8:00 and 9:30 AM on both the 9^th and 10^th there will be trainings at Camp Keewanee. You can rent a GPS unit for the weekend by calling Trailhead in Orange at (978) 544-8400. They will be at the tournament all weekend, to guarantee a unit, pre-registration for rented GPSr units is required.

For more information about the tournament and to register, go to www.franklincc.org/geocaching , or call Ann Banash at the Visitor Center in Greenfield at (413) 773-9393 x11. For more information about geocaching go to www.geocaching.com

Geocaching: Using multi- billion dollar satellite technology to find Tupperware hidden in the woods.

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a GPSr unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

A GPS unit is a electronic device that can determine your approximate location (within around 6-20 feet) on the planet. Coordinates are normally given in Longitude and Latitude. You can use the unit to navigate from your current location to another location. Some units have their own maps, built-in electronic compasses, voice navigation, depending on the complexity of the device.

You don't need to know all the technical mumbo jumbo about GPS units to play Geocaching. All you need to do is be able to enter what is called a "waypoint" where the geocache is hidden.

A cache can come in many forms but the first item should always be the logbook. In its simplest form a cache can be just a logbook and nothing else. The logbook contains information from the founder of the cache and notes from the cache's visitors. The logbook can contain much valuable, rewarding, and entertaining information. A logbook might contain information about nearby attractions, coordinates to other unpublished caches, and even jokes written by visitors. If you get some information from a logbook you should give some back. At the very least you can leave the date and time you visited the cache.

Larger caches may consist of a waterproof plastic bucket placed tastefully within the local terrain. The bucket will contain the logbook and any number of more or less valuable items. These items turn the cache into a true treasure hunt. You never know what the founder or other visitors of the cache may have left there for you to enjoy. Remember, if you take something, its only fair for you to leave something in return. Items in a bucket cache could be: Maps, books, software, hardware, CD's, videos, pictures, money, jewelry, tickets, antiques, tools, games, etc. It is recommended that items in a bucket cache be individually packaged in a clear zipped plastic bag to protect them.

Geocaching, first coined by Matt Stum on the "GPS Stash Hunt" mailing list on May 30, 2000, was the joining of two familiar words. The prefix geo, for Earth, was used to describe the global nature of the activity, but also for its use in familiar topics in GPS such as geography.

Caching, from the word cache, has two different meanings, which makes it very appropriate for the activity. A French word invented in 1797, the original definition referred to a hiding place someone would use to temporarily store items. The word cache stirs up visions of pioneers, gold miners, and even pirates. Today the word is still even used in the news to describe hidden weapons locations.

The second use of cache has more recently been used in technology. Memory cache is computer storage that is used to quickly retrieve frequently used information. Your web browser, for example, stores images on disk so you don't have to retrieve the same image every time you visit similar pages.

The combination of Earth, hiding, and technology made geocaching an excellent term for the activity. However the "GPS Stash Hunt" was the original and most widely used term until Mike Teague passed the torch to Jeremy Irish in September 2000.

There are 405,922 active caches worldwide.
In the last 7 days, there have been 322,784 new logs written by 43907 account holders. There are 1702 caches in the 01301 zip code alone according to geocaching.com

Who geocaches?

Families, singles, married couples, retirees, career people, sports enthusiasts, couch potatoes – anyone with a GPS unit who enjoys a walk in the woods.

At last years event in Wendell, there were 60 teams, 157 people. About ½ came from the immediate area, and ½ from far enough away they stayed – many camped, many stayed at B&B’s and hotels.

Most caches are permanent and are visited by people throughout the year. After the event, each permanent cache is added to www.geocaching.com . The ‘owner’ of the cache is expected to check it periodically to be sure that it is still there. People who find the cache log it at geocaching.com so ‘owners’ can check to see how many people have visited their cache.