OVEREDGE - Maphead - page 138

But where's the cache? I have yet to develop what cachers call “geosenses,” the seem-
inglyextrasensoryabilitytogetinsidetheheadofthehider,tolookatalandscapeandspot
the likely hiding places of the “geojoy.” * No GPS locator is correct down to a single foot,
of course. My readings are dependent on the time it's taking signals to bounce off a con-
stellation of six overhead satellites, and if signals start bouncing off of other things—these
tall trees, for example—rather than traveling into space in a straight line, small errors will
creep in. I know the cache is somewhere in a tight radius around these coordinates, but
Space Command can't actually tell me, “It's in that hollow log, dummy!”—I have to look.
I kick through leaves, I lift up rocks, I reach under tree roots. It's exactly as much fun as
looking for your car keys or searching for your retainer in a cafeteria garbage can. People
do this for fun?
Butthencomestheepiphany.I'mstandingatthebaseofthehighestdirt-bikerampwhen
Irealize:geocachingcoordinatesincludeonlylatitudeandlongitude.WhatabouttheZ-ax-
is? What about height? I inch my way up the rickety wooden track. Dylan wants to come
too, until he gets halfway up and then realizes he liked it just fine on the ground. At the
highest point, where the teenagers used to turn their bikes around, I reach my hand under
theplatform,andthere'ssomethingsquareandmetallic. “Igotit!Igotit!”Ishout,euphor-
ic with the unexpected endorphin rush of finding . Aha. That's why people do this for fun.
Dylan opens the little box and it's love at first sight: a Cracker Jack carton without any
of that stupid popcorn or peanuts, just cheap toys. To a six-year-old, it might as well be
diamonds and rubies. He spots a plastic sheriff's badge he wants, so he digs around in his
pocket until he finds an unused Chuck E. Cheese token and leaves that in its place. I sign
the log, carefully replace the cache in its perch, and we head for home as Dylan babbles
cheerfully. “Dad, when can we come back and play on the ramps? Dad, are there any more
geocaches on our street? Dad?” Score: geocaching 1, video games 0.
Somewhere in the vicinity of five million people are active geocachers, and the rules of
the game are scanty enough that no two people play it quite alike. The vast majority are
casual cachers, who might occasionally spend a sunny afternoon driving around town with
aspouseorkidsintow,lookingforafeweasygrabs.Onaroadtrip,orwithtimetokillbe-
fore an appointment in an unfamiliar part of town, they might think to pull out their smart-
phone to see if there's a geocache nearby. They are sensible, temperate souls, not prone to
crazyobsessionsofanykind,andsotheyaredeeplyrespectedbytheirneighborsandcom-
munity. Let us speak no more of them.
But some geocachers are more obsessive and their quarries more elaborate. “Extreme
cachers,” for example, literally risk life and limb for no other reward than an elusive “smi-
ley”—the happy-face icon that signifies a successful find on Geocaching.com . They're not
going to waste their time on any cache that's not hidden over a cliff or in an abandoned
mine shaft, up a forty-foot oak tree or at the bottom of the Great Salt Lake. They speak