Geocaching club attempts to cache them all

Will Petrovic, co-president of IU’s Geocaching Club, described geocaching as a “global GPS treasure-hunting game.”

The goal of geocaching is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, and share experiences on the geocaching website,geocaching.com.

The geocaches are found outdoors using a GPS.

“Geocaches are boxes that include stuff inside and a logbook you sign,” Petrovic said.

The Geocaching Club began a Geographic Information Systems Day Geocoaching Challenge on Monday. The challenge will run through Nov. 20 and is open to all ages and the general public.

Competitors can start at any time during the three weeks, and pre-registration is not required. Players have a three-week span to find the six caches hidden around campus. Each cache is assigned a point according to the difficulty level of locating it.

The players with the most points by the end of the challenge are entered to win a $50 Visa gift card.

The GIS Day organizers will give an informal information session at a GIS Day Geocaching Booth all day Nov. 16 in the Wells Library. Members of the IU Geocaching Club as well as members of the Bloomington Geocachers will be present at the booth.

There are more than 500 geocaches in Bloomington, more than 17,000 in the state of Indiana and more than one million around the world. Caches can be found anywhere — in cities, neighborhoods or parks.

Participants can go hunting for geocaches individually or in a group. A geocaching website keeps track of the number of geocaches each individual finds. This creates friendly competition among fellow geocachers, Petrovic said.

Alex Lemont, co-president of the IU Geocaching Club, has been involved since 2009.

“My favorite geocaching memory is when we all canoed to the islands of Lake Monroe,” Lemont said. 

Lemont initially heard about geocaching from a friend and became involved in the club when he read about it in an IDS article in 2009. He offered to work on the club’s website and was later given the position of co-president.

“My advice would be to go out and geocache with friends and reach out to other geocachers in the community and area,” Lemont said.

Jessica Falkenthal, founder of IU’s Geocaching Club, began geocaching in 2004 when her roommate introduced her to the hobby. She bought her own GPS about two years after she started and founded IU’s Geocaching Club in 2008.

“Bloomington is a geocaching mecca within the Midwest,” Falkenthal said. “People come from two or three states away to find the unique quality and quantity of geocaches we have here.”

The community geocaching builds is strong and well worth the efforts to find the caches, Falkenthal said.

“We have an active community, so people can get together and share their ideas,” Falkenthal said.