Sather

Before toddlers, my wife and I would think nothing about spending a weekend in the back country. When the kids came, the activities and logistical needs of our family obviously changed. Technical climbs, black diamond ski routes, and week long backpacking trips in the Sierras will not be recreational options for our children for many years. Until then, theres geocaching.

The best way to describe geocaching is to imagine a high tech, back country, perpetual, Easter egg hunt. I have owned a GPS receiver for a few years now, but I have never been inclined to geocache. It just wasnt a priority. But I learned last week that I was looking at it through the eyes of a busy adult, not a child.

To get started, you visit the geocaching.com website to obtain the coordinates of a local cache. After entering these coordinates into your GPS, you use the go to button to begin searching. If this is your first time, this is the point where your kids will likely become very curious about what is going on. It didnt take much for Allison (our four year old) to understand that a treasure hunt was on.

The first cache that our family found was called The Crows Nest. It was placed in a high traffic area right in the middle of a local park in such a way that makes its title very meaningful. Allison didnt understand Crows Nest in the context of a ship, but she knew that birds build nests in trees and that got her where she needed to go. When we examined the tree a little more closely, we found a little camouflage plastic bottle. Her eyes got big and at that moment I knew she was just as hooked on the game as I was.

We retrieved the cache and poured out the contents. It was filled with a number of treasures including stickers, marbles, and plastic coins. After signing the log book, we repacked the cache and discretely replaced it in its hiding spot.

Assuming good judgment is applied when selecting terrain, geocaching is an excellent activity for children. The website has a cool Google Map feature and the opportunities, at least within 100 miles of our home, are so numerous that I would take us years to find them all.

Mike Barlow is a father, hiker, climber, and general outdoor recreation enthusiast.

He is also one of the founders of Trailmx.net, an online community dedicated to providing outdoor recreation education to families and children.

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