By now you've surely heard of geocaching. Talk about exponential growth - there are now over 982,000 active caches worldwide. According to http://www.geocaching.com, geocaching is "a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment."
With the explosive growth in geocaching, it was just a matter of time before a cache would be placed in outer space. Read more here.
The Center has been actively reach out to geocachers about adopting Leave No Trace practices when they're placing and seeking caches. One of the newest educational resources is the Geocaching Ethics Reference Card. This pocket sized resource has the right information to help you Leave No Trace on your next geocaching adventure.
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The fact is, geocaching is bad for any area that is sensitive. When a geocache is difficult to locate, or is missing, people who are looking for the container will trample plants, move rocks, destroy habitat, and even take apart structures just to find the cache(geothrash). How do we know? We have hidden well over 200 geocaches, and even though we tell people to be careful, they still geothrash the area around the hide. We are removing our geocaches and replacing them with Earthcaches,(a type of virtual cache) that promote learning and leaves no trace. We encourage others who geocache to do so as well.
Thanks for sharing your observations regarding the 200 caches you've placed. We have heard similar anecdotes from other geocachers as well. This is precisely why we strongly encourage all who enjoy geocaching to do so with Leave No Trace in mind. We have developed a geocaching ethics reference card (aka hang tag) that can be obtained directly from us: https://store.lnt.org/teach. Additionally, we fully support earthcaching and encourage others to give it a try as an alternative to traditional geocaching. More info here: http://www.earthcache.org/
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