Since its inception in 1910, Boy Scouts of America has taught millions of young men the finer points of orienteering, tracking, and map reading.
Now, with the emergence of affordable consumer Global Positioning Satellite receivers, the Scouts are going high-tech, adopting the hobby of geocaching as part of a national push to celebrate the organization’s centennial anniversary.
For the uninitiated, geocaching can best be described as modern-day treasure hunts. Players hide containers full of trinkets—the “caches”—outdoors and share the coordinates of the spot online for others to find with GPS devices.
The Los Padres Council, the governing body for 4,000 scouts in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, is hiding its own caches all over the Central Coast as part of the BSA’s national “Get in the Game” geocaching program. The program launched in the fall, coinciding with the organization’s prime recruiting season.
Council Scout Executive Rebecca Fields said partnering with the geocaching community was a perfect way for the Boy Scouts to connect with today’s tech-savvy youth.
“It’s an opportunity to engage our current scouts as well as hopefully encourage boys and adults to volunteer and become involved in scouting,” she said.
The program isn’t limited to Boy Scouts. All an intrepid seeker needs is a GPS device, access to the Internet, and a profile at geocaching.com. More than a million caches are hidden all over the world, in a multitude of sizes or shapes and with varying degrees of difficulty.
Etiquette calls for participants to replace items found in the cache, or, if it’s a geocoin or other trackable item, to move it and hide it in another cache. Finders can also sign their name and handle on logs or journals in each cache.
As part of the “Get in the Game” program, caches placed by the Boy Scouts will be marked with the organization’s trademark fleur-de-lis on online maps. They’ll contain coins, patches, and other scouting-related items for boys and adults already in the program.
Geocaching is already popular among Scouting alumni. According to Council volunteer chair Jeff Sais, a high percentage of former scouts search for caches on a regular basis, because the activity is a natural fit with the skills they’ve been taught.
“Geocachers in large part enjoy being in the outdoors and enjoy hiking,” Sais said. “These are attributes that are consistent with Boy Scouts and Boy Scout leaders.”
Though they admit GPS makes seeking out caches much easier, scout leaders insist the devices won’t be replacing the old map and compass anytime soon.
Jim Sparks, a Scout leader for a local troop of 12- and 13-year-olds, said he teaches his scouts to find caches by the
old methods in order teach them to have more appreciation for satellite tracking technology.
“I think it’s important to understand basic methods because GPS doesn’t always work,” Sparks explained. “Sometimes there’s stuff blocking your view. Sometimes you get in a narrow canyon or something and your GPS just cuts out and you’re still a quarter-mile away.”
Sparks has geocached on his own for several years and has taken his scouts along on expeditions in the past. He said he’s excited that the BSA is getting involved in the community.
“I think it’s great,” he said. “It gets you out in the outdoors, it teaches you how to use maps—understanding longitude and latitude and relative distances to things—and it teaches you that the shortest time to get to something isn’t necessarily the shortest distance.”
While Sparks said he’s found money and, once, a bottle of Wild Turkey (in a cache at Point Sal), the true reward, he said, is in the thrill of the hunt.
“You can make geocaching as difficult or as easy as you want,” he said. “The real fun is finding it, signing the log that you were there, taking some pictures, then going online and writing about the challenges getting to it.”
Other members of the geocaching community agree. An avid geocacher himself, the Los Padres Council’s Sais said he enjoys the hobby as an inexpensive family activity, and as a good excuse to explore.
“It’s a wonderful way to go to places locally that you would never see or visit before, but someone has,” he said. “There are parts of Santa Maria that most people don’t even know exists, but through geocaching you become familiar with all the little nooks and crannies of the area.”
But doesn’t using GPS take the challenge out of treasure hunts?
“I think it actually makes it a little more challenging,” he said. “This is just a high-tech version of quite an old hobby.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas knows X still marks the spot. Contact him at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 7-14, 2010.
