Night caching

For those who have never tried it, geocaching at night is one of the most enjoyable times you can have. A few of my geocaching buddies like to get together at least once a month and head out for the day hoping to find 40-50 hides. Most of the time, this takes more time to complete then there is daylight available. And, not only does it increase the difficulty for most hides, some real fun adventures are in store, especially when you cache as as a group.

Last weekend was one of those times we got together to tackle a cache specifically created for night. Once you arrive at ground zero, you then proceed to each waypoint by shining your flashlight into the woods to illuminate the reflective markers. Sometimes these caches use reflective tape or Fire Tacks, which are trail markers that are amazingly reflective for night and low light conditions.

Although the cache was a little less of an adventure then what we were expecting, the northern Minnesota night made up for it. It is hard to explain the beauty and serenity you find while in the dark northwoods. A few us would have been content with setting up camp right there and spending the evening staring upward to the stars.

I'm sure you can appreciate the attraction we have to night caching in picture below...

















- See you on the trail!

chirp

A few months ago I was introduced to the Garmin caching site OpenCaching.com. At the time of it's launch, I signed up and I was only interested in reserving my trail name for that site. One of my geocaching buddies, decide to start loading his 150+ hides onto that site in hopes of offering his hides to a larger user base. The site still has a way to go to get the same number of users as Geocaching.com.

So a few weeks ago, I started to slowly uploading my hides and checked the box at the end of the form to enter into the OpenCaching.com "Chirp-a-Day" Sweepstakes. It was pretty neat to find out that I won. And now I have the privilege of creating a new cache (exclusive to opencaching.com) that will have that chirp.

For those of you that don't know what it is, I've include the description from the Garmin chirp website:

chirp is a one-of-a-kind wireless beacon designed specifically for the outdoor adventures of geocaching. Affordable, durable and waterproof, chirp can communicate with, and be programmed by, any compatible wireless-enabled Garmin handheld. chirp stores hints, multicache coordinates, counts visitors and confirms the cache is nearby. chirp is password protected and has a battery life of up to 1 year. 

I'll update this post at some point in the future when I have finally created and hidden the device. Look for it!