AsheCaching

We spent a good chunk of yesterday AsheCaching, the local brand of GeoCaching. I had never heard of it but judging by their Web site, plenty of people in Greensboro have - there are caches all over my area code!

But to back up for others like me: GeoCaching is a GPS guided scavenger hunt. This having been my first GeoCache experience, I can only tell you what this one was like. We were given a page with clues and coordinates on it. At each coordinate, we had to find the answer to the clue. Sometimes they were simple, like finding the street address of "the bike related business next to the mountain climbing store" and sometimes it was trickier, like locating the waterwheel that was not at all visible from the road - we just had to follow the sound of the waterfall.

The GPS didn't have street names or paths, and it could only get us within 20 or so feet of the coordinate; it acted mostly as a compass that Rob used in conjunction with a city map while I drove. The answers to the clues (all numbers) were the coordinates to the final stop, where a lock box was hidden, perhaps with a prize inside (I suspect the prize is unique to AsheCache but have no idea).

The whole thing is pretty savvy - it's sponsored by local businesses, so the hunt guides you to all around Asheville and surrounding areas, places we never would have seen had we not participated. They refill the prizes weekly, so whoever gets there first gets a gift (like us, now the proud owners of a new Eagles Nest Outfitters double nest hammock! Thanks, ENO!) and everyone else gets the satisfaction of having completed the hunt.

At this moment, Rob is surfing the Web for handheld GPS units so we can GeoCache around the 'boro... I see the makings of our new favorite hobby...