Geocaching

Tonight I am headed on a Scout camping trip without my boys. This evening is a District camp out that my troop elected to miss. Next week we will be doing our annual trip to Southern Utah and visiting Goblin Valley State Park instead. Since I am part of the District leadership, I will be going tonight to help make sure everything runs smoothly.

The theme of this year's district camp out is Geocaching. We will be setting up something similar to a map and compass course. The difference is that the Scouts will be using global positioning service (GPS) devices to locate hidden prizes. The idea is to provide a list of coordinates and then let the Scouts go wild. It should be a lot of fun.

If you think this sounds like a great activity, there are close to a million different geocaches all over the world. The best place to start is at Geocaching.com. You can sign up for a free account and then get a listing of geocaches in your area. When you find one, the idea is to sign the log, take one of the souvenir's, and then add a souvenir of your own to the cache.

When we were putting together this activity there was the question about enough people owning GPS devices. Fortunately most mobile phones are now made with the GPS chip built into the device. My iPhone uses the GPS to help provide directions. You can also download several application from the AppStore that turn it into a fully featured GPS. Similar programs exist for many of the other all-in-one phones.

Knowing how to use a GPS is an important skill to have. Once I tried to find a safe harbor for my sailboat during a massive snowstorm using my GPS. Unfortunately I didn't have much experience with the device. The snow was coming down so hard, it was impossible to see the bow of the sailboat. It was pure luck that I found the entrance and didn't run aground. Since then I have made it a point to learn how to use my GPS and games like Geocaching are one way to do that. Now if I can just remember where I put my winter sleeping bag, I'll be ready for tonight.