Cache me if you Can

Everyone has a childhood memory of searching for treasure stowed away deep in the bush. Someone put it there for you to find, and your keen sense of adventure was going to accomplish the task. Before long — and, sometimes, after long — you find it with a triumphant sense of accomplishment, a feeling you also never forget.

Memory no more, these scavenger hunts are back with style and as high-tech as ever.

The movement is calling geocaching, and it all started when GPS technology came out in 2000. One outdoorsy enthusiast hid a container filled with goodies in the woods and posted the co-ordinates on an Internet GPS users’ group. The game was simple: “Take some stuff, leave some stuff.” It took off, and eventually a Seattle-based company was formed around archiving all the caches, and geocaching.com was born.

On the website, GPS coordinates for treasure spots all over the world are available. Many need to be hiked to, some are urban and, for others, you’ll need to be a good rock climber or scuba diver. The website also hosts discussion for enthusiasts and a platform to share your experiences during your dramatic geocache. The etiquette is that you sign a logbook placed in each cache, leave something there of equal or greater value, and then post about it online in the dynamic geocaching social community.

Geocaching? Geo-what? Never fear!
Geocaching is pronounced geo-cashing. GEO refers to geography and CACHING refers to the process of hiding a cache, a term used in hiking and camping describing a hiding place for concealing and preserving provisions

A common acronym has even been coined to denote a good cache, TFTC: Thanks for the Cache.

Once familiarized with the activity, you can make a hobby out of starting your own geocache. You post its location and get feedback from community members. It’s your job to make sure it stays in its place and geocachers can keep enjoying the search for it.

From being a family activity to an intense challenge (caches and their surrounding terrain are respectively ranked one to five on difficulty), geocaching has it all for the scavenger-hunting nostalgia within all of us. According to geocaching.com, more than four million people geocache in nearly every country on the planet. Many enthusiasts make vacations out of caching, or at least make a day trip out of it in anywhere foreign they visit. Clearly, it’s addictive and devotees need a global fix.   
So go to geocaching.com, check out how to get started, and then type in your postal code. You’ll be surprised to find out how many caches are near you. •

GEO-CESSORIZE
If you’re going to be taking on the wilderness in this trendy, new way, then spice up your gear with some style and utility.

Victorinox Swiss Army, one of the most recognizable names in travel and outdoorsman gear, is releasing a bold new timepiece this season. The Maverick has undergone a complete reworking and now features a chronograph, dual time subdial and three-handed version — perfectly versatile for an active lifestyle.

This redone Maverick is the Maverick GS, which stands for “Grand Sport.” Its strength lies in multiple stainless steel features, from case to bracelet, and a scratch-resistant polished lacquer applied on the bezel. The bezel itself is unidirectional and can be rotated, with a count-up scale.

And if you need to scuba dive to find your geocache, it is water resistant for up to 100 metres.

All of these features are available with the Maverick GS Chrono, but the Maverick GS Dual Time is also available, offering a dual time subdial at 6 o’clock and the date at 12 o’clock.

Paired with your GPS, you’ll be an unstoppable, co-ordinate traversing, time-telling force. It’ll keep you focused on the task at hand, and have you scooping up cache containers in no time.