Geocaching Club at IU uses technology to get students outside exploring

Spring is a season of accomplishments for IU students. For senior Jessica Falkenthal, success came in the form of a hidden box in Tennessee when she found her 2,000th geocache.

“Geocaching is a treasure hunting hobby for adventure-seekers,” Falkenthal said.

To experience geocaching, people must have a GPS unit or GPS capabilities on their cell phone. After registering on www.geocaching.com, they may receive coordinates for a geocache and use their device to lead them to it.

“It kind of makes you feel like you’re on a secret mission,” Falkenthal said. “You try to make sure nobody sees you when you find it.”

Many geocaches can be walked or hiked to, but some require canoeing, climbing and even scuba diving before they are found. Once within 100 to 200 feet of the cache, the geocacher must use clues about size and terrain to locate it. 

“There’s usually a logbook that has the history of everyone who’s ever found it,” Falkenthal said. Geocachers sign the logbook with the date they found it and their name or geocaching screen name.

There are often other small items inside, such as a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy. One campus geocache includes a Dora the Explorer playhouse. If you want to take the item, the rule is to trade something of equal or greater value.

Falkenthal started geocaching six years ago in California when a roommate introduced her to the hobby. She said her favorite experience occurred in New York City when she found a geocache in Times Square.

“You’re standing there and there’s 100,000 people walking all over when you pull it out,” she said. “There’s this sign in it that says, ‘I found it!’ and you go hold it over a webcam and have someone remotely take a photo of you.”

When Falkenthal came to Bloomington two years ago, she started Bloomington Geocachers so that residents with the same hobby could experience geocaching together.

“Nobody had ever met each other,” she said. “We hid these things and recognized each other’s screen names and made assumptions about who we thought we would be.”

Stu Baggerly, Monroe County deputy public defender and Bloomington geocacher, goes by the screen name “monstercatambush.” Fellow geocachers simply call him “Monster Cat.”

“When I’m taking a break from defending murders and drug deals, it’s nice to get out and play the game,” he said. Baggerly has hidden 140 geocaches in the Bloomington area.

According to Falkenthal, a few of Baggerly’s creative geocaches include spring-loaded mouse toys that launch when opened and a geocache that plays a song like a music box.

Baggerly also enjoys geocaches that are “hidden in plain sight.”

“Never assume a light fixture is a light fixture or a pipe is a pipe,” he said. “There’s a really good one behind Yogi’s called ‘Piper’s Piping.’”

He said geocachers come to Bloomington from Tennessee and Kentucky because of the ideal environment and interesting geocaches. For example, a geocache near the Monroe County Historical Society leads seekers on a 20-question trivia scavenger hunt in the museum before they can sign the geocache log.

In January 2010, Falkenthal formed another group, the Geocaching Club at IU. The club meets about twice a month for geocaching on campus, and anyone with or without a GPS unit may attend. The group has geocaching kits that include GPS units available for checkout in the Herman B Wells Library so any IU student or faculty member can have access to geocaching.

During “Caching After Class,” a weekly event that teaches geocaching,  freshman Dillon Daniel said he tries to be inconspicuous when looking for caches. Falkenthal said this also protects the geocaches from being stolen.

“This is a heavily muggled area,” Daniel said while the club looked for a geocache near the Kelley School of Business. Muggles are non-geocachers.

The group also plans special events to introduce students to geocaching. After the Nearly Naked Mile last fall, the club had a Nearly Naked Nightcache. Participants used flashlights to follow trails of reflectors that led them to the geocaches. They also participated in 10/10/10, a world record-breaking event during which about 72,000 people worldwide found geocaches in one day.

Between Third and 10th streets on campus, Falkenthal said there are 45 geocaches, or approximately one every 528 feet, which is the closest that geocaches may be planted. More than 250 geocaches are hidden within a five-mile radius of campus, and more than 450 can be found within 10 miles.

With nearby Lake Monroe, Yellowwood State Forest and Brown County, Geocaching Club at IU also has trips for camping, hiking and geocaching enthusiasts. Last September, the group had a pirate-themed trip. Wearing pirate hats, members canoed to the islands on Lake Monroe and found treasure-themed caches.

Although different people attend each event, Falkenthal said Geocaching Club at IU is great for socializing and forming friendships.

“We’ve become a close-knit family of sorts because once you spend a few hours doing crazy things like searching for Tupperware in the woods, you become instantly bonded,” she said. “There’s a lot of us really hooked on this.”

To try geocaching firsthand, meet the geocachers at the School of Informatics and Computing building from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday. Geocaching Club at IU is co-sponsoring a game day with the Informatics and Computing Student Association, which will include a barbecue, indoor and outdoor games and 30-minute geocaching adventures. On April 30, they are also hosting a night-caching event on the B-Line Trail.