Muggles and puzzles and treasure ... oh my!

There I was, holding on for dear life to my seat in the S.S. Kiwi, dreaming of glory, buckets of jewels and gold coins as we cautiously pulled up to the island’s rocky shore. I was sailing the high seas with a ragamuffin crew, pulled together for the sole purpose of being the first to plunder a hidden treasure on one of a tiny chain of islands in Flathead Lake.

This was my first attempt at “geocaching” and my hosts, Polson’s Captain Doug and son Jonathan Crosby, and Darrel, Sara, Ben and Brianna Stone had been filling me in on what our day’s adventure would entail.

Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. According to the official geocaching website, a geocacher can place a geocache anywhere in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology and then share the geocache’s existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS device can then try to locate the cache.

While the GPS is, of course, an important tool for geocachers, it only brings you within 20 to 30 feet of the treasure. After that, geocachers must use their “geo-sense” to locate the find. This particular cache’s online report said it was in a “small” container, by geocaching standards. Littered with deadfall and tall underbrush, I thought to myself, ‘It will surely take forever to find anything hidden on this messy island.’

The GPS indicated the cache was on the east side of the island, so we exited the boat and let 10-year-old Ben Stone lead the way.

The Stones, official geocaching team ‘DaRocks,’ have over 250 finds to their credit. Their most successful day of plunder amounted to 35 caches found. I guess all things considered, I shouldn’t have been surprised when within minutes, Stone threw up his arms and alerted the rest of us that, surely enough, he had found it. There, strategically placed inside a hollowed out, sun-scorched dead tree, surrounded in cobwebs, sat the roughly 20-ounce army-green canister.

When opened, Stone’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He was the “first to find” (FTF) and the prize’s booty was his to claim.

After recording their names in the tiny rolled up log book, the kids traded a smooth rock with a green painted “Aaargh” and left in its place some colorful glass gems and a little orange lizard. The rule is, if you take something from a cache, you must leave something of equal or greater value in its place. Once they return home, they will write about the experience in the geocache’s online logbook. They will have the chance to rate its difficulty, give clues or add to the mystery for the next geocacher to attempt.

 A relatively new sport, hobby or game, geocaching has really only been around for about 10 years. This past April, the online database reached 1,000,000 active caches worldwide, for the first time ever. When Darrel Stone started geocaching with his family in January, there were nine active caches in the area. Now, he said, there are over 50.

Polson’s Trey Moran said he learned about geocaching from his son, who lives in western Washington.

“We went on our first one at a Washington State University football game,” he said. “I wouldn’t really call it an adventure, although it can be an adventure. I just kinda like the idea of looking for something that most people aren’t looking for.”

For the most part, geocaching is an easy and inexpensive thing for families, or people of all ages to do. While the island treasure hunt was certainly an exciting experience, not all geocaches are so remote, or rugged. However, that’s not to say that some urban caches can’t be a challenge. There are lots of ways to play the game, Crosby said.

“Some people get really into numbers, others just go for difficulty,” he said.

Difficulty can depend on a number of factors. Container size can range from “nano,” or “tiny-teenie-weenie, dime-sized magnetic containers,” said Ben Stone, to 10-gallon jugs or larger. Normally, you’ll find a Tupperware container, ammo box, or bucket filled with goodies, but sometimes the actual cache is not at all what you imagined.

“It really does train you on attention to detail,” Crosby said.

A “puzzle cache” can involve complicated puzzles you will first need to solve in order to determine the actual coordinates. A “multi-cache” involves two or more locations, the final location being a physical container. There are many variations, but most multi-caches have a hint to find the second cache, and the second cache has hints to the third, and so on. There’s even a type of geocaching called the “Travel Bug,” which is sort of like playing the Amazing Race with a serial-numbered dog tag or coin.

Crosby once hid a travel bug in Wellington, New Zealand with a mission to get back to Montana. The last time he checked, it was somewhere in California.

The Stones said the most challenging cache they ever found was called “Slow and Steady,” located at the Miracle of America Museum in Polson.

“It’s right in plain sight, but you don’t really think to look at it,” Ben said.

“If you know about the dynamics of a train, it helps,” Brianna, eight-years-old, said.

Believe it or not, geocaching is a highly regulated and permission-based game.

“One thing a lot of muggles [non-geocachers] don’t understand is, you’re not coming in and digging big holes or tearing up the property,” Crosby said. “There are a whole bunch of guidelines you have follow when publishing caches.”

You must have permission to use the land, which can sometimes be a challenge. The cache must not have commercial ties, be on or near a railroad, school or bridge. Caches are even required to be placed a certain distance apart as to prevent “cache saturation” in a specific area.

“You do get some resistance if you’re trying to put it somewhere and they don’t understand it,” Moran said. “Because of the nature of it, the people involved tend to be even more respectful and conscious of the property itself and are much less likely to tear it up as you might get with someone else.”

There’s even an acronym called “CITO,” or “cache-in-trash-out” to promote responsible geocaching. A lot of times, Moran said geocaching brings him to unique, even historical places he would not normally go to and look at things he would not normally see.

“Like at Fort Connah, as many times as I’ve driven by that sign and I know that the fort’s out there, I had never stopped to look at the sign until there was a cache out there,” he said.

Local geocachers all seem to agree, more people involved in the game means more fun for everyone.

“I see it getting bigger and bigger,” Moran said. “Once you get into it, you think ‘well, I better put out a cache too’ and that’s how it starts growing.”