You could be standing just metres away from buried treasure鈥攂ut unless
you have a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation receiver you
might never find it. This is the premise of a new sport called geocaching, a
21st-century treasure hunt with a digital spin. The idea is that people hide a
stash of treasure, typically a Tupperware container filled with a selection of
goodies and a logbook. The precise coordinates of the location are noted by the
hider and then posted on a website such as www.geocaching.com, along with a few
clues to its whereabouts. Armed with their hand-held GPS devices, geocache
seekers then attempt to locate it. But rather than keeping the booty for
themselves, successful geocachers are meant to keep the game going by taking
just one item and replacing it with a new treasure, adding their details to the
logbook for posterity.
Strangely, the game owes its existence to Bill Clinton. In May 2000 he
relaxed restrictions on GPS. The result was that the military stopped
deliberately degrading GPS signals, allowing the general public to get more
accurate positioning information
(www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/20000501_2.html).
Hand-held GPS receivers are now accurate to about 30 metres,
rather than 300 metres. GPS fans, keen to take advantage of this accuracy,
quickly dreamed up the idea of geocaching.
The game is in fact just a modern version of 鈥渓etterboxing鈥�, a cryptic form
of orienteering. Using just a compass and their wits, letterboxers are expected
to follow clues to hidden treasures
(www.letterboxing.org)鈥攁濒产别颈迟,
according to the disclaimer, at your own risk. A less hazardous GPS game is
arguably the most long-winded way to solve a crossword. At
http://gpsadventurebooks.com/game.htm you can find crossword grids with
longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates as part of the clue. But each solution
is visual, so the only way to solve the puzzle is to visit the location of every
single clue.
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