If you've followed me at all, you will know that I enjoy geocaching as a pastime. Well, today we were at it again: just the two of us, plus Milo the geodog, in Mt. Madonna Park, Santa Cruz County, on a nice loop trail that took us among redwoods, tan oaks, and eucalypts. We found 13 caches on our hike, plus 9 on our drive in and out of the park, for 22 in all (plus 3 DNFs...). Here are a few photos from the day:
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| An old pumphouse |
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| I can't help it, I like graffiti |
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| An astonishing number of cars were on this dirt road, which we had to take back to ours: we suspected that an event had just let out—until we saw that huge line of cars driving around in confusion up above and finally turning down an adjacent road, at which point we decided they were just lost getting to wherever they were going... But the dust they kicked up made for a pretty sight. |
But what I came here today to write about is geocaching "souvenirs." Because Geocaching HQ likes to dream up challenges—be it finding a cache at the end or start of a year; celebration of May 3, 2000, the day the "Blue Switch" was flipped and the first cache was planted; various nation days; geocaching milestones such as 3 million active hides; special dates like 10/10/10 or, coming right up, 2/22/22; International Geocaching or EarthCache Day; the annual GIFF (Geocaching International Film Festival); Pi Day. You get the picture: pretty much anything can serve as an excuse for a souvenir.
And the reason I bring this up is that today's outing finished off the latest series of souvenirs, called Reach the Peak: collecting points that equal or surpass the heights in meters of the world's highest mountains. Because today we climbed Mt. Everest! Yes, indeed. And it was a breeze! We started this quest in August with Puncak Jaya in Indonesia (representing Oceania), then successively, month by month, worked our way up Mt. Vinson (Antarctica), Mt. Elbrus (Europe), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Denali (North America), Aconcagua (South America), and finally, today, Everest (Asia). Huzzah! Here is the final bonus souvenir, for completing all seven, plus a base camp and a summit souvenir. So many—15 in all. And they are quite attractive, I must say. Kudos to the artist.
And no, don't worry, I don't put any stock in these "souvenirs." They are silly. And yet, they do often get us out caching. So those geniuses at HQ aren't earning their big fat paychecks for nothing.
A few other series we've completed have, despite being pretty much totally arbitrary, been fun, simply because of the anticipation of collecting the souvenirs, which translates to a job well done. For example, the Natural, Ancient, Modern, and Solar System Wonders of the World, seven wonders each:
The final-final souvenirs being, WORLD and ULTIMATE EXPLORER! Yes! Of course we are!
Last year we had The Science of Discovery—rocket science, environmental science, futurology, and geology:
There may have other sciences celebrated, but those four souvenirs are all we got.
The "challenge" of these last ones was simply to find a cache of a particular designation, as randomly assigned by HQ. But I imagine HQ also hoped we would read the descriptions as we collected our milestones and ultimate prizes. Learn a little something?
Back in August 2013 they had a month-long series, 31 Days of Geocaching—as in 31 consecutive days. Of course we got them all. It was a challenge—not in the sense of being difficult, more in the sense of "be there or be square." Maybe we do take these silly souvenirs a little too seriously...
All together, I've amassed 181 souvenirs. I wonder what those wacky kids at HQ will dream up next?
Update 2/22: Make that 182!
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