If football isn’t your game, then there is a new sport hitting Clarkston at the end of the summer.
Geocaching ? the end of the word pronounced like cash- has been at various Oakland County parks and is stopped in Depot Park.
The game is a sort of high-tech search for a prize at the end of a trail, which is determined by the coordinates of the cache, typically a small container.
Players use handheld Global Positioning Systems to track the targets, posted on http://www.geocaching.com.
‘It’s a big treasure hunt for adults with too much time on their hands,? Independence Township resident Ed Julian said emphatically.
Julian brought the idea before the Clarkston City Council at the Aug. 14 meeting, asking members for permission to place a cache within the city’s park. Cachers follow a code that includes asking for permission from municipalities prior to placing their prizes.
Julian was referred to Department of Public Works Director Bob Pursley for his thoughts on placing the container. Pursley allowed the placement and the cache has been active since Aug. 20.
When a cacher finds the target, they fill out a log with the date of the find and any comments about the search. They would then post their find on the geocaching Website.
The cache in Depot Park was found in less than two hours after being placed. At this time, there have been eight lucky cachers to find the target.
This hunt is a multi-cache containing two steps. Julian posted the coordinates online; however, he removed one number of the coordinates, which would be found by potential cachers in the first step.
Inside the cache container, which can be a small Tupperware container, finders remove small trinkets left behind by other cachers and place their own inside.
The 2006 Midwest GeoBash was held at Springfield Oaks County park the first week of July, and organizers are estimating more than 700 cachers came out for the four-day festival. Cachers from around the globe camped out and went on several caches, as far away as Ontario, Canada.
The game started as the Great American GPS Stash Hunt in Beaver Creek, Ore. near Portland in 2000. Restrictions were eased in May of that year to allow GPS signals to increase their accuracy and the good fortune went to caching pioneer Dave Ulmer, who placed the first known cache. Ulmer’s intent was to check the accuracy of the GPS technology.
The game is an international competition now, with more than 300,000 active caches in more than 200 countries.
For Julian, the passion for caching came from his boss who introduced him to the sport. His wife bought him a handheld GPS unit for Father’s Day in 2003 and he has been caching ever since, having discovered more than 100 caches.
Julian said the game can be a family activity also.
‘It’s a great way to get your kids out and hiking,? Julian said.
He said he has taken his kids out on cache hunts with him and the sport rescues him while he is on business trips.
‘It gets me out to places without sitting in a hotel,? Julian said.
Julian personally found caches throughout the United States and in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore as well as in France and Germany.