Treasure maps have been around since the days of Arthur Teach, the infamous Blackbeard, when they were nothing more than hand drawn parchments with an “X” marking the spot of the hidden booty. Today we have more modern techniques, but the excitement of the search remains.
Geocaching was started in May of 2000 and now has millions of hidden “Caches” located throughout the world. A cache can be a multitude of things from super small nano caches that are only large enough for a log book, to the standard ammo can or waterproof Rubbermaid container. Inside this cache is typically some small inexpensive items called swag. The items can be anything from small toys to costume jewelry or if you are lucky a trackable. Trackables are logged on the Geocache website and their progress of movement is monitored similar to a “Where’s George” dollar bill.
I have been a member of the geocommunity since 2005 and when my children were small we had lots of adventures. In fact, since one of the many purposes for the location of a cache is traditionally a cool historic landmark or a wonderful natural feature, many of the locations I have written about in prior articles were found during a geocaching trip.
Many of you may have heard of Geocaching at some point in the past 18 years. What you may not know is that Crawford County, along with 9 other counties, are part of the Allegheny Geo Trail and are these are considered “AGT Caches”. So what exactly is a Geo Trail you might ask? Well, it is a series of special caches that are linked for a larger purpose, which in this case happens to be special trackable geocoins. The geocoins have no face value and are worth nothing more than the memories that you made obtaining them and of course the bragging rights for earning them.
As children we often heard “Back in my day...” so I am now chuckling a bit to myself as I write this next part. Back in my early days of geocaching, it required planning the trip on the home computer, printing off the caches that we wanted to try for and using a hand held GPS that my husband used for fishing. It was quite the ordeal and required a bit of effort to have a successful day. Now? There’s an app for that. Quite literally a day of geocaching or a quick trip is located in the palm of your hand.
In order to join the Allegheny Geo Trail quest, you must first go to www.geocaching.com and sign up for a free account. You can then use your phone to download the official Geocaching App and log in (although there are options for a premium paid account, it is not necessary to join in the fun). You will also need an official Allegheny Geo Trail Passport which can be picked up in Vernon Township at the Crawford County Area Convention and Visitor Bureau (which incidentally is also a Geocache location and your first stamp in your passport) Once you have created your account, have your passport, and logged into the app, you will see all the locations on the map. Just touch one and it will show you the “X” for finding your treasure. (Some locations have clues as well in the descriptions so read them carefully)
The cache locations that are part of the Allegheny Geo Trail have “AGT” first in the title so you may have to search a bit for them. At each of those locations will be a waterproof container, a unique rubber stamp and a log book. You first need to find the cache, then stamp your passport (replacing the stamp for the next person) and sign the log book and finally, log the cache as found in your app. Once you have found 6 AGT caches in Crawford County, take your passport back to the Visitor Bureau and receive your Crawford County Trackable geocoin.
But why stop there? Each of the 10 participating counties have their own unique geocoin, and as a bonus if you happen to find all 60 stamps that you need (6 in each of the 10 counties), you can receive a larger Trackable AGT geocoin. Happy Hunting, and as always, remember “Not all those who wander are lost”
