I fell in love with geocaching over the summer during my family’s epic annual camping trip. One cloudy morning up in the Adirondacks, my cousins and I loaded up the kayaks and canoes and made our way around the various lakes and islands in search of caches.
In case you have never heard of geocaching before, it is basically a worldwide scavenger hunt. There are millions of caches from in all different locations – airports, cities, woods, beach. The easiest way to geocache is download the app. (Yes, it costs some money and no, I have no stock or relatives or the like in the company.) For each cache, the longitude and latitude pinned to its location. Keep in mind that that there is a range of distances, usually within 10 feet, as the pin is only as good as your GPS. Once you find the area, search all about for a little box or canister. People are clever so the caches are not always easy to find. Each typically contains little trinkets to be swapped and traded, i.e., don’t take something without leaving something, as well as a pad of paper to record your date, name, and sometimes a little message.
This past weekend, I headed up into the San Jacinto Mountains with some friends. While we were hiking, I literally stumbled upon a cache. It was right under my toe in the above picture (I also fully support nonsensical photo taking, obviously) and tripped me up a bit. A wiggling of some wood jammed in the tree stump and lo and behold there was a box. Remembering that I had downloaded the app this past summer, we continued on our way finding all sorts of treasures along the trail.
I realize that some of you may roll your eyes at the idea of grown people running all over the trail trying to find teeny troves of treasure. And maybe this isn’t for everyone but don’t knock it until you try it, okay? There are many options for fellow scavenger hunters, especially along the trails in close proximity to Idyllwild. We did a relatively easy 5 mile out-and-back along the Ernie Maxwell Scenic Trail. Since we started on the earlier side, around 10 am, we only saw a few people on our way out. However, by the time we were on our way back there were many people taking advantage of the cooler weather and cloudless sky. All in all a perfect little adventure for a day spent up in the San Jacinto Mountains.
notes:
the ernie maxwell scenic trail has about 600 feet of elevation change. if you would like to hike uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back, park on tahquitz view drive. it’s a dirt road but i doubt any vehicle would have trouble with the terrain. if you are having trouble figuring out how to get there or are interested in a ascending one the nearby peaks, stop by the idyllwild ranger station in town. the lovely people there are always happy to help.
the weather in the san jacinto mountains can vary by 10s of degrees so be sure to pack layers (along with your other essentials). it reached the high 70s while we were there but i’ve also been here around the same time of year an woken up to snow.