Geocaching event to draw world leaders in hobby

Geocaching is a hobby in which GPS devices are used to find cache sites.

Fans of the geocaching hobby will get a chance to meet some of the top geocachers in the world at Centennial Park in Grand View from 6-8 p.m. this Friday night.

Five area geocachers, the League of Idaho Cachers (Ted Burgess, Bob McKain, Joseph States, Tim Treinen and Dan Upton), all of whom live in the Mountain Home and Treasure Valley area, are releasing this week 2,000 new geocache container locations between here and Jordon Valley.

"That number draws attention of geocachers in the U.S.," said Burgess. "In fact, the top geocacher in the world is coming in."

Half of the 2,000 cache sites, which hobbiests try to find using GPS devices, were released Monday to the website Geocaching.com. The other half will be released Friday night in a form of geo-art -- a "drawing" of a train on BLM land maps made by placment of geo-cache locations. Done by Joseph States, it will be one of the largest "geoarts" in the world, Burgess said.

Geocaching became an organized hobby in May 2000 after government released GPS technology to civilian use. As part of the hobby, cache sites usually contain a container of some kind with something in it. Those who find the cache take the item inside and replace it with some other item, as well as leaving a record of their find there.

Burgess said anyone interested, or curious, about the hobby should gather with the area's geocachers at Centennial Park in Grand View on Friday to learn more about the hobby.