PORT ANGELES — Geocaching enthusiasts are invited to a party tonight before setting out to explore for treasure on the Highway 101 Scenic Byway Look Geo Tour on Saturday and Sunday.
Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission partners have set tonight’s informal geocaching gathering from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Fanaticus Sports Grill, 1016 E. First St., Port Angeles.
The no-host event will give locals and visiting geocachers an opportunity to mix and mingle, and maybe find some carpooling opportunities for geocaching Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday’s kickoff will be from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday at the Kitchen Building at the Clallam County Fairgrounds, 1608 W. 16th St., Port Angeles.
Geocaches on U.S. Highway 101 will be released then, which means geocachers will be able see the geocache locations on their GPS devices and the Geocaching app on their smartphones.
Passports to record found geocaches and a goodie bag will be given to attendees Saturday morning.
Thirty geocaches will be placed around the North Olympic Peninsula from Brinnon to Port Townsend to Port Angeles to Neah Bay, La Push and Quinault, with caches stashed all along the way in between.
In addition, many more geocaches are located all around the Olympic Peninsula, the state, the nation and the world that are not on on the Olympic Peninsula GeoTour, organizers said, adding that caches exist even in Antarctica.
Those who find all 30 geocaches on the Olympic Peninsula GeoTour will receive unique geocoins specifically designed for this event.
Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunt using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. Or, as geocachers like to say, “we use billion-dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods.”
The GeoTour will have its own page on www. geocaching.com, which will list all the geocaches.
Each hidden cache will contain a color stamp and a word that participants will record in a passport, which will be downloadable from www.OlympicPeninsula Geotour.com on Monday.
When the passport contains all 30 code words and stamps, participants can redeem them for the trackable geocoin.
Another way to win is to fill out the survey on the passport, attach a sales receipt to the passport of any Olympic Peninsula purchase of goods, gas, food, lodging or other expenditure, and turn it in for a chance to win the grand prize that will be announced Jan. 4.
The grand prize will contain overnight lodging and other extras for a return trip to the Olympic Peninsula to do more geocaching, plus a gold geocoin.
For more information on the Olympic Peninsula Highway 101 Scenic Byway Loop GeoTour, check www.OlympicPeninsulaGeotour.com or, to view the individual caches, www.geo caching.com on Saturday.
