Hobby takes man on adventures
Steve Creviston, far right, and two fellow geocachers head toward the second leg of the "cache machine" event held Saturday.
MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake's Steve Creviston and a group of fellow
geocachers gathered just before dawn on Saturday to begin a search
for hidden treasures.
Creviston discovered his hobby in 2005, when his daughter's
father-in-law took him exploring for geocaches in Utah.
MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake's Steve Creviston and a group of fellow geocachers gathered just before dawn on Saturday to begin a search for hidden treasures.
Creviston discovered his hobby in 2005, when his daughter's father-in-law took him exploring for geocaches in Utah.
Geocahces are containers hidden at specific coordinates all over the world. If the coordinates are good enough, a hand-held GPS unit will zero in on the cache location.
According to Creviston, the caches can be as small as a thimble and as large as a tool shed.
Some caches are filled with clues to take their finders to another cache, others have items in them meant as gifts for absentee trade, still others are simply filled with pieces of paper left for finders to sign their names to.
Once a geocacher finds a cache, they sign the log left in the cache and alert the original cache stasher, via a Web site, that they have found the cache.
Saturday's event was called a "cache machine" organized by Lakewood geocacher Travis Lauricella.
"This is the 25th event I've organized," Lauricella said.
He organizes events on a quarterly basis.
Lauricella said he tried to organize an event in the Columbia Basin before but couldn't due to a lack of caches.
"Now there are just enough caches for an all-day event," Lauricella said.
For Creviston, the allure of geocaching is in the surprise.
"You never know where you're going to end up," Creviston said. "You go places you never thought you would go."
Creviston estimated he has put out 38 caches in his five years of exploring. He knows the number of caches he's found with certainty.
"I've found 1,147," Creviston said. "It sounds like a lot but in this group, one guy has found more than 15,000. You can go crazy with it, if you want to."
Creviston has gone to Spokane and the Tri-Cities exploring for geocaches and has found caches while vacationing.
When in Japan, Creviston and his wife found a cache.
"We hiked up Mt. Fuji and found one at the top," Creviston said. "There are two caches up there."
In February, Creviston placed a cache with a question inside. He wanted to know how many caches there were worldwide. According to the last reported count, there are more than 1.1 million.
Most caches are portable and left in a hidden place but Creviston said there are also geological and virtual caches around the world.
"There's a (geological cache) at Dry Falls and the saddle of Saddle Mountain is another one," Creviston said.
He said the nearest virtual cache, which is a permanent cache, is considerably further away.
"It's in the Petrified Forrest," Creviston said.
Unlike portable caches, no more virtual caches will be created.
"I don't know why (more can't be created)," Creviston said. "But the old ones are still there."
Creviston will continue to comb the areas he travels to for more caches.
"The payoff is to find (a geocache)," Creviston said. "And track the number you've found."