Catch the geocaching wave

The treasure hunt is on, and seekers are being led to a spot along the Roosevelt Woodland Trail. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt being played throughout the world by outdoor explorers. To play, participants need a global positioning system (GPS) device and cache coordinates that can be found online at various free or paid membership websites. Players plug the coordinates into their GPS and follow directions to locate hidden containers, called geocaches. Then, they share their adventures searching for the cache by writing about them online.

Clockwise from top: Girl Scout Troop members Corrine Edler, 14, (l-r) Morgan Velba, 14, and Anagha Babu, 13, watch Amber Nolan, 14, add to the geocache she hid along the Roosevelt Woodland Trail. Girl Scouts from Troop 70913 walk along the paved path between North Valley Road and Lake Drive in Roosevelt after checking up on the geocache placed there as part of their Silver Award project. The geocache along the Roosevelt Woodland Trail contains various prizes for those who locate it using a global positioning system (GPS) device and coordinates found at www.geocaching.com. Cache locations, maintained by geocachers around the globe, are hidden high and low in various terrain. Many caches hold logs for visitors and some offer small rewards for those who find them. Cache etiquette is to leave something in return for anything taken. For most geocachers, however, the reward is the thrill of the search and the discovery of a place they have never been — sometimes in their own neighborhood.

Girl Scout Troop 70913 recently completed its Silver Award project to achieve the highest honor that a cadet Girl Scout can earn. Roosevelt's Corrine Edler, 14, and Amber Nolan, 14, Millstone's Morgan Velba, 14, and East Windsor's Anagha Babu, 13, Taylor Cohen, 14, Katherine Miller, 14, and Josi Mattson, 14, realized that geocaching has become popular among all age groups living in their area and based their project on the hobby.

Troop leader April Suk said, "We are hoping this project will spread the word of Girl Scouting to geocachers, and spread the word of geocaching."

According to Suk, there are more than 20 geocaches in Roosevelt and Millstone, and close to 7,000 in New Jersey with available coordinates at www.geocaching.com.

"As part of our project, we hid and published new caches in Roosevelt, Monroe, Englishtown and East Windsor," Suk said.

The Scouts hid a total of eight local caches and released eight travel bugs, which are items that they can track online as geocachers move them from cache to cache.

Each Scout was responsible for hiding her own cache and supplying it with a log, pen, and travel bug. By doing so, the Scouts learned about averaging waypoints, publishing a cache online and activating and tracking a travel bug.

Amber provided an easy and a hard way to find the cache she hid along the Roosevelt Woodland Trail. For those who prefer a short search excursion, she provides starting coordinates near the trail entrance off Lake Drive. For adventurers from near and far who would like a longer forest walk, she suggests parking at coordinates N40.12.979 W074.27.399 and exploring the flora and fauna along the entire trail before locating the cache. Her travel bug named "Oliver" started his adventure from this cache and has since been moved to caches in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

Each Scout released their travel bug with an intended goal. For example, Taylor Cohen, 14, of East Windsor, would like to see her travel bug photographed in front of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn.

Millstone's Morgan Velba, 14, has an international tour planned for her travel bug, a stuffed chicken named "Pablo Napolean William IV," which she placed in a geocache she hid at James Monroe Park in Monroe. Morgan's goal for "Pablo" is to travel to New Zealand and back. Thus far, geocachers using www.geoaching.com have written about and taken pictures of Pablo visiting Pennsylvania, Bermuda, Florida, the Netherlands and Germany.

"I never thought he would leave New Jersey," Morgan said.

After completing their Silver Award project, many of the Scouts enjoy geocaching as a hobby. Corrine said she was just as surprised to find a geocache near her backyard as she was to locate one in the stone foundation of a former dwelling in Jackson.

"I like searching," she said. "I get to see a lot of new and different places."

She and Amber and Katherine said one of the most difficult geocaches to find was one hidden in plain sight.

"We were looking for the cache and thought it would be on the ground, but it was up in the tree," Amber said.

Sometimes, geocachers might not find a cache at all because it has been stolen or removed. The Scouts said this could be disappointing, but not necessarily so if geocachers enjoy the journey and being outdoors more than the destination.

The Scouts did put small prizes in the geocaches they placed locally. Caches contain items such as fun putty, light-up balls, stretchy frogs, slinkies and refrigerator magnets.

Katherine said the strangest item she found in a geocache was a plastic grenade.

For their project, the Scouts also hid another eight caches specifically for Girl Scouts to find while camping in any of the four Girl Scouts of Central and Southern New Jersey-owned campsites. They filled each cache with 100 handmade items that troops can trade other items for once they locate the caches.