A fun way to (re) discover the valley is participating in geocaching.
Readers may remember how Earth Day clean-up volunteer Michelle Olson found a geocache by chance while clearing garbage up on the river path near Riverside Drive East, as reported in the April 28 edition of The Mail.
Geocaching is a treasure hunting game played throughout the world using GPS devices, finding locations on the geocaching site at www.geocaching.com.
Within a 40 kilometre radius of the town of Drumheller, the website lists 57 geoacaches, taking players to great places around the area like ghost town Dorothy, East Coulee, Horse Thief Canyon, the Hoodoos, Orkney view point, Bleriot Ferry, Morrin, Horseshoe Canyon and many more, without forgetting all the ones hidden in town and the Badlands.
Those without a GPS can still play as the website also marks locations on a map. So finding them without a GPS is possible, it just means people will need to search a bit more for the cache, making the exploring a little more challenging but more rewarding.
The idea is to locate containers, called geocaches, hidden outdoors and then log their find and share your experiences online.
Geocaches contain various items and a log book for players to leave their comments and items can be swapped or added. There are also multi-caches, where you need to find several caches before getting to the final one.
The game can be played with children and best of all, the website is free to access. To post comments on the forums however, people need to register with a valid email address.
There is a premium membership available at a small cost which provides access to additional website features and functionality to get more out of geocaching experiences.
Some of the locations around the valley will take players on a bit of a hike too, and judging by some of the comments on the site, those will also give some great views of the valley.
“Had a great day caching. Love the history of this land. Thanks for getting us out here. Thanks for the challenge. Great views and great hike. Great hide,” is a comment left from US visitors who geocached in East Coulee.
Players can create new caches, and all the information needed to do this can be found on the website. Bear in mind one of the main requirements is “location, location, location! It is common for geocachers to hide caches in locations that are important to them, reflecting a special interest or skill of the cache owner. These unique locations on the planet can be quite diverse. A prime camping spot, great viewpoint, unusual location, etc. are all good places to hide a cache.”
Interestingly, the cache found by Olson was one that had been missing since 2007.
