Staff photo by Connor Cummiskey Minneopa Area Naturalist Scott Kudelka enters coordinates for a waypoint on a GPS unit.

NEW ULM — No guests found their way to a geocaching presentation at Flandrau State Park Saturday.

Despite the fact that weather made every registered participant a no show, Minneopa Area Naturalist Scott Kudelka was willing to talk about what geocaching is.

“Geocaching is learning how to find your way around,” Kudelka said. “It used to be that we used a map and a compass to figure out places to go. Orienteering is what you called it.”

Described as a high-tech treasure hunt, geocaching is using a GPS to locate caches. Each cache can be located by putting its coordinates into a GPS or geocaching phone app for smart phones.

Using the longitude and latitude, the GPS gives users a distance to the cache and a direction. The units are accurate to within 10 to 15 feet.

Once a treasure hunter discovers the cache, he or she usually can take a trinket and leave a trinket of equal or greater value. Most caches also include a logbook, so geocachers can log their finds.

At state parks, the caches have cards that can be collected. Each park has a unique card that depicts a plant or animal.

Every three years the parks rotate to a new theme, such as insects or flowers. State parks also have free GPS units that visitors can borrow to hunt caches.

Private caches are located throughout the state and can be put in state parks if the hider procures a permit.

Aside from hunting for trinkets in the woods GPS skills can be used to consistently find things like deer stands.

Kudelka uses a GPS while paddling on Swan Lake to be able to find his way out of the tall cattails that obscure the lake.

Geocaching started in 2000, after the U.S. government switched off selective availability, an intentional degradation of public acces to GPS signals for national security reasons.

After the switch, GPS users began creating stashes that evolved into the modern geocache. Online communities, such as geocaching.com, record cache locations and digital logbooks.

More information about how to participate can be found at geocaching.com or under the recreation tab at dnr.state.mn.us.

ccummiskey@nujournal.com