NorthStar Geoseekers host rally in Park Rapids

NorthStar Geoseekers host rally in Park Rapids
At least 73 geocachers from all across Minnesota and other states joined in the fun of a geocaching weekend at the East 40 hosted by NorthStar Geoseekers. Photo by Allan Olson. 

By Allan Olson
A large group of geocachers enjoyed three days of fun focused on their favorite pastime on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 15-17, at the Park Rapids Tractor Club grounds, known locally as the East 40.
The local geocaching group – the Northstar Geoseekers – reserved the campground and facilities for a weekend fun all revolving around the activity of geocaching. For the uninformed, geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices (even a smartphone will work). Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates, and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.
The weekend featured five events – a campfire event Friday night, the main event Saturday, a pizza event hosted by the Minnesota Geocachers Association on Saturday evening, a flash mob on Main Street in Park Rapids at midnight Saturday, and a breakfast event on Sunday. The event was largely organized and hosted by Jeff and Raylene Fieldsend of Park Rapids, along with a few other local volunteers who aided with the various activities.
Guests attending the event came from as far away as the East Coast; some of the closer-to-home attendees were from Grand Rapids, Bemidji, Walker, Pennington, Menahga, Sebeka, Blackduck, Mahnomen, Badger, the Twin Cities and North Dakota.
On Wednesday morning (August 13), a list of 79 cache sites was officially published by geocaching.com, hidden deep in the Paul Bunyan Forest off of MN Highway 64. Those caches were placed by Jeff Fieldsend, who plotted and placed the containers in a configuration of “NSGS” for others to find. According to some guests who had completed the first two letters on Thursday and Friday, they had battled through thorns, pushed their way through brush, and climbed through gulches to complete only half the battle in those two days.
According to Jeff, the “NSGS” layout is 2-¾ miles wide and 1 mile deep; it took four hours to prep the caches and about 45 hours to place them. To organize the event, there were five hours of meetings, six hours of paperwork (preparing and printing), another 15 hours of placing caches (including asking permission, not including building caches), plus 6-8 hours of other miscellaneous things associated with the event.
Fieldsend said that he got the idea for doing “geo art” in the Paul Bunyan Forest after he helped place some caches along the Paul Bunyan Trail. “I started plotting the points on mapping software,” he said. “Then it was just a matter of putting them in your GPS and walking to the location, and hoping it isn't in the middle of a swamp. Since there are guidelines for placing them in a state forest that I had to follow, I knew I didn't need permission. After setting about 20 of them, I realized that part of them were in a wildlife refuge, so I had to check with the reviewer [each geocache submitted needs to get approval from a reviewer to make sure it follows guidelines] to make sure I could place them there. He said it was OK, so my panic attack subsided.”
The first of three contests began on Saturday morning – the coveted “First to Find” race. Fifteen geocaches were placed for that challenge. Participants turned in their GPS units to get coordinates loaded, then set off for various destinations around Park Rapids and the surrounding area (a 15-mile radius). Two hours later, at 10:30 a.m., a second race began for which participants once again had to turn in their GPS to get coordinates loaded. Another 15 geocaches were placed for this challenge. The first participants to complete the race and find all the numbers labeled on the cache had a chance to open the padlocked container and pick a prize. The first to arrive back at the East 40 completed the race in just over 2 hours; others took four hours or more.
There was also a GPS flag accuracy contest on Saturday, along with kids’ caches and a Creative Cache Contest (which was won by a very clever geocacher from Gilby, ND).
The main event ended at approximately 4 p.m., after all kinds of donated prizes were awarded, including flashlights, notebooks and cache containers. One lucky winner went home with a brand new Garmin GPSR unit.
The Saturday evening pizza party was held at a local restaurant, where over 70 people enjoyed a fun meal and a great time visiting with other geocachers, sharing some of their adventures.
The weekend also featured two primarily after-dark caches around Park Rapids that required following a laser pointer and reflective tacks in the woods.
Next year’s event is slated to be held on the same weekend, this time in the Bemidji area.
The Northstar Geoseekers have adopted a two-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 71 south of Park Rapids where they clean up the ditches twice each year as an act of community service.
For more information, please visit www.northstargeoseekers.com or geocaching.com.

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