GPS for Dummies.pdf - Engineering Surveyor

Chapter 7: Geocaching1276. Save a waypoint for your starting point.Getting back to your car can sometimes be a challenge after finding acache, and saving a waypoint with your car’s location can make lifemuch easier (and get you home in time for dinner). Your GPS manualcontains details for setting a waypoint for your particular model.7. Double-check to make sure that you have the coordinates, cachedescription, hints, and the rest of your geocaching equipment in yourpossession. (Keeping it all together in a backpack is convenient.)From personal experience, I can tell you it’s never any fun arriving at thecache and remembering that I left vital clues in the cache descriptionthat’s now a couple of miles away in the car.8. Activate the cache’s waypoint.Activating a waypoint tells the receiver to calculate the distance anddirection from your current spot to the waypoint’s location. Your GPSunit will let you know how far away the cache is and what direction youneed to head to get there. (This often is as simple as pressing a buttonon the GPS receiver and selecting the waypoint you want to go to.)9. Follow the direction arrow, road map display, or compass ring onyour GPS receiver toward the cache.A local map can come in handy as you move toward the cache becauseyou can use it to figure out what the terrain is like and whether anyrivers, cliffs, or mountains lie between you and the cache. You can usesome of the online digital maps discussed in Chapter 19 for preplanningor print them out to use in the field.Don’t feel compelled to always head in the direction your GPS unit tellsyou to go. It might make more sense to walk around a pile of rocks ordowned trees than to go over the top of them. After you get around anobstacle, you can check your receiver again to get on the right course.Watch your step! As you head toward the cache, don’t get so caught upin staring at your GPS receiver that you fall off a cliff or trip over a treeroot. And watch the scenery, too. Sometimes the journey is the reward.10. When your receiver says you’re within 30 feet or so of the cache,move around and find the place that reports the closest distance tothe cache.Begin your search at that spot. This is where the real fun starts. You nowshift from relying on technology to using your powers of observationand common sense. A cache could be inside a cave, tucked in a treehollow, hiding behind a rock outcropping, or concealed under a pile ofbrush. Some caches are easy to find, and others are devilishly difficult.