in search of
TR E A S U R E
E
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY CHARLOTTE BLOM
Euphoric from a four-mile walk
on Longleaf Trace in late
November, I neared the parking
lot alone with my thoughts, left to
appreciate the trees and silence
around me. Or so I thought, until
I heard my name. But no one was
there, so I ignored it. Then I
heard it again.
I spun around and saw a figure
about 100 feet away stepping out
of the woods. I waved and actual-
ly turned to walk away awkward-
Thanks to GPS devices, geocaching
catches on in South Mississippi
ly. “It’s Devon!” he shouted. This
further compounded my confu-
sion; I hadn’t known a Devon
since my high school days in New
York a million years ago.
Turns out it was my friend,
Evan Williamson, a 28-year-old
librarian at the Library of
Hattiesburg, Petal & Forrest
County. And he was on a mod-
ern-day treasure hunt.
Started by some folks in
Washington, Geocaching has been
around since 2000 when the
Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
became more accurate for the
usage of everyday people (the
selective availability caused by
scrambling was done away with).
Since then, the “sport” has made
its way to all seven continents.
This past November, it even
snuck onto the big screen, in the
indie flick “Splinterheads.”
A cache (container with a log
and goodies available for trade)
can vary in complexity. They can
be multi-stepped puzzles, and
some - called bugs - are even
implanted with tracking devices.
The “sport” also has a ton of spe-
cialized lingo, like, after caches
are found, users note that on its
corresponding Web page, often
ending with TFTC (thanks for the
cache). As of this January morn-
ing, www.geocaching.com reports
there are 978,648 active caches
hidden around the world. Last
time I punched in the
Hattiesburg-39401 zip code, 145
records pulled up in close range,
and 3,033 records appeared with-
in a 100-mile radius of the area.
But until Evan and I crossed
paths, I had only vaguely heard
of geocaching, so of course, I
wanted to see for myself.
Evan checked the GPS appli-
cation on his iPhone (a plausible
theory as to why geocaching has
regained popularity as of late) for
which he paid $10 to download.
He said the cache we were look-
ing for was about a mile away.
The air was getting chillier as the
sun went down, it being a regular
fall day, but the fact that I wasn’t
wearing proper coverage wasn’t
going to hinder this mission.
“It puts purpose in what I do
anyway,” Evan, who keeps a tent
and a sleeping bag in his trunk
and prefers comics and video
games to regular sports,
explained. “I like to travel, go on
road trips, and take walks out
here or downtown. This just gave
reason to it. I can walk aimlessly,
go get some groceries and stagger
back, or I can use my GPS to do
this.”
a cc e n t s o u t h m i s s i s s i p p i 27
 When we’d walked the allotted
amount, Evan punched things in
his phone again and we jumped
off trail, slightly scrambling over
the small mound covered in dead
leaves and pine needles. The
iPhone GPS has about a 25-foot
radius of accuracy, meaning the
compass has lots of chances to
overshoot the actual location you
want. Most people who hide
caches also leave you cryptic clues
(via the Web site) which Evan
prefers. In general, he says he only
devotes 10 minutes to locate a hid-
ing spot.
But on this day, we must have
spent 20 minutes just looking for
the one cache. The clues were
vague and inaccurate, telling us to
look for a tree that wasn’t there,
for instance. And after kicking
through piles of pine needles
repeatedly, it turned out the ammo
box was hidden on the other side
of the path.
Despite occasional logistical
snags, Evan says he has taken to
geocaching because he “likes
crosswords better than word
searches.”
Caches can be made out of
anything, from as little as match
containers to the typical ammo
boxes or more unique objects.
Once Evan found a ceramic pump-
kin in Alabama, which is the far-
thest he has traveled to geocache.
Some people, though, go to much
greater lengths for the off-beat
sport, such as attending conven-
tions around the world, or going
to “GeoWoodstock” which meets
at different locations every year
(and will enjoy its eighth anniver-
sary in July in Carnation, Wash.).
Abbey Magruder, 50, Internet
publisher/consultant in
Ridgeland, is an avid duck hunter
and outdoorsman as well as very
active in the Boy Scouts, and has
geocached across the U.S. from
New Mexico to North Carolina.
“It’s actually more of an addic-
28 a cc e n t s o u t h m i s s i s s i p p i
tion than anything else. It is a
tremendous about of fun,” Abbey
said. “And it’s a healthy thing
because it gets you out. It’s fun
going off to places in the woods.”
Evan found his first cache was
in downtown Hattiesburg. He says
they’re hidden everywhere,
including on University of
Southern Mississippi’s campus. In
fact, the geocaching world is often
intertwined with the “regular”
world, co-existing right under the
noses of “muggles” (a nod to J.K.
Rowling’s Harry Potter series).
One member of the geo-site has
hidden a cache in Hattiesburg’s
Town Square Park, but warns of
high “muggle” traffic during Live
at 5 performances and the Pine
Belt Farmers & Artisan’s Market.
Greg Bryant, 49, vice president
of Howard Industries, says the
creativity and adventure is pre-
cisely why he likes it.
“It takes you to places and
shows you things you never
would have known about other-
wise.” Greg said.
Like Evan, Greg also doesn’t
count regular sports as his main
thrill. In addition to geocaching,
his current preferred activities are
skydiving and race cars. He has
planted geocoins and travel bugs
that have made it to all 50 states,
and overseas to places like Japan,
Germany, Switzerland and
Czechoslovakia.
People of all ages and genders
can do geocaching. People com-
pete against each other in teams or
just go it alone. The site has “8th
Grade local culture class in
Purvis” as a registered user, and
I’ve been told of husband-and-
wife teams.
When Evan and I finally found
the cache box, my sneakers were
muddy, I had stray pine needles in
my hair, and I was beginning to
question the fuss. Yet, at the sight
of the ammo box, I found myself
geo-geeking-out over the loot, and
asking how far we were from the
next.
Since then, Evan has also
accompanied me on a minor excur-
sion to a cache at Veterans
Memorial Park in downtown
Hattiesburg. It’s a notably more
difficult hunt without an iPhone or
GPS, but Evan says it’s possible. I
hope to find out.
TFTC.