Hi Geocachers,
I have an idea which I would like your opinion on.
First the pre-amble.
You might guess from my user ID that I am a keen orienteer. I've noticed in the past few months that some of our new members are keen Geocachers... which is the first time I had heard of Geocaching to be honest. I think it sounds like a great activity - getting people off their sofas and out into the countryside, and further than 100 metres from the honeypot site car parks.
In case you don't know what Orienteering is, it's similar to Geocaching in that you must find fixed points in the countryside, which on the harder courses can be very difficult to find (eg deep within a forest or within some sand dunes). However the points are marked by a red and white flags with an electronic timing device to record your visit, it's normally a competitive timed sporting event, and we use maps not GPS (in fact the use of GPS is banned during the race, though some use it for logging their route).
Orienteers range from super-fit athletes who run at a serious speed to family groups, walkers and joggers who just want a bit of fresh air, enjoy the activity and some socialising afterwards.
Pre-amble over...
I've got an idea for a special orienteering / geocaching crossover event - opinions on whether it would work welcome.
Basically a typical small, local orienteering event involves competitors starting together to find as many checkpoints as possible in an hour. Instead of, or as well as, a map, competitors would download the GPS co-ordinates and use their GPS device to navigate to as many control points as possible, or as many as they felt like.
Not sure what to call this. Definately not Geocaching as I'm sure you will all tell me this is very different from Geocaching. It would be registered for insurance and land use etc under orienteering, but I wouldn't call this orienteering as orienteering = maps.
We find that many folk fear getting lost if reliant on a map so it might be a nice way of getting a bigger crowd at our local events. Also it might be a laugh for Geocachers to use their GPS at speed and to meet up at the end to compare routes (if it's a night event this would be in a local country pub).
Anyway, what do you think? Any likely interest out there from Geocachers? Anyone know if someone somewhere has done something similar?