Today we were just informed of a new budding trend in hiking that I thought was pretty interesting. It's called geocaching. It's basically computer geek meets extreme hiking.

So here is a basic rundown: Someone grabs a box and fills it with trinkets, coins, game pieces, etc. and hides it unburied on public property. They then record the GPS coordinates and post it on the web (there are a number of sites) and seekers use the coordinates to find the box. You may take anything from the box as long as you replace it with something else.

It has apparently become a worldwide trend. In our small city of Wilsonville there are roughly 10 geocaches stored around. A man in our ward said he does it with his kids, like a treasure hunt. And by the end they don't even know they have hiked two miles and gotten some exercise. He also said they hid one on a trip to Italy with directions that he wanted it to return to a different spot here in Portland near his home. In four months it made it's way to Seattle. Pretty crazy.

I thought it sounded pretty fun. Have any of you participated in one of these "treasure hunts?"

All you need to do it is a GPS system, but apparently, if you are buying a low end basic one for geocaching they can be pretty inexpensive. Any thoughts?