Even though it was rainy all weekend, my daughter wanted to go out with her friend and do some geocaching. Of course, since I have a new iPad with GPS capability I was all for it. Having the GPS ability was one of the reasons I wanted to get the new iPad, of course that meant buying the 4G model.
There are several programs out there for geocaching for smart phones, but the selection is limited when you get to the iPad. I already have a program installed that does GPS navigation and has the ability to cache map files in order to avoid relying on internet connectivity in the field. MotionX GPS HD is nice because you have the entire screen to look at the map and see where you are and where you’re headed. The last step is getting reliable information for the geocaches in order to search for them.
One of the few geocaching sites out there is http://www.geocaching.com and it may be the only site out there, because I haven’t gone very deep into the internet to research it. They require you to sign up for an account, which is free, and if you’d like to upgrade it, that’ll cost you $10/3 months or $30/year. One of the upgrade benefits is the ability to download cache information as a .GPX file, making it easier to import it to the iPad for use.
We had a slow start to the day, and we were delayed a few times because of the rain, but then we made it over to Harry Griffin Park and were much more successful. Some of the caches we found were only logs, and because of the weather some were wet and others nearly unusable. A few others had some trinkets and the girls made a trade a left some goodies. It was a good day, even if we had to tromp all over the place in the rain for some adventure.