Berea Chamber Commerce hosting 9th Annual Geocaching Weekend

Sep. 13—Carey Holbrook

BEREA— The Berea Chamber of Commerce will be hosting its annual geocaching weekend extravaganza in October.

According to organizers, next month's event could be its last.

Jennifer Napier, Berea Chamber of Commerce's geocaching organizer and treasurer, will be retiring from the chamber this year and said on Monday she is unsure if the event will continue after her retirement.

Napier has been the chief organizer for Berea's geocaching event since it first began in 2014.

She said the chamber is actively searching for volunteers and other ways to keep the program alive, but is optimistic someone in Madison County could step up to the plate.

"I would encourage people that have an interest in the sport, or would like to host some local geocaching events, or want to learn more; to get involved," Napier said.

Napier encouraged individuals interested in keeping geocaching alive in Berea to attend next month's event.

"We have to have individuals who are familiar with geocaching in order to know how to design geocaches, because geocaches require year-round maintenance. It's not a single weekend event responsibility. (Geocaches) are up for years, therefore, someone has to maintain them... usually every month, or every couple of months, someone has to update or repair the geocaches," Napier explained.

Berea's geocaching event is scheduled to take place Oct. 14-16, but Napier stressed anyone can participate at any time during the weekend.

"You don't necessarily have to be there for all the activities hosted from Friday to Sunday. We understand that people's work schedules don't work out and they can't make it the entire weekend. We don't eliminate them from coming just because they cannot can't be there the entire weekend," Napier explained.

On Friday, there will be a meet and greet where participants can get to know other fellow geocachers who are coming to the event from across the U.S. They will share fun geocaching stories and can take part in various geocaching games that night.

On Saturday, there will be a daytime launch for caching, so people can get together and learn more about the daytime caches. This activity will be followed by a nighttime event where participants will have to use black lights, flashlights, and UV lighting to be able to find the geocaches after dark.

Sunday morning, there will be a 'depot' called CITA, which is an acronym that stands for Cache In, Trash Out, in which geocaches will be launched Sunday morning around the areas that are frequently are associated with where people discard trash and litter often. The geocachers will be provided with trash bags and gloves where they'll go out and clean up those locations while looking for geocaches and clean up garbage. This will be followed by an awards ceremony and grand finale gathering on Sunday afternoon. This is where participants can come back and win various awards for participating in the different events over the weekend, including door prizes.

Napier noted geocaching has a robust community aspect.

"Geocachers are great people —you can be somebody who wants to learn how to do this or someone who has no prior knowledge of the geocaching. Even if you're by yourself; you could still come to these events. There's always people that end up meeting each other and then they'll carpool together — some even make lifelong friends," Napier said.

Napier said that Berea's Geocaching program is the largest in the United States.

"That distinction happened in October of 2021— it was an accident, but when I launched the event in 2021, we hit 150 active geocaches. That placed us as the largest (geocache) territory in the United States," she explained.

Napier started this program more actively in 2014, and then got Berea's Geocaching on the app in 2016 making it much more accessible and easier to navigate for its users.

During this launch, they expected a younger crowd due to the integration of technology and the Pokemon Go craze starting in Spring 2016.

"We thought there was going to be a lot of young people that first year and were really surprised when it was a lot of retirees that came in (during this launch) and including their families — their children and grandkids," Napier said.

Through the years, Napier said the event has grown — with even an even more diverse group of geocachers participating each year.

"It's a very large diversified group of individuals that come. It's not necessarily your people that are the most athletic and love to get outdoors and just do everything in the world to stay in shape. It's families that might have mobility issues that want to take geocaches that are an easy walk or have little kids that they can't stay out very long. It could be older people that are retired. Some have some mobility issues. For more athletic people that love to get out and rock climb; they can participate in more challenging ones," Napier added.

In Madison County, there are over 1,000 caches to be explored and many aren't directly associated with the Berea Chamber of Commerce.

According to Napier, for those who are into outdoor activities there are geocaches on Willow Green Lake, which includes over 40 "paddle caches" where you must kayak to access them.

Geocaching is defined as a real-world, outdoor adventure happening all the time and all around the world, participants use the Geocaching app and/or GPS device to find cleverly hidden containers called geocaches, according to the official geocaching headquarters' website.

This sport was launched in May 2000 and has been a thing for 22 years once the military released public access to GPS satellites, according to Napier.

"Over the years, the first couple of guys that were military, they hid a Tupperware bowl in the woods and challenged a couple of their buddies to see if they can use the GPS satellites to go find it. Then that evolved into a website, which evolved into the app," Napier explained.

To get started as a new geocacher and play, all you have to do is visit www.geocaching.com/play. From there, you can download the app or search "Geocaching" and select the green application where you can download from the App Store or on Google Play.

It is, also, available online through the website. This is the official app for the sport which can provide geocaches millions of geocaches throughout the U.S. and 190 countries globally.

For more information regarding the Berea Commerce Geocaching program, visit the GeoTour for Berea on the official Geocaching Headquarters website at: www.geocaching.com/play/geotours/berea-kentucky or www.BereaChamberOfCommerce.org/geocaching-geotour/

The link to sign for the Official 2022 Berea Geocaching Weekend is www.eventbrite.com/e/9th-annual-berea-chamber-of-commerce-geocaching-weekend-2022-tickets-410733895137

To find the most up-to-date information regarding the event check out their Facebook page at: www.geocaching.com/bcocagw.