Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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Keith McCord ReportingIt's summer time and a lot of people are hitting the hiking trails. If you're looking to add another element to your hike, you might try "Geocaching". It's a sport (or hobby) that's really caught on!
Meet Jean Carlsen, better known as "UtahJean" by her geocaching friends. She and KSL's Angie Denison went out recently to find hidden treasures.
Geocaching has become extremely popular since it was first introduced about five years ago. Treasure hunters go out and strategically place containers with various items inside, mark the GPS coordinates, and post those on a website.
The fun is trying to find them!
DeWayne Dean, President, Utah Assn. of Geocachers: "It's a family friendly sport. Kids love going out and finding the hidden treasures, finding the box, seeing what's in there. The rule is, if you take something, you're supposed to leave something."
"Utah Jean" has been taking and leaving items for the last five years. To date, she's located about 2500 caches. And she figures there are about 2500 more hidden throughout Utah.
And some of the caches are easier to find than others!
Jean Carlsen, "UtahJean": "I've done caches where I've paddled out into the middle of a lake and dived down into the water to find one under the water."
Jean told us that she first got the Geocaching bug after seeing our story back in May 2001. I had placed one of my business cards in a container in the hills above Salt Lake.
Jean Carlsen: "And I went to the cache that the news people went to, and there was his card in there about two years later. And it's still up there."
Geocaching is now a worldwide activity with containers hidden in just about every country. And if "Utah Jean" has her way, she'll try to find them all.
Jean Carlsen: "Geocachers have an old saying: 'We don't suffer from insanity, we enjoy it.'"
To learn more about geocaching, and where the treasures are hidden in Utah, follow the link at the top right of this story.
