(by zeeman_clan)
As our caching group has gotten involved in looking for lonely caches, we started to wonder about what future generations would think of our technology driven game of hide and seek. In the past couple of months, we have found caches that get regular visits from the caching community, but we have also come across the lonely ones that have not been visited in three or four years. One can only imagine archeologists and historians, many years after the end of geocaching, finding the remains of ammo cans, peanut butter jars and film containers hidden deep in forested areas.
Seasoned cachers have all experienced old caches that have seen better days. Bad O-rings on bison tubes, a cap that wasn’t put on right or a coffee can that experienced a bit too much water from spring floods all have led to damaged logs and swag. Now can you imagine 25, 50 or even 100 years of no maintenance? What would these people of the future make of mossy army men, clutches of sea shells and gooey wads of paper if they even survived that long? As well as an ammo can holds out most of the moisture of life in the outdoors, eventually it will succumb to the forces of nature. Rusty cans with all sorts of plastic goodies spilling out for future explorers to discover and wonder exactly what we were up to.
What if the cache container did survive? Mint condition Tupperware lodged under a pile of rocks. And of course these future historians can go back through their archives and determine that these storage containers were intended to keep foods fresh. So why are they hidden in all sorts of crazy places? What are these things inside? Of course, the only logical conclusion would be that they are some sort of time capsule. But, they seemed to be opened many times, and the visitors to the time capsules would mark what day they were there. Sometimes there were several visitors in one day!
And what is with some of the bizarre contents? Obviously, the notebook is a log of visitors. The coins inside would make one think this is some secret cache of treasure, but these don’t appear to be coins of monetary value to any ancient civilization. Very small coins with pictures on one side and a hole near the edge. Very large coins with amazing pictures stamped into them. Phrases like “Log me at Pathtags.com” or “Trackable at geocaching.com” are etched into the surface. There are even toy cars with tags chained to them that feature a very strange bug image. And what is with all the marbles? So many marbles!
Only time will tell how long geocaching will go on. As long as there remains an interest in the hobby, there will always be someone who can identify the strange containers in the woods. But, if by some chance, geocaching fades into a distant memory, we will leave quite a confusing trail of containers for future generations to find, with or without a GPS.