RCGeo

How it Helps the Community

Geocaching helps the local community by bringing visitors from all over the world to geocache. Those visitors stay at local hotels, eat at local restaurants and shop at local stores. Geocachers have been known to help save small towns by the revenue they bring. An example is Rachel, Nevada which is home to the ET Highway Power Trail. Here's a quote from an article that ran in the March 13, 2011 edition of the Las Vegas Review Journal on how geocaching helped save the Little A'Le'Inn.

Well, last winter Connie West, co-owner of Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, was preparing to shutter her 10-room motel and RV park when convoys of geocachers showed up week after week. She decided not to lay off her housekeeper and hold on to the entire kitchen staff.

"They don't come in bunches of one. They come in bunches. Bunches," West said. "They came from Australia, Austria, England because the highway is considered a 'power cache.'?"

Power cache because of the sheer number of treasures in a relatively short distance. It allows collectors to rack up caches without a lot of effort.

As of March 1, more than 7,000 geocachers had logged their names on the sheet marking the first treasure site along the highway.

"Those are people that otherwise wouldn't have come here," West said. "They're putting money into our community. They are buying fuel, rooms, food, groceries.

Many geocachers who come to do the Power Trails such as the PTA Series located near Kramer Junction or the Trona Power Trail in Trona decide to stay in Ridgecrest because of the convenience and abundancy of geocaches. Last year alone it's estimated that close to 1,000 geocachers from around the world geocached in Ridgecrest, Trona, Inyokern and Randsurg. Many came specifically to the area just to geocache. Some made it a day trip while others stayed for several days. Others stopped by on their way to Death Valley, Yosemite, Los Angeles and other destinations.

Cleaning Up the Community

We practice CITO which stands for Cache In Trash Out. When we see an area where a geocache is located that needs cleaning up, we help clean the area by bringing a trash bag along with us and pick up the occasional pieces of trash. This small act can make a huge difference.

At least once a year the group holds a CITO event and pick a location to clean and take the items to the dump. In 2012 after cleaning the area behind Wal-Mart, we took over 420 pounds to the dump. That was 4 adults and 3 children (including a 3 year old) people picking up trash for 90 minutes!

For more information on CITO, click Here.

Teaching in the Community

We work with local organizations and festivals to teach others about geocaching and it's benefits. It's a family activity for all ages and abilities and it's free! Parents always complain there's nothing in this town to keep kids out of trouble, but that's why we educate them about Geocaching!

For more information on our Educational Workshops, click Here.