One of the classic geocache hides is in a pile of rocks. We are fortunate enough that there are many piles of rocks from little stones to large boulders out there, and if you know what a rock looks like then you are off to a good start.

The container that is used in these rock piles differ based on the size of the rock pile, the amount of swag the geocacher has to hide, and what container they actually have. A common container in larger hiding areas is the ammo box (a 0.5 Gallon metal container used by the military)

The ammo box is filled with stuff and a log book that allows people to write they found the geocache. Then it is hidden in the pile of rocks. Here is a photo of a local geocache hide GC226Q9 The Lost Element. that you will need to solve a puzzle to find….

If you are really excited and and want to hide your own ammo box hide, here is a link to buying an ammo box from Amazon.

So I thought I’d pull together a geocaching glossary with a few terms you’ll hear and see when in the world of geocaching and share in this geocache blog:

Cache - the short name for a geocache. It can refer to either the actual hide or the verb “I went caching today”

Logbook - this is the paper inside the geocache hide where you write your name and the date you found it. The geocaching logbook is how it is referred to or just shortened to ‘log’

Micro Geocache – just like the name suggests, this is a small hide. It’s usually about the size of a 35mm film cannister. The harder ones are NANO hides which are the size of your fingernail, magnetic, and REALLY hard to find. For me the hardest thing is getting out the log to sign it and then getting it back in.

Muggles - Yep, just like in Harry Potter, the people that don’t know about the magic of geocaching are called Muggles. Geocache hides that go missing are often said to have been ‘muggled’

TFTC – lots of acronyms to save you time and space on a log to write. This is “Thanks For The Cache”

TNLFSL- another common acronym. Geocaching etiquette is to take something and leave something in return. But if you did not take anything then you can write this acronym for “Took Nothing, Left Nothing, Signed Log”

TravelBug or TB or GeoCoins – a geocache hide stays in one place, but some people like to see their items go from hide to hide, so a TravelBug was created with a Tracking number that meant you could see it go around the world! The TBs often are coins – called GeoCoins. A standard TB is in the form of a dog tag. I once say a kid with a t-shirt who was tagged as a TravelBug. So really anything is possible.

Geosense – like a 6th sense but instead how you start to think like a geocacher whenever you are looking for a hide. Once you find a cache in a lampost, you’ll never look at them again, because you now have geosense. This is the hard when you start to learn how to geocache.

You can find more terminology listed at the Main Geocaching website in the glossary.

Love to showcase some of the common geocache hides that are used by geocachers but that a geocache muggle would never think that there is a secret treasure to be found.

This is called a fence pole hide…

On a hike and often those fence poles have a cap that twists off. If you do it, you might just find a geocache hide there….

If you want to read about some unusual or unique geocache hides, you might be interested in the Saguaro Cactus or the Lamp Post or the Tucson Rock.

This geocache blog entry is a quick lovers guide for the best iphone geocaching app by GroundSpeak. I did a full review of 3 geocaching units – Garmin, Blackberry and the iPhone here.

I pull out my phone, load up the application, and search the local area, find one and go!

The developers are making updates on a regular basis and welcome feedback in the geocache iphone forum

For instance, they added the ability to post the log file directly to the website and not store it as a field note, meaning you needed to take an extra trip to the web site.

This is soooo worth the $9.95!! Read more at official geocaching website

I remember that I would often think “there was a geocache like this?!” (in a library, looks like a stick, under a lamp post…)

So, this geocache blog post has a one minute video on How to find a geocache video

Interested in finding this geocache too? GC1PKY7 – Hanger