Hunting for hidden cache

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Paul Nord of Valparaiso takes a photo of his daughters Melodie, 11, (left) and August, 9, at Devil's Slide, their first GPS coordinate, during the Dunes Geocache Adventure at the Indiana Dunes State Park near Chesterton, Ind. | Stephanie Dowell~Sun-Times

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Updated: March 1, 2012 8:20AM

Store owner Roy Krizek stood behind the counter at the Schoolhouse Shop & Antiques in Chesterton, where he watched individuals search for various items for fun photo opportunities. The shop was one of many stops listed on the Indiana Dunes Geocache Adventure.

Geocaching is a growing sport in which players utilize global positioning system software to find hidden items in various locations. Individuals enter given geographical coordinates into their GPS units, smartphones or other GPS software-capable devices. The unit then interprets the data and indicates direction and distance to the desired location. These scavenger hunts can lead to remote or public places, inside or outdoors.

“It’s a fun thing to do after the holidays,” said Krizek. “It beats the winter blahs after Christmas and New Year’s. People have cabin fever, and this is a way to beat that. It’s fun.”

Families, retired couples and individuals from Indiana, Illinois and Michigan gathered at the Indiana Dunes Nature Center recently to race to find a list of items scattered throughout northwest Indiana. Locations included Bass Pro Shops in Portage, Sunset Hill Farm County Park and Kelsey’s Steakhouse in Valparaiso, the Beverly Shores train station, Chesterton fire station and more.

At each stop, teams were required to take photos to prove they reached their destination. They took pictures of garden gnomes, pink flamingo lawn ornaments, a limousine, snowmen, puppets, a fish statue, live goats, chickens and more.

Jessica Rosier of Valparaiso volunteered that day. She collected food items from each participant for a “chili dump.” Beans, home-canned tomatoes, green chilies, corn, chopped onion, homemade spices and other ingredients simmered in a 30-gallon copper kettle over a campfire while the group hunted for the caches.

Later that afternoon, teams reconvened at the nature center. They sipped hot cocoa, coffee and ate the chili and cornbread while watching a slide show of the various photos taken by each group. An annual state park pass was awarded to Paul Nord of Valparaiso for finding 21 of 23 items listed on the scavenger hunt.

Mark and Nancy Lakin of Chesterton said they have been geocaching for many years.

“Today was neat. I drove while my husband had the GPS,” Nancy said. “It got you to go places you wouldn’t normally go. Even though we live here, it took us places we wouldn’t normally notice. It was neat.”

“This (geocache) is recreation based, but there are ones here in the state park that tell some of our stories that we want to tell,” said Brad Bumgardner, interpretive naturalist at the state park. “We can integrate education. One teaches about the shipwrecks. One teaches about the saw-whet owl banding program. Anything you can think of, I can come up with an educational geocache about it.”

Get involved

For more inforamtion on geocaching at the Indiana Dunes State Park, 1600 N 25 E, Chesterton, call Interpretive Naturalist Brad Bumgardner at 926-1952.