Award-winning group of geocachers

The environment wins big when geocachers attend Cache In Trash Out (CITO) events. But now a group of Texas, USA geocachers are winning for their cleanup efforts.

Travis Gilbert (SKnight579) organized the Permian Basin Cachers Association CITO Events. Travis says, “We are a smaller group of cachers (around about 30) in the middle of nowhere out in West Texas.”

“A smaller group” with a big agenda to pick up trash. They’ve adopted two sites and pledged to clear trash from those areas on a regular basis. One site is a stretch of four lane highway and another is a location in a nearby city.  The group has held CITO events at these locations over the past couple years. Travis says, “We are under contract to clean the road two times a year, we do it four times a year, and we also separate out recyclables as we go for a small bit of money for the group (covers the water basically).”

Permian Basin Geocachers Win State Award

Travis says the extra effort was noticed. His email inbox had a surprise waiting for him a couple weeks ago, “I received an email from the State of Texas that our little group would also be getting the “Group of the Year” award for the State! I’m really proud of our group.” Gilbert says they also won another award from the City of Midland, Texas for the Permian Basin Geocachers cleanup efforts there.

He says the group is inspiring other local geocachers to help make a difference. “I know of several other groups of cachers in Texas that have adopted roads and spots after seeing what our group has done and I could not be prouder of our group.”

Trackable state and local awards for Permian Geocachers

Bagging trash and picking up recyclables has an occasional reward.

Travis says, “The best find was our last cleanup in April when we found 20 proof sets of coins scattered over half of our adopted area. We called the police and no one had reported them missing and I spoke about it on the news that night and no one tried to contact me, so win win. There were 10 of us cleaning that trip so we raffled them and each took two sets home.”

Now they’re also taking home trophies. Travis did what any geocacher would do with the awards. He says “I’ve also made both awards Trackable.” Check out the Trackable pages here and here. Three geocachers, besides Travis, attended all the CITO events. They include grumpyoldtexan, DeKoning, and ZSandmann.

Since 2002, geocachers around the world have been dedicated to improving parks and other cache-friendly places. There are dozens of CITO events around the world each month. Check out the CITO Events Calendar to find at CITO near you.

Permian Basin Geocachers

"This CITO's a Beach"

By: MissJenn

The CITO season is thick upon us. This past weekend, several Lackeys joined dozens of other geocachers at two CITO events near Groundspeak HQ.

Dani, LutherNation and myself (MissJenn) participated in “This CITO’s a Beach.”

MissJenn holding the CITO flag

Rain fell heavily as we drove towards the location and when we got there, no one else was in the designated meeting point. Oh no! Did everyone else cancel because of the weather?

Not at all. It was simply the fact that we had arrived an hour early and no one was there yet. This was a perfect opportunity to go find a nearby geocache where we enjoyed views of Puget Sound and listened to the barking of the nearby sea lions.

At the actual start time, gloves and yellow CITO garbage bags were distributed to the many people who braved our typically-wet weather. What at first looked like a very clean little park proved to be a park that really needed our help.

Larger pieces of trash cleaned off the beach

We collected a spare tire, various chunks of discarded metal, fluorescent light tubes, some bad beer that teenagers had saved for a later party, and a car seat . There were plenty of the usual discarded cans and bottles. The highlight of the day was a huge and heavy piece of bulky chain link that was actually still attached to something buried deeply in the sand. I pulled on it and it would not budge. Several more-muscled geocachers came to my aid. We joked that perhaps we ought not to yank it out in case it is the drain plug that keeps the water in Puget Sound. The team eventually managed to “encourage” a weak link to break off and we trashed that very large eyesore off the beach. The sea lions playing nearby looked at us approvingly.

We hauled the litter that we found all the way down the beach, up a steep staircase that crossed the railroad tracks, and through the park to the litter collection point. A job well done!

Trash collected during CITO

Meanwhile, a few miles away, other Lackeys joined nearly 30 other geocachers at the Bellevue Parks Arbor Day CITO.

They planted evergreen trees that towered six or more feet tall. While this was part of a larger tree-planting, there was a portion of this event that was specifically organized by geocachers and for geocachers. It was a great way to give back to Washington, also known as the Evergreen State. Another job well done!

More events like these are coming up all over the world. Please check the CITO calendar to find one near you.

Tell us about your CITO event. What was the most unique piece of garbage you threw away?

Mt. Fuji, outside of Toyko Japan, reaches 3,776 m (12,388 ft.) into the sky, but is still not immune from the trash found at lower elevations.  Geocacher atstgm helped organize an ascent of Mt. Fuji to complete a grueling Cache In Trash Out (CITO) tour.

Mt. Fuji CITO

Armed with garbage bags more than a dozen geocachers started hiking up the tallest mountain in Japan at 11:00am on September 3rd.

They stayed over night at a staging area, then began hiking again in the predawn darkness at 1:30am on the 4th.

Mt. Fuji CITO Logbook

The group reached the summit of Mt. Fuji around 5am and began the CITO event by picking up bags full of trash.  They also searched for the five geocaches along the route and at the summit.  Watch this raw video of the ambition climb.

Check out the events calender to see if there’s a CITO event near you.

Your next geocaching adventure can help save the environment from a multi-billion dollar scourge, invasive species.  Scientists at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado created a website called, CitSci.org.  They’re calling all geocachers to help track the spread of species which damage the natural environment. It’s a global project, that begins just outside your front door.

You can find more information on Citizen Science by clicking the image below.

Citsci.org

There are many more geocaching adventures. Take a look at all the Lost & Found videos here.

Wait. Wait. Wait. That’s not YOU. You’re the person who’s waist deep in thorny brush pulling out the battered (and NOT biodegradable) TV. And there’s also a lawnmower and another TV and even more trash. Whew.

Carnation, WA USA – COWWS CITO Event

You’re not alone. Thousands of Geocachers around the world took the weekend of the April 24 ^th and 25^th to clean their local parks and trails. It’s called Cache In Trash Out (CITO). It’s a little payback for what has been a couple pretty rough centuries for ol’ Mother Nature. And we’ve seen what happens when Mother Nature doesn’t get the respect she deserves – cue the volcano.

Good choice in helping cleanup the place. If you didn’t help yet, don’t fear the volcano. CITO events happen throughout the year. Find your opportunity here. If you did a CITO let’s see some of your pictures and video on Facebook. And Thank YOU!