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Dec 28, 2008 10:10 pm US/Central
Finding Minnesota: Touring State Parks With GPS
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
Bill Morrison V, 17, of New Hope, and his father Bill Morrison IV go hunting with a Global Positioning System device.
It's called geocaching, a kind of high-tech treasure hunt using GPS technology. And it's helped the Morrisons explore the entire state in a short period of time.
"I figured maybe we'd get the northeast region done and we'd probably get the metro region done and that was about it," says the elder Morrison. "And it just kind of got out of hand."
It got so out of hand that, in three months' time, they had explored all Minnesota's state parks. (All 72 parks had hidden caches for visitors to find this year.) And their quest to find hidden trinkets led them to wide-open treasure.
"With the geocache at Tettegouche (State Park), there was a long way through the park and I forget what the name of the point was," said the elder Morrison. "I think it was like Pigeon Overlook. And we were sitting there looking down into the river. There was a beaver out there, a little beaver house. That was beautiful.
"In Split Rock Lighthouse (State Park), the cache was actually at the top of the next point south. And there is a chimney sitting there on a bare rock. Apparently a gentleman had built that as a wedding present for the new home for his bride, and he got jilted. And it's still standing there. There's still a chimney."
As father and son did the searching, stepmother Anna Morrison would trail nearby in the family car with food, supplies and radio communication.
"We ended up hitting Soudan (Underground) Mine and Bear Head (Lake State Park), then doubled down this way and swept through the entire central," she said, pointing at a state map. "At Gooseberry Falls, the cache was in the oldest surviving CCC outhouse, actually the only surviving CCC outhouse."
With each cache they found, they collected a souvenir card describing the park, which helped the younger Bill Morrison convince his friends he'd really truly done it.
"I'm rather a nerd in my school," he says, "and usually nerds don't get out and go and hike in nature much. I liked finding stuff when I was a kid. And this is really a high-tech treasure hunt. So it's a perfect blend of geek and nature.
"It was also fun because my dad ... well he works a lot and we hadn't really gotten much father-son time recently. And it was definitely fun to catch up and just talk alone in the woods."
For people who've never tried something like this before, Minnesota actually has 16 state parks where you can check out one of these GPS devices and even get lessons on it. Three of those parks are right here within the metro area: Fort Snelling, Afton and William O'Brien.
"We didn't want to have any barriers," says Fort Snelling State Park assistant manager Kathy Dummer. "And so a big part of that was saying let's see if we can get some GPS units in parks so that someone could just show up, check it out, go out and start to develop that comfort level and interest in it."
For the Morrison family, it's been a chance to explore areas they might have never seen, while also enjoying the technology they've become so familiar with. Still, even they admit to getting turned around on vacations occasionally.
"We get lost a lot," said the elder Bill Morrison.
Minnesota's current geocaching program in state parks will end for the season on Dec. 31. But in May, they'll start a brand new one. Meanwhile, if you'd like to try your hand at geocaching in the winter, there are many other caches stashed away throughout the state.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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