A Wherigo Tramp through Frozen Head SP

Woohoo! My very first Wherigo cache has been published, Ridge Hiking in Frozen Head State Park. When I first visited the park with the kids a few months ago, I though it was odd that there weren't any caches there. It is such a great natural area, with tons of trails, historic structures, waterfalls, mountain views and wildlife. So I posted a question on Facebook and got a response from the locals that the Manager for the park does not want geocaches placed there, not even virtual Earthcaches. Still, after doing some more hiking in the park, I got to thinking about ways I could set up a cache that visits the park, but has a container just outside of it. At first I was thinking of making it a Multi, but doing so inevitably means having to make-up some method for people to determine the final coordinates during their hike, and there is always room for ambiguity, and frustration on these types of multis (although I usually quite enjoy them myself). If only there was some way to ensure folks have to go on a good long hike, but not have to mess with silly questions about numbers on signs, and counting stairs and such...

A little while later the kids and I completed one of the two local Wherigo caches, which was a really well put together adventure on a little park south of Knoxville. The light-bulb went on in my head, I could do a really simple Wherigo tour in Frozen Head! All you would have to do is hike from point to point to complete the cartridge. Sure I would give some information about each point, make it a tour-guide kind of thing, but one wouldn't have to bother with any annoying questions, silly arithmetic or frustration of not getting to the final because of a bad interpretation. It seemed like the perfect solution. Although admittedly, you do have to have some extra technological know-how to complete a Wherigo. I've only just started to be able to do them since acquiring a Nexus 7 tablet. Most people with Smartphones can do them though, so I figured the technological hurdle isn't too high.

Actually building the Wherio was not too hard, since I used a convenient website Wherigo\\kit. I used the "Tour guide" template and whipped together a 16 stage tour of a long hike in the park. Once it was complete, I compiled the cartridge and loaded it to my Nexus. I made a trip out to the area last week to hide the final container (outside of the State Park boundaries), and did a test run of the first two locations of the cartridge. They worked perfectly! After putting some final touches on the cartridge, I published the Wherio on the www.wherigo.com site, and then put together my geocaching.com listing. After all the effort it took to put together, I still wasn;t even sure if a volunteer reviewer would publish it to geocaching.com. Days passed, nothing happened. But today I got a notification that it was published.

So now I invite all those hikers and lovers of nature, come try out this Wherio. The hike is long but rewarding. The park is beautiful. The geocache is well, a plastic container hidden in the woods filled with trinkets. Yep, pure geocaching glory awaits you. Enjoy some random pics from my hike.