Woman's geocache helps visitors discover St. James Farm
A Wheaton woman's award-winning geocache leads visitors to some of the best spots at St. James Farm Forest Preserve in Warrenville.
Gwen Johnson's cache was named Geocache of the Year by the Geocachers of Northeastern Illinois after first being named Cache of the Month in February 2015. Pam Imholz, president of the 350-member group, said voting members chose Johnson's cache from among the monthly winners.
"Gwen is quite often selected for the quality and uniqueness of her caches," Imholz said.
Johnson, who goes by TeamAlexAbby in the geocaching world, said she thought St. James Farm would be the perfect location for a series of 11 caches and took more than a year to plan them out. After talking to district staff and getting permission, Johnson got to work.
"I have spent a lot of time there walking, biking and gathering coordinates and ideas for sites," Johnson said. "The theme is the beauty and history of St. James Farm. One of the caches takes you on a tour of the artwork on the property. Another is a puzzle in the Horse and Hound Cemetery that uses the headstones as puzzle answers."
Johnson's cache series consists of six traditional, two letterbox, one multi and one puzzle cache that all lead to one final puzzle cache.
"I'm finding from the cache online logs the people are getting exactly what I was hoping for out of (the caches)," Johnson said.
"They are getting a bit of fresh air and exercise and learning about the history of St. James Farm, the artwork and the historic locations still within the preserve."
Described as an outdoor technological treasure hunt, geocaching uses GPS-enabled devices to locate hidden treasures. Participants navigate to a set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache container hidden at that location. Geocaching has grown to more than 2.5 million caches worldwide and 10 million registered geocachers since it began in May 2000.
"I believe smartphone GPS technology has made the game more accessible to everyone, and enthusiastic geocachers share their love of the game with others," Imholz said of the growing popularity of geocaching.
"I think each of us enjoys a bit of a challenge - kind of like an old-fashioned scavenger hunt of sorts."
Clues leading to Johnson's caches at St. James Farm are posted on geocaching.com, although participants need their own GPS-enabled devices and some knowledge of how the game works.
Johnson also has placed caches at Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn and Winfield Mounds in Winfield, while the forest preserve district offers geocaching adventures at Blackwell in Warrenville, Fullersburg Woods in Oak Brook and Waterfall Glen in Darien, with clues posted at geocaching.com.
For information, visit dupageforest.org or email geocache@dupageforest.org.