Signs of Spring and GeoCaching at Victory Park

There is treasure buried in the ground at Victory Park.

On the unusually brisk afternoon of March 22, visitors to Victory Park, located at Second Ave. and Green Street in Royersford, would have seen scores of brilliant green stems of previously dormant bulbs bursting from the gray earth.

Visitors might have also seen two ladies carefully combing the areas along the creek, each armed with a high-tech GPS unit.

“Geocaching can take you to some beautiful or unusual places,” Lisa, who is better known by her Geocaching name, “ELMH.”

Lisa, a Skippack resident, was with her Geocaching partner, Cindy, a Hatfield resident, whose Geocaching name is “Been There Done That Crew.”

According to the Geocaching website, Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunt, in which participants locate hidden containers (known as “geocaches”), using a smartphone or GPS to follow coordinates found through the Geocaching website. This international outdoor activity is a way of connecting strangers to a common goal, and literally place, as Geocachers leave their names on a log found within the hidden containers.

Cindy and Lisa, who have been Geocaching since 2004 and 2008, respectively, became Geocaching partners after coincidentally bumping into one another while on a Geocache hunt.

They have been going on weekly hunts since.

“I like this because this reminds me when I was a child, and playing in the woods,” Cindy said.  “This is a form of exercise for me, and it gets me off the couch.”

The Geocache duo had already found several hides that day in Birdsboro, Spring City and Pottstown.

“We’ve been all over,” Lisa said.

Their trip to the Royersford park was based off of coordinates named the “Screaming Skull,” as the hidden container was in the shape of a small, hollow scull. According to Cindy, the scull was placed there by a local Geocaching resident.

Once found, the Geocachers proudly signed their names in the log, and carefully replaced the skull in its secret hiding spot, somewhere in the wooded area of Victory Park.