Geocaching at Burke Lake Park Owns Virginia Distinction

FAIRFAX STATION, VA — More than 15 years before people were walking around D.C.-area public spaces with their Pokémon Go app, they were tracking coordinates in a geocaching hunt — and one of the region's most sought after destinations is in Burke Lake Park.

Geocaching is a thrill-of-the-hunt activity in which participants use cell phones to track coordinates and find carefully hidden, relatively tiny boxes of trinket intrigue, after which they log their successful sleuthing for others to behold.

And Burke Lake Park happens to be the longest-running geocaching site in Virginia.

According to park manager Keith O'Connor, geocaching, which bills itself as "the world's largest treasure hunt," has been going on at the park since Sept. 17, 2000 — the first time a log entry noted the park's coordinates.

"That's a little bit of geocaching lore," O'Connor says. "Nobody else can find one that has survived for that long."

The world-wide geocaching community keeps track of such things, and Burke Lake Park has become something of a destination for enthusiasts who for whatever reason happen to find themselves in the D.C. area.

They know of it, in part, because of a somewhat mysterious character known in geocaching circles as "Big Call," who may have begun the practice at Burke Lake Park. O'Connor corresponds with him electronically but doesn't know his real name.

Big Call, though, apparently — maybe — is the Dalai Lama of Burke Lake Park geocaching.

Here's part of a July log by a visitor to Burke Lake Park from overseas.

"This afternoon the weather is just perfect for a visit to this oldie. Worldwide there are only slightly over 130 caches still alive that have been hidden in 2000. This is one of them.

". . .When I walk towards the given coordinates, I see this might become a long search as the area contains many possibilities to hide a cache. I need considerable time to locate this cache container. Several times I start over again and approach ground zero from a different direction. Finally I spot the container.

"bigcall thanks for keeping this oldie alive for some many years and greetings from the Netherlands."

Also highly aware of geocaching is the Fairfax County Park Authority, which has set guidelines for the hunters, as it were. Among them:

"The Park Authority is most concerned with trails that are not in the right place in the landscape -- e.g. go directly up a slope as opposed to across a slope, are on the banks of a stream as opposed to further away, trails that show obvious signs of flooding and abuse (e.g. a 4 foot trail that widens to 8 feet due to a wet spot isn't a good trail).

"A general rule of thumb for defining an established trail is: Would a really determined geocacher be able to get a trail-use stroller to the site (and no cheating by lifting it up and walking over non-staired sections of the trail)? If the trail being considered meets this test, it meets the intent of the guideline."

O'Connor, a volunteer at Station 14 of Burke Fire and Rescue, says some firefighters go geocaching at Burke Lake Park to hone their search-and-rescue skills needed for a variety of possibilities.

"Valuable practice," he says.

O'Connor makes a point of knowing the location of every geocache in the park, and despite isolated incidents of vandalism to the caches, he says geocache hunters "are very responsible, and that's the whole point of the community.

"We allow people to do it here, and we know they're doing it in a responsible manner."

Photo: geocaching.com