Many parks and trails around the Pacific Northwest serve as secret hiding places for geocaches and letterboxes.
Hundreds of families in Snohomish and Island counties consider themselves fans of the two modern-day treasure-hunting games.
But in the past two months, someone has been destroying the items these groups hide and bragging about it on a personal website.
Those responsible — it’s unclear if one or more people are involved — call themselves Forest Defenders. They are angering the close community of treasure hunters.
“We have always considered ourselves forest defenders, and now this person has made it a dirty name,” said Raelene Harger, a 28-year-old letterboxer from Marysville.
Geocachers use GPS devices to track down caches, containers with trinkets or other items hidden by other geocachers. Letterboxers follow clues to find the hidden containers, each containing a journal and rubber stamp. The stamp marks the finders’ own journals, and the finders mark the journal from the box with their own stamps.
Both groups have websites and online communities dedicated to their hobbies.
Some are concerned that putting caches and boxes in forests and on beaches harms the environment by encouraging people to leave trails. It can, Harger said, but most are mindful and protective of their hiding places.
In state-maintained parks, the treasure-hunters can’t place their caches anywhere they like. They need approval from a ranger, said Virginia Painter, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.
“Most people do follow those rules and are very respectful of the resources,” she said.
Besides, what the Forest Defenders are doing is illegal, because they are destroying someone else’s property, said Linda Burnett with the parks commission.
When Oak Harbor geocacher Susan McClung, 65, went to place a cache at the Joseph Whidbey State Park, near Anacortes, a park ranger accompanied her to make sure the place she chose was appropriate.
Geocachers organize trash pickup parties and help maintain trails, she said.
McClung says the so-called Forest Defenders don’t understand the hobby.
“Cachers want to share the beauty; they don’t want to destroy it,” she said.
The Forest Defenders don’t think so. They refer to caches and boxes as “trash” and post articles and photos about those they destroyed.
“They are not trash; they are works of art,” Harger said. “We spend hours and hours making the boxes and spend a great deal of time looking for a place to hide them.”
Many letterboxers carve their own unique stamps to put in the box, Harger said. One of the boxes destroyed by the Forest Defenders was hers.
In one blog post, the Forest Defenders talk about removing a cache from an American Indian burial ground near Coupeville. That’s not a place responsible geocachers and letterboxes would disturb, Harger said.
“If that’s true, I’m very saddened,” she said. “Like with any hobby, there are people who don’t know any better.”
Most parks that are not state-owned don’t have regulations for treasure-hunters. In Island County parks, they are most welcome as long as they are careful, said Steve Marx, the county’s assistant parks director.
“It’s a harmless event. People get to see our beautiful parks,” he said. “There’s a better way to handle concerns than going and destroying things.”
Katya Yefimova: 425-339-3452, kyefimova@heraldnet.com.
On the Web
Learn more about geocaching at www.geocaching.com, and letterboxing at www.letterboxing.org or www.atlasquest.com.
The Forest Defenders website is at
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