SILVANA – Kendrah Simmons of Arlington often goes on treasure hunts with her mother, but she doesn’t usually pick up gray, soggy underwear from under a bridge.
However, on the bank of the Stillaguamish River, Heather Simmons praised her 4-year-old daughter as she used metal tongs to lift the weathered underwear into a garbage bag.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
“There are so many areas that are just beautiful, but people dump trash on it,” Simmons said. “To clean up an area like this, it makes it more beautiful, and maybe people will be less likely to drop trash here later.”
About 50 people gathered Saturday to clean a mile-long stretch of bank along the Stillaguamish River near Silvana. They started at the intersection of Pioneer Highway and Hevly Road and worked their way north.
Everyone had something in common: They are all geocachers.
Geocaching is a high-tech activity in which people use Global Positioning System devices to seek hidden treasures. There are thousands of capsules and containers, called geocaches, scattered in northwest Washington.
Participants look online for clues on where to find the hidden items. Once they find a container, they add something to it and put it back where they found it.
One geocache, a tiny capsule, is hidden in a tree near the cleanup area.
Laurie Freeman, an avid geocacher who lives in Point Roberts, organized the cleanup because she’d heard so many complaints from people about all the trash along the river.
“One of the things we all try to do when we find a geocache is to try to leave things nicer than when we got there,” Freeman said.
By the time the cleanup was over, garbage bags were piled up in a small turnoff, along with a car bumper, a bike frame and a large mound of old tires. The Snohomish County Public Works Department hauled away the garbage for free.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
“This was a great idea,” said Susan McClung, who came from Oak Harbor to help. “We’re thinking of organizing one on Whidbey Island.”
The morning also gave many of the geocachers a chance to meet each other. Geocachers often chat over the Internet, but rarely get to meet face-to-face.
“It’s neat, it’s fun,” said McClung, whose Internet handle is “Liblablady.” “One of the reasons why we came is to see the faces behind the names.”
Debbie Lum, whose handle is “Ice Dragon,” came from Canada to participate.
“It’s different to put faces with the names,” she said. “It’s not always what you would expect, with some of their logins.”
Jerry and Michele Schulte of Kirkland – who use the co-handle “Lucy and Ricky” – have picked up litter before with other groups of geocachers. They always take a garbage bag when they venture into the wilderness to find a geocache. Sometimes they leave with a full bag.
“I love going out and picking up trash, amazingly,” Jerry Schulte said. “It makes the area a lot nicer.”
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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