Events and Activities : New Party in the Park tradition begins Monday: Geocaching contest

We all love a good scavenger hunt, right? This year the Vinton Parks & Recreation Department will be hosting its first Party in the Park ‘Play in Our Backyard Geocaching Contest” that will provide you this opportunity! Utilizing coordinates entered into any GPS device or your smartphone will enable you to come within close proximity of the cache (aka treasure). Then it’s your job to search high and low to uncover the loot!

The contest will begin Monday, June 22, and will run through Thursday, June 25. There will be nine caches available to be found and those coordinates will be unveiled around 8 AM on Monday morning. These coordinates and further updates on the contest may be found by either visiting the Vinton Recreation Center for a printed sheet or stopping by our Facebook page.

There are several things about this contest that we think will be beneficial to many!

Yes, there is a first-finders winner for each cache but all other individuals that find the cache afterwards will still have a chance to win prizes in a drawing to be held Saturday evening at Riverside Park. Simply record your name and phone number in the logbook located inside the cache (bring a pen!). Not able to make it out to the coordinates right away? Don’t sweat it, you can still hunt for the caches later on in the week and be eligible to win prizes!

Until those coordinates are announced, however, dust off those GPS devices or download the free “Geocaching Intro” app onto any smartphone from the iTunes, Google Play or Windows app stores. Also, please check out geocaching.com for more info on this rapidly growing hobby that has been getting millions of people outdoors and appreciating the natural beauty all around us!