Between two small trees on a swath of land off of Swaggartown and Van Buren Road in Glenville, Nicholas McPherson planted secret treasures in an old army ammo box, hoping to spread awareness of autism across the country.
Geocaching is a hobby that combines the use of handheld GPS devices, the internet, and outdoor pursuits such as hiking and orienteering. Participants create and post online the coordinates of hidden trinkets nationally, and internationally, that can be found by other enthusiasts. When a geocache is found, participants are encouraged to take a trinket in place of something they own themselves. For McPherson, an 8 year old who is diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, geocaching is a passion that is fueled by his interest in computers and mapping.
Daddy told me about it and I got really interested in it, said McPherson.
McPherson’s mother, Shelia, said her son has a keen sense of direction and is able to find hidden caches during day hikes and family trips and that geocahing helps to combine his other interests into one activity.
`Its good because it keeps him interested and breaks the trip up,` she said. `This ties it all together, geocaching lets him do a little of everything.`
Working with his father, Gary, McPherson created a geocache with an autism theme in celebration of Autism Awareness Month-including puzzles, small toys, bubbles and a notepad for visitors to log their findings. A small geocoin, shaped in the form of the Autism Awareness ribbon, with interlocking puzzle pieces, is also included in the cache and is considered a `trackable,` or an item that can be moved from cache to cache across the country. When the geocoin is taken from the box, the serial number on the back of the coin can be entered into an online database to map its location throughout the country. While some trackables do not have a final destinations, other are given missions by the original creators on where they would like to see their trackables end up around the world. The McPhersons would like to see the autism geocoin travel cross country, with a final destination of Hawaii. With puzzle piece painted on the front of the ammo box, and a small message in the front page of the log book, the McPhersons explain the background of the puzzle pieces in the cache and the autism-related geocoin.
`Many say the puzzle piece symbolizes a single trait of autism. All of the puzzle pieces are different and the resulting picture is different for each person,` said the message in the notebook.
`We just decided to make this during Autism Awareness Month,` said Gary McPherson. `I think this might be one of the first in the country based on Autism.`
Nicholas’ mother said children with autism are a puzzle on themselves, and that each child diagnosed is different.
`If you know one child with autism you know one child with autism because they may have similar traits but the way they express those traits are totally different,` she said.
After the cache is hidden among light debris, McPherson’s father sets his handheld GPS to record the coordinates of the geocache, with the box located at North 42 degrees 52.300 feet and West 73 degrees 56.840 feet.
McPherson said he hopes to complete 30 different geocaches over the summer and of the many caches he has done since becoming interested in the hobby three years ago the one at the Christman Nature Sanctuary, in Duanesburg, near a waterfall on the Bozen Kill Creek is his favorite.
For more information about geocaching and about Nicholas’ cache, visit Geocaching.com.
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