Adventure Labs

Fort Wayne has many claims to fame. One of the city’s nicknames is the Summit City and there is not a mountain within 200 miles of Fort Wayne. It was the highest point on the Wabash-Erie Canal.

You can learn about the Wabash-Erie Canal by playing FortIslander80’s Adventure Lab. I completed that stage of the Adventure Lab on Tuesday.

Another of Fort Wayne’s claims is that it is where television was invented. Philo Farnsworth was living in Fort Wayne when he developed television transmissions. I learned about his contributions to society when I completed that stage of FI80’s Adventure Lab.

So, what are Adventure Labs? Geocaching.com a few years ago rolled lab caches (which were generally available only at mega or giga events) into a new Adventure Lab app and is allowing local geocachers to apply for the opportunity to place Adventure Labs in their area.

Here’s a video from Derek at Behind the Cache. He calls an Adventure Lab three caches in one: multi, virtual and WherIGo. Multi because you go to multiple locations, but unlike a multicache, you get credit with a find at each location. Virtual because there is no cache container to find and log to sign. The Adventure Lab takes you to a location and asks a question. WherIGo because the app guides you to each location. In his video, Derek travels through Memphis completing a five-stop Adventure Lab.

Along the way Tuesday, I found my 1,700th cache. The two Adventure Labs I found Tuesday counted as finds No. 1,698 and 1,699. I discovered a traditional nearby. So I rode my bike to that tradition and signed the log. The cache even had cash in it, though I left that cash since I had nothing of equal or greater value to trade.

No. 1,600 came at an event in early March before any of us realized how much the coronavirus pandemic was going to change our lives and our habits. My geocaching has slowed down. since March. I found just four caches in April and except for a first to find, all were sort of lonely caches off the beaten path. In May I found more and used sanitized my hands after each find. The beauty of Adventure Labs is there is no container to touch, just your own phone.

That gets me to the downside of Adventure Labs as I see it. The phone app is required to complete them. And the app is separate from other phone apps geocachers use. I know of geocachers who still strictly use a handheld GPS device to cache and don’t want to use a phone.