Mtn-Mn or other attendees,
What goes on at a GeoWoodstock soiree? Mostly geocoins,tall tale swapping? What?
Poppoppig

I like going so I can meet cachers. I see old pals and we do swap stories and grab a few pictures and such. Jeremy has come to the last couple as well, so you get to meet him if you can find him. I love checking a name tag and seeing a nickname that I recognize but have never met. It is a hugely social event, with some programming along the way. There was a GSAK class and an "ask the reviewer" session. People do carry travel bugs and geocoins for discovery. I did not carry any of mine this time though, except for some I had for trade. We had a bunch of luggage since we were out there for a week and were anticipating the very cool temps at Yosemite (and it was, including snow above 6,000 feet). Next year I will have some of my coins for discovery.

As we drove up from Roseland, I had caches on my GPS. We could see cachers at almost all caches along the road up to Wheatland. We would honk the horn at them. People group up and go on group cache finds. I don't think we saw a cache that had only one car at it if it was being found.

Part of the deal really is getting there the night before now for some of the pre-events and then going to some of the post-events. We did not make any of the events Friday night since we spent a long time in Yosemite. We went to the main GW6 event, then we checked into the hotel. We then went to the geocoin swapping event at the hotel around the corner for a bit and then met a few friends at a restaurant for a drink or two and for a story or two. Or three. We had a flight out the next morning so we did not do much on Sunday, but at breakfast we saw a cacher and ate with them (HI Express breakfast) and it turned out that Jeremy, MissJenn and Shauna from Groundspeak were also at the hotel we were at.

Even if you go for one day, it is a blast. I am sure there will be lots of GA cachers up there next year. I hope that will give you some idea of what it is like. I cannot wait. Any other questions, please ask.

Mtn-man pretty much nailed it, and he should know since he works them. If you read the cache page and linked event page it'll give you a good idea of what kinda stuff goes on, but like mtn-man said it's mostly social.

I don't really get into the coin trading stuff - although I do love seeing trackables like this and this and this - and only like the social part a little bit - like matching faces to geonick's I've interacted with on forums, caches, etc.

But for us geocaching has always been (until I got really rabid about it) a reason to visit new places and gather new experiences. GW gives us a BIGGER excuse to go to more exotic 'different' places. Last week my wife & I left the boys with their grandparents while we hiked in the redwoods (even climbed one of them), explored downtown San Francisco, drove the Pacific Coast highway, and a ton of other stuff we wouldn't have done without a reason to go there.

While doing this other stuff (remember my wife was along) we also took the time to grab some significant caches, including California's 2nd oldest, the bay area's oldest, and this little one. This cache was high on our priority list but we couldn't get there due to snow.

Of course then we come home to find out the politicos are firing GPS-guided bottle rockets at Macon......

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Phillips4,

There is a lot of tall tale telling at GW! I heard more than a few.

It is very social, I love meeting people I email all time and see in the forums. There is a fair share of coin swapping and purchasing going on also. I am really into that so I do coin stuff alot. You can even play geocoin poker, it is a blast. The GW had tons of activities, you could stay busy all day long. Lots fun!

I like to volunteer at the registration booth, you get to meet all the people coming by the front gate and picking up their packets. If you work in the morning then you get to meet tons of folks and then you see them for the rest of the day and can chat with your new friends. That is what I did last year and this year.

I am really happy it is close to home next year so we can make it. We are already looking forward to it.

Thanks for the descriptions of GW,ya'll really make it sound like something I would like to try,especially if it comes so close to us. PPP