Judy Douglas is the lucky winner of a $250 prize awarded for her sterling treasure hunting skills in this year’s West Bend $1000 Cache Ba$h. The Cache Ba$h is a full weekend of geocaching activities held each August in West Bend. Douglas is one of five winners in West Bend’s third annual $1000 Cache Ba$h.
Geocaching which is often described as a high-tech treasure hunt, involves hiding caches of various shapes and sizes throughout an area, uploading their coordinates to a website (www.geocaching .com), and inviting people to use the coordinates and their GPS devices to find the hidden treasures.
The West Bend $1000 Cache Ba$h, is one of only six geocaching mega-events (drawing 500 or more people) in the U.S. and one of 12 in the world. Currently, there are approximately three million geocachers from over 150 countries and, according to Geocaching.com, more than 1-million caches hidden worldwide. This year’s $1000 Cache Ba$h event was attend by over 1500 people with some geocachers coming from as far away as Denmark and South Africa. West Bend’s popularity as a geocaching destination extends beyond this one weekend in August. With more than 560 caches within a 7-mile radius of the city, West Bend has earned the title of “Geocaching Capital of the Midwest.”