PORT ANGELES —The Highway 101 Scenic Byway Loop GeoTour will offer another way to enjoy the North Olympic Peninsula.
The Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission and its partners will place 30 geocaches from Brinnon to Marrowstone Island to Neah Bay, La Push and Quinault.
Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunt using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.
Caches on the Highway 101 Scenic Byway Loop GeoTour will be released during a kickoff from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Sept. 24 in the Kitchen Building at the Clallam County Fairgrounds, 1608 W. 16th St., Port Angeles.
Passports, prizes and giveaways will be available.
An informal, no-host gathering for geocachers will be held the evening before, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 23 in the banquet room at Fanaticus Sports Grill, 1026 E. First St., Port Angeles.
The GeoTour will have its own page at https://www.geocaching.com/play.
Each hidden cache will contain a color stamp and a word that participants will record in a passport, which will be downloadable on www.OlympicPeninsulaGeotour.com beginning Sept. 12.
When the passport contains all 30 code words and stamps, participants can redeem it for a trackable geocoin.
A grand-prize winner will be announced Jan. 4.
To be eligible for the drawing, participants will need to fill out the survey on the passport; attach a sales receipt to the passport of any Olympic Peninsula purchase of goods, gas, food, lodging or other expenditure; and turn it in for a chance to win.
The grand prize will contain overnight lodging and other extras for a return trip to the Olympic Peninsula to do more geocaching, plus the trackable geocoin. Details of the grand prize will be announced at the kickoff event.
Businesses or volunteers interested in supporting the Olympic Peninsula Highway 101 Scenic Byway Loop GeoTour, or those who want information, can check www.OlympicPeninsulaGeotour.com or contact Mary Brelsford at 360-452-8552 or Mary@OlympicPeninsula.org.