In the continuing tradition of taking creative and extreme geocaching to new heights, the Battle Born Dirtbag Geocaching Society is proud to announce our latest endeavor and event:
Project Explorer
At 9am on Saturday, September 29th in front of the Palmer Enginering building on the UNR campus, BBDGS will launch a payload including a geocaching container, video and still cameras, gps tracking devices, as well as some lucky attendee's trackable items into high altitude "inner space".
BBDGS has teamed up with the UNR "BalloonSat" program as well as our local PBS station KNPB to bring you a fun and educational event for everyone. The payload will be launched to goal altitude of over 100,000ft via a weather balloon. The balloon fill will begin at approximately 7:30am and all are welcome to come witness the procedure required to take a geocache into the upper stratosphere. The event will include presentations by the UNR BalloonSat team on the details of our launch and recovery as well as presentations on the hobby of geocaching by members of the BBDGS. There will be plenty going on to interest everyone from the first time geocacher to the seasoned veterans.
The payload launch will commence at approxiamtely 9am. Following the launch BBDGS will put on a hands on seminar for anyone who may be interested in participating in the hobby of Geocaching. If you are new to the hobby and have questions, or know someone who might be interested in getting started, please come on out and see both the entry level and extreme fun our hobby has to offer.
We will also be selecting a few lucky attendee's to have their trackable items (coins, travelbugs, pathtags, etc) placed into the payload of Project Explorer. Pictures will be taken of the payload before launch and after recovery to verify the item was on board for the launch, and each member will receive the pictures and video of their item in innerspace. The payload will be restricted by both size and weight, so smaller/lighter items are suggested.
BBDGS and the BalloonSat team will track our payload to the height of its journey above 100,000ft altitude and then back down to earth again. A team of geocachers will set out after the payload touchdown point to recover all equipment and gear. The anticipated landing zone will be approximately 40-60 miles E to NE of Reno. Once the final location of the payload is found, the geocache will be permenantly placed there for others to find in the future. We welcome anyone to join us on our search for the payload landing, but please be aware that the landing zone is expected to be in harsh terrain that may require special equipment/vehicles. It may not be suitable for some geocachers.
Whatever your skill level, come out and join us for some geocaching experiences like Reno has never seen before. This will be one you don't want to miss.
Please note: The location and time of this event is subject to change based on weather and wind predictions for the day of the event. We strongly suggest that anyone interested in this event log the event as "will attend" and put it on their watch list. If any changes to venue change we will notify all anticipated attendees as well as make announcements on this event page.