By Wes Skinner (NorthWes)

Greetings from Wes Skinner (NorthWes). It’s been an exciting start to 2026 for me as I’ve stepped back into the role of President for GeocacheAlaska! Inc.’s Board of Directors. I’m looking forward to writing an article together with some photos that humbly shares the fun I’ve  had recently while traveling out of state, but right now I want to focus your attention on matters of immediate concern right here in Alaska.

I’m sure you’ve received email notifications about the various events coming up soon. Ranging from the fun coffeehouse events happening in Chugiak and at the Tudor to Muldoon curve, all the way over to the traditional series of events we see around this time of year, there’s plenty of opportunities to fit in a fun event find while making new friends and seeing familiar faces at these quick meet-up events. Upcoming are a dozen events so far later this month, including a Valentine’s Day celebration event, a President’s Day event, a CITO event (out at Chugiak HS), and two events featuring the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous! The opportunity to earn the first season CITO event souvenir can be fulfilled at a second CITO Event to be held on March 28 the at Chugiak HS as well. Stay tuned to the events coming, so you can stay in touch with your geocaching buddies and build your find count the easy way in Alaska’s wintertime.

This year will be bringing a new focus on Eduvents hosted by  GeocacheAlaska! Inc. as well. Eduvents used to be a monthly occurrence pre-pandemic, and we’re purposing to bring that learning focus back to our geocaching community’s attention. A broad array of topics are being developed for presentations, and we’d love to hear from you about areas where you’d like a bit of classroom learning opportunities to help you grow in the get-outside game of geocaching. Stay tuned to see that’s coming with Eduvents!

Since September of 2025 I’ve been in ongoing conversation with the Alaska Department of Natural Resource’s permitting office, seeking to renew GeocacheAlaska! Inc.’s permit to play the geocaching game in Alaska State Parks. The past three 5-year permits were approved quickly and with minimal fuss, but this year’s application process has encountered the results of significant upgrades to DNR’s permitting process that were made statewide in 2023. As a result, the permit’s cost has risen significantly and the conditions of the permit have been extensively modified, while the term of the permit has been shortened to 3 years. It’s been an extensive deep-depth review of how geocaching impacts Alaska State Parks. We’re in the final days of discussion regarding how to get our permit approved, and I’ll be keeping you updated on how the  new permit’s terms and conditions will impact geocaching in Alaska State Parks. Watch your emails and our social media updates to learn more as the permit gets finalized in the coming week’s time.

By Mike Malvick (Greatland Reviewer/LadybugKids)

In prior Reviewer columns, I have discussed the “sweeping” process of looking at long disabled caches and caches with a growing list of “didn’t find it” logs. My curiosity was piqued about the archival rates (Cache Owner plus Reviewer generated) for various regions of the Alaska, so using Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) and a database of all caches ever published in Alaska, I generated the following statistics after dividing the state with an east/west line drawn roughly through Cantwell.

Looking at my more than fifteen-year tenure as a Community Volunteer Reviewer beginning in July 2010, reveals the following:

• North of the line, 783 caches out of 2242 caches were archived, or 34.9%.
• South of the line, 5187 caches out of 11358 caches were archived, or 45.6%.
• TOTAL: 5970 caches out of 13600 caches were archived, or 43.8%.

Looking at geocaching statistics dating back to the beginning of geocaching in Alaska in year 2000, including caches published and archived by my predecessors erik88l-r and Crow T Robot, the numbers look like this:

• North of the line, 794 caches out of 2250 caches were archived, or 35.3%.
• South of the line, 5955 caches out of 12089 caches were archived, or 49.3%.
• TOTAL: 6749 caches out of 14339 caches were archived, or 47.1%.

So, overall archival rates across Alaska have slightly decreased during the past fifteen years. Of the caches logged by my player account, which has been active for 21 years and 53.7% of the finds are outside of Alaska, 52.6% have been archived, indicating that Alaska has a lower archival rate than many areas where I have cached.

I do my best to be impartial when sweeping caches, even eliciting comments from cachers that are amused about my player account’s (Ladybug Kids) caches receiving Reviewer Notes. Players may e-mail or message me through my profile if they have a question about something I did as a Reviewer. I may or may not be able to directly answer the question depending upon the need to comply with Geocaching HQ confidentiality policy. If you are unsatisfied with the response I provide, you may contact Geocaching HQ via the Help Center’s Contact Us link.

As 2025 comes to a very busy, and VERY chilly close, and as both the outgoing and incoming Presidents of GeocacheAlaska! have escaped the state in search of warmer weather, I have taken the opportunity to seize the microphone to talk a bit about the Caching Around the State Newsletter. 

As most of us have noticed, the old .pdf newsletter has moved to a blog-style format this past year, making it easier to share long-form stories, pictures, cache links, and more. But one of the biggest benefits is that it’s easier than ever for our newsletter to be a collaborative effort among our Alaskan caching community, meaning it can be bigger and better than ever! The Board of Directors has lots of ideas on how to make that happen, but for now, here are a few ways that you can help out:

• Have you been on caching trip recently? Tell us about it! Maybe it was somewhere in Alaska. Maybe you visited another continent! Or had the privilege to attend a mega or giga event. Write a brief story to share your adventures with us!
• Found a really cool or unique cache that begs being shared? What about a truly amazing view or landscape? Doesn’t matter where it is, just give us the scoop (and some pictures)! 
• Did a recent caching outing come with a story to tell? A funny moment, mishap, epic adventure, wildlife near miss, or milestone? Write it down and share the fun with us! 
• Do you have pictures from a recent event? Please share a few with us! 
• Other newsletter ideas in the works involve featuring an Alaskan cacher profile each month, highlighting a Alaskan cache-of-the-month, and re-introducing monthly statistics and Top 10 lists. All of these features will need the GeocacheAlaska! community’s help in order to work. 

Newsletter stories can be full stories, brief snippets, or even just a few pictures with a quick description. And definitely don’t worry if it’s not “professional” or you don’t think you’re a good writer- hearing each other’s unique voices is part of the joy of reading the newsletter! 

If you have something to share in Caching Around the State, please send it to Sarah Pace (RSPace) at rspace.ak@gmail.com

Happy Caching in 2026!
Sarah Pace (team RSPace)
Secretary, GeocacheAlaska!

By Mike Malvick (Greatland Reviewer/LadybugKids)

It is something most people do not want to talk about, but a little individual planning can provide a lot of clarity regarding what happens to a cacher’s caches and trackables upon the cacher’s death.  Geocaching HQ’s policy is very clear that caches and trackables can only be adopted to another player with the express permission of a family member, as the cache remains the property of the deceased cacher’s (decedent’s) estate.  Therefore, it falls to each individual cacher to include their geocaching-related property in their personal estate plan.

In the event of a cacher’s death, the following occurs:

• Unless Geocaching HQ hears from the family requesting otherwise, no immediate action is taken. The community grieves when another community member passes away, and their natural wish is to protect the decedent’s legacy. Often there is nothing wrong with the caches and they can continue to be found.
• If the decedent had friends in the community, those friends sometimes have a connection to the cacher’s family.  When the time is right, the friends may decide to contact the family to ask what they would like to see happen with the caches. There is no urgency to do this. The caches will be all right and the family has more important things to worry about during those first few months.
• Sometimes Geocaching HQ never hears anything from family and friends and all activity on the account ceases.  In this case, the local Reviewer archives the caches with the normal sweeping process as the caches fall into disrepair. The community will have had time to grieve and fix up the caches if they are going to do so, and the caches can quietly be archived.

The following options are available to the decedent’s family:

1. Archive the listings, so that the locations are opened up to other community members.
2. Work with the local caching community to maintain the caches.  The local Reviewer will coordinate with Geocaching HQ if the Reviewer knows that a cache(s) will be well maintained by a community and Geocaching HQ will help determine if this is a viable option based upon communication with the decedent’s family.
3. Adopt the listing(s) to a member of the decedent’s family.
4. Adopt the listing(s) to a member of the caching community.
5. A family member takes over the decedent’s account.

The decedent’s family may coordinate the adoptions, but if the family is not involved in the game, it is generally less stressful for them to give permission for the caches to be adopted and have Geocaching HQ take care of the rest.  Assuming permission is given, Geocaching HQ can quietly transfer ownership as the local Reviewer notifies Geocaching HQ of people who want to adopt specific geocaches.

EarthCaches and Virtual caches cannot be community maintained because someone must review for correctness the answers submitted to the listing’s owner.  They may be adopted out with approval of the decedent’s family.

Decisions about trackables belonging to the decedent must be made by the decedent’s family since those trackables are presumed to be part of the decedent’s estate.  The family will physically have possession of the type of geocoin collection that is kept in display cases, or display books, etc.  In these cases, the family can contact Geocaching HQ if they wish to have any of the activated collection transferred over to a new account.

The results are in!
After the certification of the election for this year’s open board seats, we are pleased to announce the 2026 GeocacheAlaska! board of directors:

• President: Wesley Skinner – NorthWes (Anchorage)
• Vice President: Blake Stewart – jackcat14 (Anchorage)
• Treasurer: Lisa Williams – WOCM (Anchorage)
• Secretary: Sarah Pace – RSPace (Eagle River)
• Webmaster: Scott Aleckson – SSO JOAT (Soldotna)
• Member at Large: Susan Bartel – getatm (Willow)
• Member at Large: Trish Fredieu – AKLoisandClark (Chugiak)
• Member at Large: Bill VanCouwenberghe – AlaskaVans (Anchorage)
• Member at Large: River Brubaker – rb127126  (Palmer)