From the twisting sidewalks of Riverfront Park to the rocky forests of the Palisades, Spokane is filled with hidden treasure. But it’s not the kind that would attract a pirate.

Geocaching, the modern-day treasure hunt where users search for hidden containers using a GPS app, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Though it now boasts caches on all seven continents, the activity had humble beginnings in the Northwest, with some of the first users and geocaches ever placed originating in Spokane.

In the early days of the platform, geocaching was confined to users with existing knowledge of GPS. Users would choose coordinates posted on geocaching.com, then head to the wilderness with bulky and expensive GPS devices that had limited precision.

One of those was Spokane’s own Jon Sta

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