Best of SLAGA 2026 - Half Way There
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- Written by John Layman
- Hits: 94
Best of SLAGA, Favorite Caches Placed in the first half of 2026
Of the 198 new caches published in the 100 mile radius SLAGA territory in the first half of 2025, these are the top caches, as determined by % of favorite points awarded. There have been about 2 times as many caches published in the first half of 2026 as there were by this time last year. Way to go, you cache hiders!
As you can see though, we are missing some types. Let's have a banner 2nd half of 2026 for SLAGA land cache hides!
By cache type
| Traditional | A Bird's Eye View" | SlamminElla | GCBEW16 |
| Earth | See the Scree: Breaking Down a Bluff | DinkinFlicka392 | GCBNZZM |
| Unknown | The Big Blue Switch | Forest-Ghost | GCBJ8YC |
| Multi | Quite The Birdhouse Tree | 6dancer | GCBKJR0 |
| Virtual | Popeye the Sailor Man ???? - Virtual Reward 5.0 | krmays92 | GCBJ6ZK |
| Virtual | Ghost Town, Living History | makersmark615 | GCBJ6TY |
| Letterbox | |||
| Wherigo |
By overall % of favorite points awarded
| 88 | Traditional | A Bird's Eye View | SlamminElla | GCBEW16 |
| 75 | Traditional | Railroad Relic | mathmanbill | GCBPK7B |
| 75 | Traditional | Rockin ' Robin | 2roadtrippers | GCBRCE1 |
| 75 | Earth | See the Scree: Breaking Down a Bluff | DinkinFlicka39 | GCBNZZM |
| 71 | Traditional | Micro Gallery Micro Cache | Seth! | GCBQK74 |
| 67 | Unknown | The Big Blue Switch | Forest-Ghost | GCBJ8YC |
| 65 | Multi | Quite The Birdhouse Tree | 6dancer | GCBKJR0 |
| 59 | Unknown | Daily Dose of Happiness US # 37 - I Am Grateful | Iamgrateful | GCBH40N |
| 57 | Unknown | Destiny's Dragon Riders: #3 | Kimenm | GCBJQH0 |
| 50 | Traditional | Destiny's Dragon Riders: #4 | Kimenm | GCBQTRB |
| 50 | Traditional | MoCo BoCo Line | rntmo95 | GCBHKH5 |
| 50 | Unknown | Daily Dose of Happiness US # 53 - The Missing Link | Iamgrateful | GCBRFMP |
| 50 | Unknown | King's Quest - Weeping Willow's Heart | Unitzoid | GCBKF3B |
Congrats and thanks to the Cache Owners and everyone else who continues to create and support quality caches in the St. Louis area! Hiders!
SLAGA Springs into Picnicking Season
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 497
Spring has sprung and more than fifty geocachers took advantage of it! The SLAGA spring picnic was held on Saturday April 25, 2026 at Bolm-Schuhkraft park in beautiful Columbia, Illinois. The three lovely hosts were 3nina, 6dancer & NEgirl55 who planned a great day out. Three local reviewers graced us with their presence and support of SLAGA, and board members were also in attendance. Treasurer Vorlon40 collected fees and VP GeoKid12 sold merchandise and handed out a single 10K milestone award. VP Rouseabouts announced upcoming events and business, and Secretary TreasureIsle took mental notes for future meeting minutes.
As always, SLAGA members outdid themselves at the picnic with absolutely delicious salads, sides, and desserts to share. These accompanied the perfectly cooked brats, dogs and burgers by Turtleladi1020nhubbs! All in attendance enjoyed a feast and camaraderie under the large shelter in gorgeous 75°F.
A Trackable discovery/pickup board was on display at the picnic, and member HobbitTaz collected new racing trackables from cachers for the June to January travel bug race. If anyone still wants to join the race, contact him via GC.com message before May 15 to arrange a hand-off. (For more Race information, see the article posted March 31.)
To add more excitement to the spring picnic, the hosts provided yard games adjacent to the shelter, including: Ping-pong roll, Hillbilly golf, and a couple of cornhole/bean bag toss games. 
NEgirl55 said, “We had two games with prizes. One was the ping pong roll in which HobbitTaz held the lead with 10 points until SWAseeker rolled his way to 15 points for the win. The other was Hillbilly golf which came down to a tie between hopeza and SWAseeker. In the championship round hopeza prevailed. Each of them won a $15 Schnucks gift card and a cache to be hidden in a place of their choosing.”
The spring SLAGA picnic was a ton of fun and a huge success thanks to the organizers, volunteers, board, and all the members in attendance. If you were unable to make this event, check the SLAGA calendar of events for future ones, including happy hours, CITO's, and other local events hosted by the many wonderful SLAGA members. Thanks to all that attended and Congratulations to TerriBikes+ on her 10K milestone and award chair!
Q1 2026 ‘Scrabble’ Challenge Winner
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 818
TerriBikes+ showed some “PIZZAZZ” in the 2026 first quarter adventure awaits 'scrabble' challenge. Having four Zs at 10 points each with the event Z doubled, added up to a whopping 55 point score to win her a $25 gift card to Paneras and this first quarter highlight.
Terri commented: "I trekked, biked, and even hobbled in a foot boot, the last few weeks, for many miles and many smiles this first quarter to achieve my personal goal of gathering all 26 letters. I wanted the chance to make any high scoring word I could. But after hundreds of finds, with multiples of most letters, I realized I actually had four Zs! It was an obvious choice then to pick the word I did, and soon realized I only used four of the 26 letters! 😁 It was luck really that I happened to already have planned trips to visit family and for other purposes where a Z cache awaited me. Many thanks to the SLAGA board for coming up with such a fun and unique quarterly challenge. I'm looking forward to the next."
Not only did Terri achieve the adventure awaits win this first quarter, but also ended up finding her 10,000th geocache in March as well!
Congratulations on this win, Terri, and keep caching your way to 25K as many more Adventures Await!
Let the 2026 Travel Bug Race Begin…
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 627
The 2026 SLAGA Travel Bug Race Begins in May! Send your trackable into the wild and watch the adventure unfold.
TB Drop-off: SLAGA Spring Picnic – April 25, 2026 (GCBKMAJ)
Official Race Start: GeoWoodstock XXII – May 23, 2026 (GCB7GWH)
Race Finish Line: One week prior to the January 2027 SLAGA Potluck (TBD)
The starting line is back in sight as SLAGA kicks off a brand-new Travel Bug Race season. This annual favorite invites members to send their travel bugs and other trackables out into the world, watching as fellow geocachers help them journey from cache to cache.
How to Enter the Race
Race Core Categories
This year's race will use the same categories as last year.
In the event of a tie in any category, total miles shown on the TB’s page (minus any starting corrections) will be used as the tiebreaker.
Each participant may enter only one Travel Bug and may win only one category. If a participant places in multiple categories, the second-place TB becomes the category winner.
Racing Tips to Improve Your Chances
New to Travel Bugs?
A Travel Bug or trackable is a uniquely coded geocaching item owned by a player. Its tracking code allows its movement to be logged online each time it is picked up and placed in another cache, creating a shared adventure for everyone involved.
We encourage participants to prepare their trackables in advance and bring them to the designated SLAGA kickoff event for official entry. From there, the community takes over, moving the trackables along and adding stories to their travels.
Whether your travel bug crosses state lines or circles close to home, every log adds to the story. Throughout the season, updates and standings will be shared so everyone can follow the progress and cheer on their favorites.
So dust off those dog tags, prep your trackable, and get ready to race. Adventure, camaraderie, and plenty of logging await in this year’s SLAGA Travel Bug Race!
[Race Information provided by SLAGA member and Travel Bug manager, Mark Derr.]
A Cozy Gathering-2026 SLAGA Winter Potluck
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 721
The 2026 Winter Potluck SLAGA picnic, hosted by L Frank and Denmother was held on Jan 31, 2026. It was a cozy gathering this winter in The Lemay Pavillion at Jefferson Barracks County Park. More than 60 members plus several muggles attended the potluck bringing and sharing a delicious spread of food including salads, soups, pastas, meats and sandwiches, veggies, chips, and a very nice array of scrumptious deserts. "There was enough food that attendees could visit the 'buffet' three times!," said CO L Frank.
Wonderful volunteers assisted the COs so the event ran smoothly and included several fun activities. Many thanks to the following members for jobs well done.
SETUP spiritwolf922, Treasure Isle, Rouseabouts
FOOD TABLE SWAseeker, nan-d1955
REGISTRATION/GEOBINGO How-D, Treasure Isle
50-50 TICKETS turtleladi1020
GEOCOINS/TRAVEL BUGS 6dancer
RAFFLE/TICKET SALES bluedaisy, Loonwoman
CLEANUP arabbit&ubuck
In addition to the picnic activities, there were various awards handed out. The 9-month long travel bug race culminated at this picnic with the announcement of winners. Here are all the winners from this year's potluck event:
5000 MILESTONE - Mathmanbill
50-50 WINNER - bazfum
GEO-BINGO WINNERS $10 Gift card:
Repmul, Team DLADL, Driver2, IBEW ret, and How-D
TRAVEL BUG RACE WINNERS $25 Gift card:
PHOTOS: 2roadtrippers
TOTAL GEOCACHERS: turleladi1020nhubbs
TOTAL LOGS: 6dancer
The raffle item winners were all pleased with their treasures too, but one in particular stood out. A 3-D printed puzzle box type geocache was made by SLAGA member Team State and won by spiritwolf922.
Everyone in attendance had a great time and left with smiles on their faces (and some in their geocaching stats), as well as full tummies! Congratulations to all the potluck and award winners! Have a cozy rest of the winter and hope to see many more SLAGA members at upcoming events.
December 2025 Champ
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- Written by Terri Nealon
- Hits: 945
Congratulations to Trailliart, Jesse McCarty, SLAGA's December 2025 Adventure Awaits Challenge Winner! He has participated in Adventure Awaits since August and won this past month, with these qualifying Cachemas caches and an event.
GCBEWXT Day 6 - 2025 Cachemas in STL
GCBEQKG Day 11 - 2025 Cachemas in STL
GCBDYTJ Day 9 - 2025 Cachemas in STL [FTF]
GCB1XZB 2025 Community Celebration Event-Last Chance
Amazingly, Jesse has only been geocaching for one year, even though he'd heard about it 15 years ago. In Jesse's short caching history, he's found nearly 750 caches, but is currently 'streak' caching with 333 consecutive days as of this article posting. He also only has 15 D/T spots left to complete a Fizzy grid, but already has six 5/5s. He also only has 18 upcoming days left to complete the 366 calendar day grid.
An achievement that amazes this geocaching journalist is that Jesse solved and completed 'The Architect' mega-multi just 6 months into caching! When asked about a favorite caching memory, Jesse stated that his, "most favorite moment geocaching was completing The Architect (GC4CQ9V). When I first learned of that cache, it was early on I my caching days and I didn't know where to begin. Eventually, I not only learned how to get started, but I did it entirely on my own in just under a month." Now that's impressive!
And what's even more impressive and makes Jesse a champ of another kind is a personal accomplishment he shared.
"I use to weigh north of 260 lbs, but got down to about 157 lbs by late October 2024. Following that, I wanted to take part in physical activities, such as walking a number of miles per day to stay fit. In the first half of January 2025, I remembered about geocaching and figured that might be an interesting way to stay active. I don't regret any bit of that decision at all."
Jesse has been an outdoorsy person since a child. He says he "likes to explore the woods and go on long hikes. Forest-Ghost caches have made it especially fun for me to go in the woods, because I didn't know you could find so many unusual things such as abandoned structures and decades old cars."
Geocaching certainly seems like the perfect fit for Jesse. Extending congratulations again to him on his December win, but also for his caching prowess and personal achievements and success!
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