With all the tragedies that have happened around schools, Summit County Sheriff's Office erred on the side of safety. How could a lot of people not have been scared, at all?

Most people would probably have looked at this device and believed something nefarious was involved. Add that it was close to a school, and you find the authorities bringing in a bomb squad. Geocaching in Colorado shouldn't come to this.

Denver 7 has the report on how Summit County Sheriff's Office ended up blowing up what was believed to have been a pipe bomb that was found near the middle school in Frisco, Colorado.  It's absolutely better to be "safe" than "sorry," but the whole incident could have been easily avoided.

The item turned out to be a geocache container. It sure did not look harmless, that's for sure.

Geocache-Container-Frisco
Summit County Sheriff
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There had been bomb threats made against Front Range Community College campuses (which later turned out to be a hoax) during the week that this item was discovered. You can see where people would be concerned about it, especially buried near a middle school.

Summit County Sheriff's Office made it clear that they were not pleased with how this could easily have been avoided:

Today’s incident took a significant amount of time and valuable resources of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, Frisco Police Department, Colorado State Patrol and the Jefferson County Bomb Squad. With the recent school bomb threats sweeping the nation and here in Colorado this past week, geocaching participants should be sensitive of the types of vaults they are creating and the materials used to make them. No one should be making and planting devices that look similar to pipe bombs near school campuses for any reason.

WHAT EXACTLY IS "GEOCACHING," ANYWAY?

That's where my mind went when I heard about this story, so I thought others might be wondering as well. Basically, geocaching is like a treasure hunt: Using hints/clues, people try to locate a hidden container (a cache) and then sign their name on a piece of paper inside the device/container to prove that they found it.

Geocache
Canva.com
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In practical execution, geocaching is great: You're outside, getting exercise, using your brain, and having a good time. It's when people make their containers/vaults to look "unusual," like the one in Frisco and the one below, when trouble can ensue.

Geocache
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A little common sense, in today's times, can go a long way. Think it through, people.

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