Cache prizes

“DO we go right?” Jack Ogborn asks his partner, Shirley O’Connell, as the couple hike up a dirt trail at the base of the Verdugo Mountains in Glendale. O’Connell’s eyes are fixed on a hand-held GPS device that tells her their quarry is a few yards away and to the left, near a low-hanging maple tree.

They stop when they reach the coordinates displayed on the tiny screen and begin to root through a patch of dried weeds and shrubs.

“I found it!” Ogborn says, pulling out the hidden treasure: a camouflage-colored container filled with plastic toys.

Just then, a man in baggy shorts walks by and gives the couple a suspecting stare.

“Muggles,” Ogborn sneers at the hiker. It’s a term from the Harry Potter fantasy books, used to describe nonmagical folks. In Ogborn’s world, muggles are people who don’t understand or appreciate geocaching.

Only two years ago, this retired couple from Arleta were muggles themselves. Now, geocaching is their passion.

“We love it,” O’Connell says. “We get caches, exercise and entertainment.”

Geocaching is a hobby that combines hiking and treasure hunting with the latest advances in portable global positioning system devices. Cachers, as they like to be called, hide waterproof containers -- caches-- and mark their exact locations with GPS coordinates that are posted on the Internet. Other cachers get the coordinates, punch the numbers into hand-held GPS receivers and follow the digital directions to the hidden prizes.

What’s inside the containers -- usually cheap knickknacks, plastic toys and a logbook -- is not significant. It’s the challenge of the hunt that fuels this sport. Serious cachers compete to uncover the greatest number of caches. The world champion claims more than 12,000.

The hobby is surging in popularity, almost doubling in new players annually for nearly six years. And now is the time of year when the pastime gains the most newcomers. More geocaching converts are born in December, January and February, because that is typically when people who receive GPS units as Christmas gifts discover that the hand-held devices have some recreational uses besides locating the nearest Starbucks outlet.

But geocaching is not as simple as following directions from a GPS unit, which is accurate to within 10 feet at best. At the satellite coordinates, a cache might be placed inside a fake rock, a plastic apple, a man-made bird nest, even a knot in an oak tree. A cache can be as big as a car battery or as small as a pencil eraser. The extremely difficult caches come with clues posted on the Internet.

Ogborn and O’Connell’s favorite cache was in an Oxnard park where the GPS device led them to a patch of green grass. At the spot, they found nothing but a lowly snail. They gave up, but returned a few days later to find the same snail in the same spot. The snail, which was fake, was the cache and contained a tiny scroll instead of a logbook.

Cachers track the birth of the hobby to May 1, 2000, the day President Clinton signed legislation giving the public access to extremely accurate satellite signals previously reserved for the military. Within days, computer-savvy adventurers began posting Internet GPS coordinates for hidden treasures in Oregon, California, Kansas and Illinois.

Today, geocaching has grown into a sport with about 1 million players worldwide, enthusiasts who rummage through parks, trails and city streets in search of more than 222,000 caches in 219 countries, according to Geocaching.com, a leading geocaching website. There are now caches in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia and Lebanon. A brazen soul even put a cache in the arm of a statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad.

Attend a geocaching party and you are likely to meet baby boomers and retirees with an affinity for high-tech gadgets, brain-draining puzzles and outdoor adventures. The banter will be laced with words such as “travel bug” (an item that is moved from cache to cache), “spoiler” (a hint that gives away a hiding spot), “swag” (the trinkets found in the cache) and “microcache” (a very, very small hidden container).

Sounds like a hobby for nerds? No doubt, but geocaching can be stimulating and addictive.

“It’s the challenge of the search that we like,” says Frank Marler, a Navy veteran who along with his wife, Sandy, has uncovered about 300 caches in about a year.

THE hobby is not without controversy. Local, state and national park officials have mixed feelings about geocaching. Some park officials prohibit the hobby, and others allow it only with prior approval.

Though cache hunting encourages outdoor exploration, national park officials are wary of visitors who leave sealed containers hidden on public land, particularly since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As a matter of federal policy, rangers are to confiscate all containers left for more than 24 hours on federal land.

Rangers say that some cachers damage parkland by wandering off established trails and slogging through vegetation for the best hiding spot. A park ranger at the Mojave National Preserve uncovered a partially buried cache in a Native American archeological site. Kirk Gebicke, the preserve’s supervising park ranger, says the cache he pulled from a rock cove in the site four years ago was one of about 40 caches he and other rangers have uncovered.

“It’s fun. I like doing it myself,” he says of geocaching. But it can be destructive if cachers take the hobby into sensitive wilderness terrain, Gebicke says.

Park officials such as Gebicke suggest that cachers take part in an alternative pastime called “virtual caching.” Instead of searching for a hidden treasure, cachers follow GPS coordinates to a “virtual prize,” such as a scenic view from a mountain peak or a little-known landmark in a city park.

Bryan Roth, co-founder of Geocaching.com, concedes that some overenthusiastic cachers may damage the environment. But he says most cachers are law-abiding enthusiasts and concerned environmentalists. “We really don’t want to damage the environment,” he says.

The rules for geocaching are simple: If you find a cache, you may take a prize from the container but you must replace it with a prize of your own. Each cache includes a logbook to sign as proof of your find. In the case of microcaches, you sign a tiny scroll hidden inside. Money, food and drugs are not allowed in the caches. You may not bury a cache or damage the surroundings. If you hide the cache on private land, you must get permission from the landlord.

Geocaching has no governing body or enforcement arm. It’s a pastime that operates on the honor system, and as a result, debates over the ethical way of playing the game are common at geocaching gatherings and online forums.

One recurring discussion: Is the ultimate goal to attain a high cache count or is it to experience great adventures, meet new people and explore the great outdoors?

For Steve O’Gara, an aerospace worker from Agoura Hills, the count is crucial. He ranks third in the world with more than 7,000 uncovered caches, an achievement he attributes to a technique he calls “power caching.”

When O’Gara takes his girlfriend and 14-year-old son power caching, he strives to find as many caches as possible. His record is 102 in a day. If O’Gara can’t find a cache within seven minutes, he doesn’t linger to enjoy the scenery. “If you don’t find it in seven minutes, you are not going to find it,” he says.

To cut his search time, he concedes, he has forced his four-wheel-drive Jeep over hiking trails, sidewalks and public parkland. “I have no qualms about taking my Jeep over bushes,” he says.

O’Gara, a loud, gregarious Harley-Davidson aficionado with salt-and-pepper hair, takes pride in his cache count. At a gathering of geocachers in a crowded pizza joint in Camarillo, he loudly reminds others of his lofty status in the geocaching world and playfully teases those who have yet to crack the 1,000-cache mark.

JOHN NOBLE, a longtime hiker from Thousand Oaks, cringes at such talk. He got hooked on the hobby three years ago and sees it as another way to enjoy the outdoors. He has uncovered more than 1,000 caches, often with his three children in tow. Noble, an avid environmentalist, makes it a practice to pick up litter as he hunts for caches.

Noble frowns upon O’Gara’s technique.

“I enjoy the sport but that’s not what it’s about for me,” he says.

“Steve will do anything if it means getting a cache.”

O’Gara knows he is the subject of scorn from fellow cachers, but he doesn’t lose any sleep over it.

“It’s mindless fun,” he says of the hobby.

And it can be risky. About a year ago, O’Gara was questioned at gunpoint when police spotted him and friends searching for a cache near railroad tracks in Riverside. After the officers holstered their guns, the police told O’Gara that they feared the cachers were terrorists plotting to disrupt rail service. O’Gara and his friends were released with a warning.

Marler, the Navy vet, says he was confronted about a year ago by two men who grew suspicious when they spotted him snooping around the gates of an elementary school in Point Hueneme.

“Once you explain it, people are usually pretty cool,” he adds.

While O’Gara takes pleasure in uncovering caches, others, like Roland Herman of Thousand Oaks, delight in hiding caches.

Herman, the manager of a high-tech company, works in his garage in his free time creating lifelike caches that blend into the environment.

He takes pride in a real acorn he fitted with a tiny metal container that opens with a twist to reveal a tiny scroll inside. Herman hid the acorn in a hole in the bark of an oak tree.

Herman has also fitted caches inside fake bolts on trail signs. He once hid a cache in a split log that was held together by magnets and concealed another in a plastic egg hidden in an abandoned bird’s nest.

“I get more fun trying to outwit them,” he says of his fellow cachers. “When they find my caches, they get a real thrill from it too.”

BACK at the base of the Verdugo Mountains, Ogborn, 78, and O’Connell, 84, put away their hiking poles and decide to try a “multi-cache,” a hunt that involves two or more locations and multiple GPS coordinates. The cache is in the final location.

The multi-cache should be a good challenge, says Ogborn, who, along with O’Connell, has uncovered more than 1,000 caches.

Ogborn opens the trunk of his Honda Accord to reveal a hoard of geocaching paraphernalia: dozens of plastic film canisters he uses as cache containers, plastic toys to put in the caches, rubber gloves for reaching into dark, dirty places and a step ladder for getting at caches in trees.

Ogborn is a retired gas company planner. O’Connell worked as a sales manager for a machinery firm. Two years ago, O’Connell’s son introduced the couple to geocaching.

At the time, they stayed in shape by power walking at a local mall. Ogborn and O’Connell did not consider themselves outdoors enthusiasts or computer wonks, but after only a few cache searches they were hooked.

Now they attend geocaching parties, travel around the state in search of challenging quests and hide an occasional cache.

“You don’t always know what you are going to get into in this world,” says O’Connell, who, like her partner, is polite and soft-spoken but energetic.

The coordinates to the multi-cache lead the couple to a cul-de-sac behind a supermarket in La Canada Flintridge. Ogborn becomes animated. He says the cacher who hid this is known for creating challenging hunts.

Ogborn’s GPS receiver says the first clue is 400 feet south of the car. The couple eye the GPS device as they stroll to a set of newspaper racks in front of a post office. The GPS unit indicates the cache is somewhere in or around the newspaper racks. Ogborn puts on his rubber gloves and reaches behind and below the newspaper racks. Nothing.

O’Connell reminds Ogborn that this cache came with one clue: “Free homes, land and Cache.”

One of the racks distributes a free magazine called “Homes and Land.” The couple agree that the clue refers to that rack. Ogborn reaches under the rack and finds a tiny cylinder container, the size of a AAA battery, stuck to the bottom with a magnet. Inside the container, he uncovers a tiny scroll that reads, “Box 1062 displays your next clue.”

Box 1062 must refer to a post office box in the nearby post office, the couple decide.

They are right. Inside the tiny glass door of Box 1062, Ogborn and O’Connell see a set of handwritten coordinates. Ogborn punches the numbers into his GPS device, which tells him that the final cache is 470 feet north.

The couple hike back toward their car at the end of the cul-de-sac. The GPS receiver directs Ogborn and O’Connell to a spot on the sidewalk, bordered by a scrawny tree and a knee-high bush.

There is nothing in the tree so, with his gloved hand, Ogborn reaches under the bush.

“He thinks he’s going to get us on this last one,” a determined Ogborn says of the cacher who hid the container.

The couple root around for a few minutes until O’Connell pulls out a green plastic water jug from behind the bush -- the final cache. She pops open the lid and pours out the contents: a toy car, an eraser, a plastic coin, a pen and a logbook.

“That was a good one,” Ogborn says as O’Connell signs the logbook. “It almost got me.”

The couple put the jug back in its hiding place and shuffle back to their car. They buckle up and speed off.

Another cache is waiting to be found.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Gearing up

To try geocaching, you will need three things: a GPS receiver, access to the Internet and a comfortable pair of shoes.

Global positioning system receivers cost $100 to $1,000, depending on the capabilities they provide. Look for a GPS receiver that makes it easy to enter longitude and latitude coordinates, also known as waystations.

There are several websites that list cache coordinates, but one of the most popular is Geocaching.com. Website membership is free. Log in, type in your ZIP Code and the website produces a list of caches in your area, including coordinates, clues and a difficulty rating for each cache. (A description of the area will let you know if your hunt is on a rocky mountain trail or a smooth city sidewalk.)

Once you enter the coordinates into the GPS receiver, the device will tell you how far away and in which direction to go to find the cache.

But before you begin your hunt, be sure to pack some trinkets -- small toys, trading cards or stickers -- to replace the prizes you take from the hidden cache. Also bring a pen to sign the cache logbook.

Want to hook up with some experienced cachers? For Southern Californians, go to Southern California Geocachers at www.socalgeocachers.com to learn about upcoming events. Show up to an event holding a GPS receiver, and veteran cachers will be glad to teach you the basics. You can also learn more from publications such as “Geocaching for Dummies” or “The Geocaching Handbook,” both at major bookstores.

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-- Hugo Martin