Hunting for Roseville treasure

Think your GPS will just get you to the nearest gas station or pizza parlor? Think again.Geocaching, an adventure game that's growing in popularity thanks to the Internet, lets GPS owners go on treasure hunts, right in their own communities. "It's incredibly popular," said Christa Lindsey, an REI outdoor school instructor who leads geocaching classes in the area. "There are caches in almost every country in the world now. The last time I checked, I think (there were) over 300,000 caches with over 500,000 active users."Geocaching is a game designed for people with global positioning system units who take advantage of the devices' features.The idea behind geocaching is for people to go out and find caches, or little treasure that always includes a logbook but sometimes anything from a CD or photo to jewelry or tickets. People stash and list them by their GPS coordinates.Usually, the coordinates can put a person within about 10 feet of the cache, depending upon climactic conditions that could affect the unit's ability to receive satellite radio waves.Geocaches are concealed or hidden in the open to blend in with their surroundings so they aren't easily found since they have to stay above ground."The rules explicitly say you cannot bury it," said Bryan Wright, who is also an REI outdoor school instructor.If a cache is buried, it is done without the approval of people who run geocaching.com, Wright said.Geocaching.com is the most popular site for geocaching on the Web.People submit their caches to the site once they've placed them for others to find. Geocachers can also log onto the site and create an account and track where they've found caches and keep count.Last December, several people took part in an REI outdoor school geocaching class held in Folsom to better learn how to use their GPS devices or to see it was something for them.While there are many caches stashed throughout area, the class members hunted for ones "planted" along the American River near historic Folsom.Caches with names like "Johnny Cache sings Folsom Prison Blues," "Folsom Canal," and "AC-DC" hint at the area or landmark where they may be hidden.In the "Johnny Cache sings Folsom Prison Blues" cache was a travel bug that one of the members of class took with her."I'll figure out where this guy wants to go. The worst thing I can do is put it back in a box with a note to where it's got to go if there's no way I'm going to do this again," said Tal Blackburn, who was also along so she could learn how to use her GPS device better.A travel bug is a trackable tag that can be attached to an item, which in the case of the "Johnny Cache" stash was a fish lure dubbed the "Lake Fork Lure" that has the goal of visiting great fishing lakes. The lure has traveled from Texas where it started.Wright pointed out just because a person has coordinates to a cache, it isn't always easy to get to. It could involve long hiking or climbing and, in rare cases, it could even be under water.REI plans to offer an Introduction to Geocaching class March 4 at the Roseville store, 1148 Galleria Blvd., Roseville.For more information about geocaching, log onto www.geocaching.com or call REI's Roseville store at 724-6750.