Geocaching taking hold: Local hi-tech treasure hunt planned this weekend

By: JOSE CARVAJAL - Staff Writer | Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:09 PM PST ∞

Dave Bohorquez wants you to cache him if you can. He's hidden dozens of secret stashes of goodies around Southwest County and all it takes to find them is a computer, an Internet connection and a hand-held Global Positioning System locater.

It's called "geocaching" and it's a game ---- sort of a high-tech treasure hunt ---- that's growing in popularity not only in Southwest County but around the world.

Geocachers pull longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates for stashes hidden all over the globe from the Internet and use their GPS locaters to find them. Often, the stashes, which traditionally contain small trinkets as token rewards for those who find them, are hidden in areas that require some sort of hike to reach.

The caches also include logbooks so people can see how many times a particular cache has been found and who has found it.

Bohorquez, 44, took the game up a couple of years ago.

An avid angler, the Murrieta resident had purchased a GPS locater for fishing trips and learned that it could also be used for another purpose. Soon, he and his two children were hooked.

Through geocaching, Bohorquez said, they've become part of a growing community.

"I've met friends here in town that I never would have met," he said.

One of those friends is Jodi Marutori, a 39-year-old Murrieta resident who says she took up geocaching so she could train to climb mountains with her husband. She decided a year ago that she wants to reach the summit of Mount Shasta with him, she said, but first had to learn how to use a GPS locater, which can cost anywhere from $80 to several hundred dollars.

At first, she was intimidated by the gizmo, Marutori said.

"I love it," she said. "I used to be afraid of it at first, but now I just love the thing. Anybody can use this thing."

Though climbing Mount Shasta has been put on hold for the time being, Marutori said, she and her husband are planning to climb Mount Whitney in August. While she's up there, she said, she's going to do a little geocaching.

Bohorquez and Marutori are members of the Temecula Valley Geocachers, a group of about 30 local enthusiasts who are hosting the third annual Temecula Geocache Event this weekend in Wildomar.

The group is expecting about 500 people ---- including some from as far away as Canada ---- to show up at the event, which begins at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the lower-level gymnasium at Cornerstone Community Church, 34570 Monte Vista Road, Wildomar.

Bohorquez said the group hopes to get people to try geocaching. It's a great family activity, he said, and a good reason to get outdoors.

The geocachers group has spent the last week hiding dozens of stashes. While many are hidden in wilderness areas on the outskirts of Southwest County, others are actually hidden in commercial and residential areas.

Some of the stashes have been hidden in easy-to-find places for beginners and others in harder-to-find spots for the advanced geocachers.

Bohorquez says that a big part of the fun for him is hiding the caches.

Coordinates and clues for the location of the stashes are listed on the Web site www.geocaching.com. Bohorquez said that he enjoys leaving tricky clues. He also likes to hide the stashes in places where it isn't so easy to find them.

"I like to make it tricky," he said. "I like to make people think."

He also likes it when he's searching for a stash that's not easy to find or at the end of a long hike.

"If I'm trying to find a cache that's up on a hill, because I've got the cache at the end and I've got to get to it, I keep going," he said.

Contact staff writer Jose Carvajal at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or jcarvajal@californian.com.