GARY WARTH

Staff Writer

It's out there somewhere, just up the hill, but David Kier of Vista will have to seek guidance from above to find it.

Kier likes electronic gadgets, and he likes to hike. For the past few months he's been combining the two in "geocaching," a high-tech version of the old treasure hunt that uses Global Positioning System devices to find hidden loot.

On this particular morning, Kier, 43, is at the entry to Buena Vista Park in Vista, where he had hidden three "caches," the term for the items players stash as prizes for others to find.

"This is accurate to 21 feet," he says as he pulls out his yellow Garmin eTrex, a yellow GPS device that fits in his palm and cost him $114 at Wal-Mart.

He checks his coordinates: North 33 degrees, 9.431 minutes, West 117 degrees, 14.797 minutes. The coordinates are the same as the longitude and latitude lines on the globe, which place San Diego County at about North 33 or 32 degrees, West 117 degrees.

After entering the coordinates for the cache, Kier's GPS device tells him he is .21 miles away from it, and an arrow points him in its direction. As he begins walking, the screen also tells him how fast he is going and how long it will take him to arrive at the cache at that pace.

The game seems remarkably easy, until he glances ahead and sees the steep trail awaiting him. But the challenge of making it up that hill and interacting with nature is the real fun of geocaching, players say.

"Your GPS is pointing you in the right direction, but you're looking at the terrain, watching for rattlesnakes, trying to think like the person who hid it, thinking 'Where would they put it?'" says Terry Hunefeld of Leucadia, who stashed the first cache in the county last January.

Hunefeld, 49, is an avid hiker and has owned a GPS device for about a year, but he only learned about geocaching late last year when he read a magazine article about it.

The article explained that people around the world are using GPS technology for a new version of treasure hunting, placing items in watertight containers and stashing them for others to find, using clues posted on the Web site www.geocaching.com. When people find the caches, they can take an item from the cache, and are asked to leave something for the next player.

When he went home and logged on to the site, Hunefeld discovered there were none in San Diego County. He hid the first one Jan. 7, on a hillside known as Double Peak in San Marcos. It is listed on www.geocaching.com as "San Diego Ocean View," hidden by "Tuna," the name Hunefeld uses on the site.

"Thousands of people drive by Double Peak every day," he says. "For me, I say, 'Wow, I'd like to walk up that.' "

Hiding a cache at Double Peak gave him the excuse to make that walk, and the cache since has lured at least seven hikers who wrote about finding the cache on the geocaching Web site.

Hunefeld cached a cassette tape of Steven Covey's "First Things First," a CD by the Kinks, batteries, a night light and a book on earthquakes.

"It's not what's in the cache for me, and a lot of other guys," Hunefeld says. "It's the fun of finding it. I've seldom taken anything, but just sign the log book."

The Web site geocaching.com explains how geocaching started. The game is partly a product of the end of the Cold War and couldn't have been played even one year ago. But on May 1, 2000, the federal government boosted the GPS signal so that devices that use a 24-satellite system could find precise locations.

With the signal boosted, hand-held devices that had been able to find locations only within 300 feet suddenly could find spots within 20 feet.

By May 3, 2000, Dave Ulmer of Portland, Ore., celebrated the newly boosted signal by hiding a cache and posting its location on a satellite navigation newsgroup. Within three days it was visited twice.

Later that month, Mike Teague created a Web site for a game he called the GPS Stash Hunt. Geocaching.com later became the headquarters for the game.

"I'm out every weekend," Hunefeld says about his geocaching adventures. "Every weekend, I have to go out. And I love the Anza-Borrego Desert. There's some great ones out there."

Not everybody interested in the game is an avid hiker like Hunefeld, however, which is part of the charm of geocaching.

"I got a call last Saturday from a guy in Ramona," Hunefeld recalls. "He and seven people had climbed up Mount Woodson to find my cache."

The callers were out of breath and told Hunefeld how difficult the hike was. Hunefeld, who doesn't think the hike is that hard, suspects they were not very accustomed to the great outdoors but were more at home playing games in front of their PCs at home.

"I think this is something that's going to get people outdoors more," Kier says. "It's something for geeky dads to do."

Kier, a single father of two sons ages 10 and 12, has a passion for traveling in Baja California, Mexico, and has even hidden caches there. His first three caches, however, were in Vista at Buena Vista Park and can be found on the geocaching Web site as Arroyo Vista #1, #2 and #3.

Arriving at the top of the hill in Buena Vista Park, he finds the cache is still there, hidden under some brush.

One sticky issue about the game is the reality that things are being left behind in parks and near trails. Since some may consider the caches nothing more than litter, players take great pains to keep them out of view, but not so hidden that they can't be found.

Players also must be responsible about what they leave in caches, with matches and weapons examples of what should not be left behind, Kier says.

Kier had left dog biscuits, batteries, a water bottle, chewing gum, sun block, a toy compass, a toy plane and other items when he first hid the cache. Opening the plastic box, he finds a few people have signed his log book. The chewing gum and some toys are missing, and someone has left behind a poncho and some flower seeds.

Most cache items are inexpensive but fun treats, but they can be more exciting finds.

Greg Hamerly, a computer science graduate student at UC San Diego, said he has discovered a Gulf War medal and a ring from Ireland in caches, although he left both behind.

"On my first find I got some gift certificates from Blockbuster," he says. "Last time I got Silly Putty."

Hamerly, 23, says he loves the outdoors and goes on geocache hunts about twice a month.

"Half the fun is the hike and the scenery," he said.

Jim Doss, a 44-year-old missionary living near Tecate, Mexico, said he once found a rock-climbing device worth about $60 in a cache.

"I heard a guy put in a Palm Pilot, but mostly it's just penny-ante stuff," Doss says.

Doss has left bottle rockets, VHS tapes, Mexican money, cassette tapes from his pastor and copies of the New Testament.

"I try to make them very interesting for a wide range of people," Doss says.

GPS devices can be valuable, even life-saving, for hikers who are in unfamiliar territory, or they could just be handy to have if you park your car in a large, unmarked lot.

But in reality, there really isn't much need on an average day to know your exact coordinates on Earth, which is why geocaching was invented.

"To be honest with you, what else is there to do with a GPS unit?" Doss says. "They're cool and all, but what else do you do with it once you get it?"

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

Geocaching Info

GPS devices range from about $100 to several hundred dollars, but to get into geocaching, many users say the inexpensive, hand-held models are standard for the game. Most are available at electronics, sporting goods or department stores.

Magellan makes several GPS devices, including the 12-Channel GPS 315 Navigator, which sells for anywhere from $145 to $210. The device has a database of more than 15,000 cities and can store 500 waypoints, or locations. It measures distance and average speed, and estimates arrival time. It also lets users create their own data pages to customize what information they see. Magellan's ColorTRAK sells for $300 to $400 and was the first with a color display.

Brunton's Multi-Navigation System sells for about $400. It can store 1,000 waypoints and gives 12-hour weather forecasts, has a barometer that displays 24-hour pressure history, and an altimeter that records high and low altitudes.

The Garmin eTrex sells for about $100 to $150 and is a very popular model for geocaching. It is designed specifically for hiking, biking and camping, can calculate speed and stores 500 waypoints. One feature allows users to plot a course with up to 10 waypoints in both directions.

Web sites: www.geocaching.com

4/29/01