Treasure hunters wander Carson

Don't be surprised if you see people scouring the downtown area with little hand-held electronic devices - the Nevada Commission on Tourism has set up a geocache.

A geo-what?

A geocache is a hidden container of goodies that a person finds using his or her global-positioning system receiver, or GPS. Armed only with longitude and latitude coordinates, seekers find the hidden boxes to win a variety of awards.

The commission's "Dash for the Cache" game was announced to the media Friday, but geocachers have been finding things since the start of this month.

To get the coordinates for a geocache, GPS users log on to Web sites like www.geocaching.com. The coordinates for the commission's "Dash for the Cache" game are 39 degrees 09.973 north latitude and 119 degrees 45.989 west longitude.

Geocachers log in both at the cache and on the Web site.

On Saturday, a person who calls his/herself "Codekracker" left this message about the "Dash" cache online: "Just started GEOCACHING today. This is the first of eight we found just today. Got the prize."

"Nevada's wide open spaces make a perfect landscape for geocaching," said Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, chairwoman of the Nevada Commission of Tourism.

The commission will soon place a cache in Primm, a small resort community southwest of Las Vegas.

"Geocaching is like modern-day prospecting," said Bruce Bommarito, executive director of the commission. "It's fun for all levels of experience, from kids to grandparents and first-timers to people who have logged literally more than 1,000 caches in one year."

According to www.geocaching.com, there are 77,892 active caches in 192 countries. There are several other geocaches in the Carson City area - some only a block or two from the commission's cache.

For many caches, such as the one "Monty Wolf" hid on the Capitol grounds, scrambled hints are on the Internet.

"Geocaching complements Nevada's recreational vehicle and outdoor adventure programs because many RVers and adventurers have a GPS in their vehicle," Bommarito said.

For more details

Go to www.travelnevada.com, www.geocaching.com or call 1-800-NEVADA-8.