High Tech Treasure Hunt By Laurie Bazemore Enthusiasts bring an adventurous spirit and a GPS system to the 'geocaching.'    At the top of the Forest Theater's stairs, there was no thespian roll call. Everyone huddled around Rafael Gonzalez and peered at the display screen on the small global positioning system (GPS) receiver he held in his hand.    The receiver displayed downloaded Web coordinates, known as “waypoints,” that indicated the location of a hidden treasure somewhere nearby.    Gonzalez was a fitting leader. He had become expert in navigational guidance during his four years in the U.S. Army. This outing, however, was strictly for sport.    Waypoints displayed, Gonzalez pressed a key labeled “go to”. A digitized compass arrow appeared, pointing toward the northwest. The group followed the arrow, walking toward Battle Creek Trail. The hunt was on.    Gonzalez, like growing numbers of like-minded people nationwide and in more than 100 countries around the world, is a devoted enthusiast of the high-tech treasure hunting game known as “geocaching.” An adventurous spirit and a GPS receiver are the only prerequisites.    Here's how it works: A “cacher,” as participants are known, hides a container-usually a plastic bucket or storage container, sometimes even an old emptied ammunition canister-in some out-of-the-way location where passersby won't stumble upon it. The cache creator ususally fills the container with a range of novelties: trinkets, pictures, key chains, any manner of things.   Once a cache is hidden, the cacher posts the waypoints of the site on a geocaching Web site. Othe ronline cachers then download the waypoints and set out on foot to try to locate the well-disguised caches. It can be a little tricky; on average, GPS receivers can determine an approximate location within 6 feet to 20 feet.    In Orange County, caches are everywhere: there's at least one near Bolin Creek, more along the Eno River, and even one in a well-disguised spot right near Carr Mill Mall.    Gonzalez and his fiancee, Tamriko Guralia, once hunted down a cache in Carrboro's Anderson Park that can only be found at night; guided by the GPS receiver to a group of trees marked with reflectors that were virtually invisible by daylight, they then followed a primitive trail until they came upon the cache.    A May 2005 UNC-CH graduate, Gonzalez bought a receiver after a former supervisor introduced him to the game. Ever since, he has regularly geocached around Orange County and beyond.    “[Geocaching] is this worldwide hide-and-go-seek,” Gonzalez said. “If you read the profiles of those who list caches, it's a real subculture of people who are out to have a good time.”    Under the accepted rules of the game, caches are not to be buried. They can, however, be covered with brush or leaves, tucked down among fallen logs, hidden under bridges and otherwise disguised from easy view. A GPS receiver can generally get you within a 20-foot radius of a cache, but amidst Mother Nature's unkempt trails and woods, even that relatively limited search area is not so easily combed. To preserve the fun, most creators post clues identifying a recognizable landmark alongside waypoints.    In Battle Park, Gonzalez and his little band of fellow searches zeroed in on their target. They narrowed the search area down to a 30-foot radius. At that point, it was time to turn to the clue that had been posted on the Web.    It first had to be decrypted with a letters-for-letters alphabetic code. Deciphered, it said, “The cache is hidden in the center of a fallen tree lying on the left side of the trail.”    Eureka. Two minutes later, the group gathered around the cache, which had been hidden by something called the Carolina Troop Supporters.    Several caching trends have become widespread. Most caches invite players to “Cache In/Cache Out”-that is, when you remove an item from a cache, leave something else in its place for the next finder.    In caches dubbed “Cache In/Trash Out,” environmentally minded originators place trash bags in the containers for visitors to pick up any litter in the area.    Many avid geocachers hardly limit themselves to caching within close range. Ken Alexander, a devoted geocacher known to fellow cachers as “Grandpa Alex,” has hidden 27 caches between Charleston, S.C., and his permanent residence in Sanford. In the Triangle alone, he claims he's “all cached out in Orange County.”    An energetic retiree, he sometimes downloads up to 500 waypoints into his sophisticated receiver before departing in the wee hours for day's worth of caching.    One recent Saturday morning was no exception. Alexander and his geocaching partner, Roger Dillard, had already been out tracking treasure since 6 a.m. They arrived at Duke Gardens in Durham several hours later, dressed for the part-both sported “geocaching.com” caps.    They were on the trail of a cache dubbed “A Journey to Tralfamadore” by its creator. It was a more complex cache than most; to track this cache down, Alexander had to commence a multi-stage hunt, or a “multi-cache,” where each discovered waypoint lists yet another one and creates a sort of trail that would ultimately lead to the final physical cache.    “Some multi-caches are so complicated that you can't do them in a day,” said Alexander.    The first waypoint trailed off to a rocky bed underneath a footbridge. Tucked behind rocks, a sealed length of plastic tubing encased a paint stirrer that was clearly marked with black-inked waypoints.    Alexander and dillard plugged in those coordinates, left the site as it was found, and steered through floral-lined paths to the next waypoint.    An uncrypted, yet confounding clue-”the beginning of a communal soup”-became clearer upon approach to a small, crescent-shaped pool off the path. The real sleuthing remained in discovering the target location.    “What's out of place here?” asked Alexander, looking closely at the area.    A smooth stone stood out from the backdrop of a dry rock wall. Upon closer examination, the rock turned out to bear the next set of waypoints, scribbled in hot pink marker, scribbled in hot pink marker. Alexander programmed the coordinates into his receiver, and the hunt continued for the third cache.    The punnery was catching on. Instructed to “go out on a limb,” Dillard obeyed and swiftly retrieved transparent luggage tags with scrawled waypoints from a nearby cedar tree. Satisfied with the prolonged tease, this cache's creator was now ready to reward any earnest soul who could hunt down a cache “last seen hiding with a troll.”    Another footbridge loomed near the target waypoint, and the fairytale allusion became abundantly clear. Dillard disappeared under the bridge, noisily moving aside rocks before resurfacing with a recycled ammunition container.    The character behind this setup was apparently a science fiction buff; the box was filled with classic titles.    On a difficulty scale of 1 to 5, the day's caching adventure was an intermediate Level 3. This fall, Alexander plans to create a Level 5 canoeing excursion in Chatham County on the Deep River.    On geocaching.com, he will instruct participants to board their canoes in Carbonton and enjoy the afternoon rowing downstream. At an unexpected stopping point near Pittsboro, the alert individual will discover that a cache is waiting to be discovered on the riverbank.    As members of a group called Triangle Area Geocachers, Alexander and Dillard commune with other devotees who are part of the most active organized group of geocachers in the state. For some, the association is analogous to varsity sports league, where teammates support each other.    Alexander's caching partnership with Dillard through the association has allowed him to set a realistic goal of finding 1,000 caches by his two-year geocaching anniversary in March 2006.    For others, however, the love of geocaching may boil down to the simple philosophy found in the text of Dillard's geocabching T-shirt: “Not all who wander are lost.”