Staff photo by Michael Jewart Geocaching has taken Ahwatukee Foothills couple Kevin and Jacqueline Mart as close as South Mountain and as far away as Costa Rica.

Kevin and Jacqueline Mart spend their weekends hunting and hiding treasure, sometimes as close as South Mountain, and sometimes as far away as Cost Rica.

The Ahwatukee Foothills couple, along with their sons, Brandon, 16, and Travis, 14, participate in high-tech treasure hunts with the help of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and an Internet Web site.

It’s all part of a new sport called geocaching.

"The thing that I like most about geocaching," Jacqueline Mart said, "is that it introduces me to places that I’d normally never go. You discover the most gorgeous places, sometimes in your own backyard."

Here’s how it works: Players search for treasures, or caches, that other geocache enthusiasts have hidden in interesting outdoor spots. The longitude and latitude coordinates of the caches are posted on an Internet site, www.geocaching.com, along with directions to the trailhead and a couple of general clues.

Cache seekers search the Web page for a list of nearby caches. They enter the coordinates of a chosen cache into a hand-held GPS receiver, print out the clues, and hit the trail.

Jacqueline said she became interested in the high-tech, hide-and-seek game after visiting Iowa last summer where her brother was already a veteran geocaching player. Kevin and Jacqueline like the sport because it adds an interesting dimension to hiking that encourages their teen-agers to take part.

"For the kids, there’s a technical element, a gadget, and there’s a treasure," Kevin said. "For us, there’s the benefit of the hike plus having our kids with us."

For Travis, a freshman at Mountain Pointe High School, the treasure is the best part. "The prizes are cool," he said. "I’m starting a key chain collection."

Sealed Tupperware containers or metal ammunition boxes are used to protect the contents of the cache. They are usually filled with inexpensive items like stuffed animals, key chains or other trinkets. The geocacher takes one item, replaces it with a new one, and signs the log book. Some caches include cameras inside to take your picture as proof of a find.

"People are so clever with their caches," Jacqueline said. "My brother in Iowa did one called ‘Gotta Get a Date’ that took you to a cemetery where you had to get the numbers off of a tombstone. We also have a friend who created the ‘Green Tortilla,’ where everything in the cache is green."

The Mart family has placed five of their own caches, including one aptly named "Rattler’s Art Gallery."

"I was placing the cache into this perfect little hole we found," said Kevin. "There was a stick in the way, so I reached in to grab the stick and heard a rattle. My fingers were just inches away from the snake!"

Kevin did not receive a snakebite, but he’s a bit more cautious now.

The Marts just recently placed their newest Arizona cache, named Coyote Cave. The coordinates will be released soon on the Web site. They also have a cache on a beach in Costa Rica, which has yet to be found.

According to the geocaching Web site, 179 caches are currently hidden in Arizona. The sport began in May 2000, when the Clinton Administration lifted the security restrictions on GPS, a government-owned network of 24 Earth-orbiting satellites and their ground stations. This meant civilian GPS receivers could be used with more precision.

Two days after the restrictions were lifted, the first cache was placed and the sport has taken off from there.

Paul Reinshagen, special events specialist at the REI store in Tempe, said that the sport has become very popular with local families.

"I had one avid outdoorsman who was looking for something to do with his 9-year-old daughter," Reinshagen said. "He found this, she loves it, and she’s on the Web site constantly looking for new caches."

But the sport isn’t limited to families. For many adults, geocaching is the perfect excuse to get away from the computer and explore beautiful outdoor location,. including Jeremy Irish, who runs the geocaching Web site in his spare time from his Seattle office.

"As a Web site developer, I’m chained to my desk all day." Irish said. "I love the sport because it gets you outside and gives you the chance to apply technology to the real world."

When Irish took over the Web site in September 2000, there were 75 caches worldwide.

Now there are currently 6570 active caches in 70 countries.

"People have such fun with it," Irish said. "One guy even proposed marriage to his girlfriend by placing a note in a cache."

Irish said that the recent terrorist attacks have made people more suspicious and geocachers need to be cautious when placing caches.

They should be sure the containers are clearly marked as geocaching treasures so they won’t be mistaken for something dangerous.

As for the Mart family, plans are underway to organize a get-together for geocachers at an undisclosed location near their home. Participants will need to use their GPS receivers to find it.