Brush up on your longitudes and latitudes and get your hand-held global positioning systems ready.
Clovis will host a high-tech scavenger hunt on Saturday called geocaching.The family-friendly event will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and begin at the Clovis Civic Center, 1033 Fifth St.Because every location has a unique global address, a participant can follow geographic coordinates to find hidden prizes.Geocachers use their personal global positioning systems to hide and find tiny, modern-day treasure chests. Around the world, there are more than 850,000 of them, including hundreds in the Fresno/Clovis metropolitan area.Global positioning systems also are available on iPhones.At 10 a.m., participants will be given coordinates of 30 new caches. Players will use a special "cacheport" as their log book and receive credit for every cache they find before 5 p.m. For each credit, they receive a chance to win prizes in a 5:30 p.m. drawing.A traditional geocache consists of a waterproof container holding a log book, with pen or pencil and items available to trade. A person who finds a geocache can record their travels in the logbook.Geocachers can take objects from the cache, but most leave something of similar or higher value, so there is a treasure for the next visitor.Sometimes a geocache is a log that allows people to write their name on it, and they get credit for their discovery through online geocache sites."We hope to do an annual event and draw people from farther away," said Tina Sumner, the city's economic and community development director.Major geocaching events, such as one in Oklahoma City, can draw 5,000 people, said Shawn Miller, Clovis business development manager.More than 40 people have signed up to play on Saturday and event coordinator Bruce Solomon said he expects more than 100 since many people sign up the day of the event. "The goal is to bring people together and give them a good day out," he said. "Those of us who are really involved in it say we use million-dollar satellites to find Tupperware."