BY Justin Yang

COLUMBIA, MISSOURI— At dusk Tuesday, eight adventurers set out to Rhett's Run Mountain Bike Trail at Cosmopolitan Park in search of a green box.

The group, which varies in age from about 30 to 60, is all male except for one woman. They're wearing bucket hats and carrying walking sticks and flashlights. Each has applied a liberal dose of bug spray to his or her clothes and skin.

The Internet description of what they are seeking said to look for trail marker reflectors – small shiny cubes stuck to trees along the steep, narrow trail.

The group is geocaching, a modern-day searching game that uses GPS technology, the Internet and nature. Geocaching usually requires solving riddles, puzzles or simply following descriptions from Internet posts that can be found at websites like Geocaching.com. The goal is to find caches, usually army surplus ammo boxes, that other geocachers have hidden.

According to Geocaching.com, more than 4 million people geocache globally.

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