Chris Kracik, of Portsmouth, left, and Ted Michalakes, of North Kingstown, look across the water at locations of possible finds in Fort Wetherill State Park in Jamestown during a morning of geocaching. Top, a tiny scroll is unrolled from one of the smallest finds in the park.

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The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

EXETER –– With a GPS locating receiver in one hand and the leash to her bloodhound in the other, experienced geocacher LuAnn Botelho last week pursued her sport in the woods of the Arcadia Management Area.

Down a dirt road paved with pine needles, up a faint footpath and tucked under the roots of a downed tree, rests a humble hidden treasure, one of hundreds of “geocaches” around Rhode Island.

Botelho had downloaded the GPS coordinates to the cache from the Internet. Her hand-held GPS brings her to within 15 or 20 feet of the target. That’s when Abby the bloodhound takes over, snout to the earth, dragging Botelho through the underbrush.

“Damn right, Abs!” Botelho encouraged.

The dog went right to the cache –– a small plastic container filled with tiny trinkets and a logbook.

“Ah, good girl!”

The young sport of geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) has exploded in popularity over the past several years, as the public has become familiar with Global Positioning System technology and lower-end GPS satellite receivers have come down in price to about $100.

In late 2001, the Web site www.geocaching.com listed 6,765 caches worldwide in 68 countries. Now there are more than 554,000 active caches around the globe.

Rhode Island has seen a similar burst. Seven years ago, the state had 17 caches for fans of the sport to find. There are now nearly 800 active caches scattered around Rhode Island, hidden in parks, in cities and the woods –– any place imaginative geocachers can think of. Caches can be as big as old surplus ammo cans or as small as thimbles, just big enough for a roll of paper tape that serves as a logbook.

Geocaches have been placed in all areas of the state. At least six are hidden in Roger Williams Park in Providence; at least seven urban caches are stashed within a 10-minute walk of the Providence Place mall; there are more than 30 on Jamestown, and at least 5 on Block Island. The GPS coordinates are available on the Web; many also come with hints in case the hiding place proves too clever.

Geocachers are encouraged to take a trinket and leave a trinket when they find a cache, or just sign the log.

Botelho, 42, of Jamestown, signed and dated the log, to show she found it, and then sealed it up and tucked it back in its hiding spot for the next geocacher to find. Later, she recorded her success on www.geocaching.com. Her first cache that day in Arcadia was her 528th “find” in about two years of geocaching.

LIKE ALL SPORTS, geocaching has fanatics.

“People will get up in the middle of the night to be the first to find a new cache,” said Chris Kracik, 45, a geocacher from Portsmouth with 876 caches found as of last week.

Being the first to find a cache brings a certain cachet.

The sport was invented by an Oregon GPS enthusiast in 2000 after the federal government opened the full accuracy of the GPS satellite system to civilians, according to geocaching.com. (Before 2000, the government intentionally introduced fuzziness into the satellite system to make it less accurate for civilians and, presumably, for enemies trying to guide missiles.) From the first cache planted outside Portland less than eight years ago, the sport spread around the globe.

The rapid success has caused hand-wringing among some preservationists. Backpacker magazine recently published point-and-counterpoint columns on whether geocaching violates the “leave no trace” ethics practiced by many hikers and outdoor enthusiasts. Geocachers argue that their temporary caches pose no environmental harm, and cite their own practice of “Cache In Trash Out,” by which geocachers clean up litter from parks and other geocaching sites.

For many, finding caches is just half the sport. Botelho has 33 active caches that she has hidden around Rhode Island for others to find. As the owner of these caches, she is expected to maintain them and respond to Internet postings if another geocacher reports one of her caches damaged or missing.

Kracik met in Jamestown recently with fellow geocachers Ted Michalakes, Bob Umbenhauer and Kim Frame for half a day of geocaching and cache maintenance.

Caches are never buried, though they are usually stashed someplace out of easy sight, to make the puzzle more challenging and to reduce the chance that somebody might accidentally stumble upon a cache and disturb it without knowing what it is.

“Part of the fun is to find a new way to hide a cache,” said Kracik.

Some are hidden among rocks, some hang in trees. Tiny, devious caches can be magnetic, to stick to a bolt or a signpost.

At Fort Wetherill State Park in Jamestown, Kracik’s group followed GPS directions to one of at least seven geocaches in the park –– this one hidden by Kracik. Not to give too much away, but the water views along the short hike to his cache are exceptional. “I like to bring people to a beautiful spot with some history to it,” Kracik said. “Ninety percent of the sport is getting out there, seeing things, learning things.”

This particular cache is named Barrel of Monkeys. As of yesterday, 161 people had found the cache and logged their find on geocaching.com. Kracik stashed it in 2005.

Before the group moved from Wetherill, Kracik revealed that he had hidden a new cache nearby earlier that morning and intended to publish the coordinates on the Internet later that day.

At a wooded bird sanctuary a few miles away, Umbenhauer, 68, of Jamestown, who has 169 finds, checked on a cache he had placed in the woods, shortly off the trail. The waterproof plastic container was in good shape.

“It was found two days ago,” Umbenhauer said, consulting the logbook. Since he checked on his cache –– April 2 –– three more geocachers have visited and signed the log.

Later that day, Kracik uploaded the coordinates to his new cache.

In Jamestown with her bloodhound, Botelho’s cell phone signaled an alert –– she has set her phone to notify her when a new cache is established in the area.

Minutes later, she had another coveted first-to-find.

marsenau@projo.com