During lunch break, Drew Schmidt and four of his co-workers search for hidden treasure.

Not far from the placid blue-green waters of the Tibble Fork Reservoir in American Fork Canyon, Schmidt meanders up and down the red- and yellow-splotched mountainside. His blonde hair is wind-tousled. He waves a small gadget the size of a cell phone at the terrain ahead as if he's scanning for alien life forms.

"Sometimes people really stare at you," he says. But for Schmidt and his colleagues, the hunt is an obsession.

Geocaching - the global treasure hunt. It all started in May of 2000, when the Clinton Administration first allowed civilians to use the Global Positioning System with the same accuracy previously reserved for military purposes. Almost overnight, civilian GPS users could pinpoint any location on the planet to within 20 feet. A global phenomenon was born.

Seattle's Jeremy Irish, CEO of Grounded, Inc. - a company specializing in Internet entertainment - coined the term "geocaching." Geocachers stash small treasures - compact disks, books, action figures, whatever - in everything from discretely placed Tupperware to Altoids tins, and post the exact latitude and longitude of the treasures' locations on the Internet for other geocachers to find.

Once a treasure is discovered, game rules dictate the items in the cache may be exchanged for other items of equal or greater value.

Irish says the sport has spread to more than 30,000 individual caches in 149 different countries.

There are caches within sight of the Egyptian pyramids. There are caches in underwater caves. There are caches placed by helicopter. Yes, there are even caches hidden on BYU campus.

For Schmidt, 35, and his co-workers at Propay USA, Inc., an Orem-based company that handles online credit card payments, geocaching has become an addiction.

"It's a rather interesting transformation you go through, for lack of a better word," says Schmidt, who first learned about geocaching at a church meeting. "At first, you're like, 'Okay, this is weird,' and before you know it, you're hooked."

Geocaching seemed like a good Boy Scout activity, but soon it was a near all-consuming hobby for this grown-up band of self-made explorers.

Schmidt is the ringleader and spokesman. Geocaching brings him back to his New Jersey childhood, he says, when his father regularly drove down unfamiliar streets and instructed his son to navigate home.

Schmidt's four daughters often accompany him, but he admits he's probably more enamored with the adventure than they are.

"I have girlie girls," he laments.

Wes Smith, 25, of Salt Lake City, said geocaching is as simple as following an arrow.

"The funner ones are the ones that are harder to get to - the ones where you have to climb or hang from something," Smith said.

Mike Crosland, 28, of Orem chimes in. "That's why we bring Wes along. He's the one who climbs our trees."

Crosland, the realist of the bunch, concedes the hunt is a bit absurd. He attests to the inherent adventure of geocaching, but as he wipes the sweat from his forehead, you wonder if he's not trying to convince himself.

"I have to do that a lot," he says. "I tell myself, 'Yes, I am having fun now.'"

Kevin Beckstrand, 40, of Orem is the reserved enthusiast. He has located over 150 caches in all, making finds as far north as Idaho. You get the feeling that if Beckstrand had his way, the group would never quit.

"It's hiking with a purpose," Beckstrand declares.

Beckstrand takes his entire family geocaching. His wife even bought two-way radios to facilitate the hunt.

"I disappeared into the trees one day, and that was it," he said by way of explanation.

Dan Roper, 34, of Provo, wears jeans and a flannel shirt. He's often leading the pack through the maze of brush but says little.

"Dan's ex-wife didn't like geocaching much," Smith confides with a sinisterly playful grin.

The group continues up rugged hillsides, often through dense vegetation - anything to reach the end of this rainbow.

Finally, the GPS leads them to a large tree trunk split in half by lightening to form a perfect letter T. Now, the GPS units are sheathed and the eyes are peeled. After a few moments of searching, Schmidt and Beckstrand spot the treasure. For the others, it takes a bit longer.

Beneath a pile of timber, a few feet from the splintered tree, is a green toolbox. The toolbox is opened and its contents revealed: playing cards, a Powerpuff Girl figurine, a blue winter cap, a tennis ball, a mouse pad and a red Hot Wheels truck. But this day, their find is better than gold.

Roper perches atop the T. Bekstrand crouches over the cache and tugs the cache log book out of a Ziplock bag. The others huddle around as he reads the last entry for the benefit of the group: "Came between General Conference sessions Sunday."

"I bet they missed the second session," someone mutters.

They take turns signing the logbook themselves. Before closing the cache, Schmidt takes a moment to leave his signature item - a laminated Schmidt family "geobuck." The bill lists the coordinates of caches hidden by Schmidt and his daughters for anyone else who may uncover the Tibble Fork treasure.

The group retraces their steps - back through the pine forest. This time the journey is less purposeful, more serene. They trudge to the top of a nearby cliff to digest the scenery one last time before they depart.

"See," Schmidt says emphatically, "you get to enjoy views like this."

But the lunch break is still young. There are more views to enjoy. More treasures to find. The group piles into Schmidt's silver Chrysler minivan and sets sail for yet another unexplored cache.

A few miles down the road, the explorers are back on the trail. A wrong turn sends the five backtracking.

And Smith wonders aloud, "Now, where are we going?"