Happy hunting

A geo-scavenger hunt works like this: Teams are given clues to a series of destinations. They translate the clues into settings for their Global Positioning System receiver and it helps them find each destination -- if the settings are correct.

The team that finds all of its destinations the quickest is the winner.

Geo-scavenging is also a pretty good excuse to spend a couple of hours tramping around in the woods enjoying nature, said several of the 13 participants in Saturday's geo-scavenger hunt at the Floracliff Nature Preserve near I-75 in southeast Fayette County.

"We do like the outdoors," said Maggie Nelson of Lexington, who came with her husband, Paul, and daughter, Jessica.

"It's an opportunity to have a family outing and get out and explore," she said.

Besides, said 9-year-old Jessica, "it's fun discovering new things outdoors instead of just staying inside and watching reruns" on television.

"It's just been so cold and everything, and we finally get to get out," agreed C.J. Blair, 11, of Lexington. "You don't see many days like this in the dead of winter. Plus I normally have nothing to do on weekends so it's good to be out here."

Lexington landscape designer Whitney Baker had a more practical reason for being at Floracliff.

"We all love Kentucky, and we love nature and we have never used GPS before," he said. "We are really curious about learning to use GPS."

The system uses signals from Defense Department satellites to locate GPS receivers almost any where in the world. It can also direct the user to find other locations.

Two groups competed in Saturday's hunt -- a birdhouse was the prize.

Baker dubbed his group "The Pink Pants Posse," because two of its members -- 8-year-old Ruby Wiggs and 9-year-old Gwen Blair -- came in pink pants. They didn't know each other before they met at the hunt and became friends.

The two-hour course had seven destinations, including a group of trees that had been pecked by woodpeckers and turned black by a fungus, a spring that had once been used for drinking water, and a patch of honeysuckle Ð an invasive species. The course was designed by Floracliff manager Beverly James and Byron Brooks, an environmental technologist with the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission, which oversees Floracliff and 47 other sanctuaries around the state.

"This is more or less a test run" for geo-scavenger hunts that might be held at other Kentucky preserves, Brooks said.

James viewed the program as another way to fulfill Floracliff's mission of educating the public on the environment.

She said she asked Brooks to plan Saturday's program because he is "an avid geocacher. ... He has a lot of experience with GPS."

Geocachers use GPS to find small containers of inexpensive toys or other items that are buried around the world at locations registered on Web sites devoted to the treasure-hunting game.

The timing of the program was nearly perfect. "You couldn't ask for a better day" for the test run, James noted. "It's clear so there are no clouds to interfere with GPS signals."

Clouds rolled in about 3 p.m., just as the geo-scavenger hunt was ending.

James said geo-scavenger hunts are perfect for Floracliff because they involve small groups that do less damage to the preserve.

She told participants that Floracliff was established by the late Mary Wharton, a botany professor at Georgetown College.

Wharton, who wrote guidebooks to Kentucky trees and plants, spent nearly 30 years beginning in 1958 buying up the land on the Kentucky River that makes up the preserve. It was dedicated in 1996.

Floracliff's 287 acres of forest and streams, including the 61-foot high Elk Lick Falls, is open by appointment only because that's the way Wharton wanted it, James explained.

"She didn't want it totally open to the public," James said. "She didn't want it loved to death."

To visit Floracliff, call James at (859) 351-7770 to register and get directions. Visitors are generally charged $4 each or $10 for a family.