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Sunday, January 21, 2007
Geo-Eco participants up for the challenge
Group gets wild about survival
By AMY C. RIPPEL
Daytona Beach News-Journal Correspondent
Mitchell Mahnken furiously chomped on the small square of pink bubble gum until it was gooey and pliable as his teammates, the Venomous Vipers, looked on.
News-Journal/CHAD PILSTER
From left, Mitchell Mahnken, 12, hand only, Bonnie Mueller, Ken Mahnken, and his daughter Kayla Mahnken, 15, work to remove a film canister from a pipe during a challenge Saturday at the Geo-Eco challenge at Hickory Bluff Preserve in Osteen.
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The 12-year-old then flattened it to a small circle and stuck it to the end of a pencil.
Carefully, the pencil-and-gum assembly, which was attached to a clothespin and a long string, was lowered into a narrow PVC pipe that stuck up from the ground.
Success. The gum was just sticky enough to cling onto the small canister at the bottom of the pipe. Inside the canister was what they needed: directions to the next challenge.
Sound like a tamer version of the hit television show “Survivor?” Not quite, but an exciting Saturday morning nonetheless.
A group of 26 adults and children gathered at the Hickory Bluff Preserve in Osteen to test their brains and bodies for Volusia County’s Geo-Eco Challenge. Even though there were no winners in this contest, the three tasks in the challenge required brainpower, brawn and teamwork.
For some, it was a way to bring the family closer together; others wanted to learn survival skills. Some families had other goals.
“We wanted to learn how to use a GPS (global positioning system),” said Bonnie Mueller, 39, of Orange City, who was at the challenge with her two boys, Sean, 14, and Marc, 11. “It sounded like a fun thing for a family to do.”
The day started with the group splitting into teams: the Venomous Vipers, the Victorious Vultures and the Velociraptors. They received a brief tutorial about the GPS units and were sent off in different directions for their first challenge.
Upon arriving, the Venomous Vipers found a small bucket containing paper clips, rubber bands, a pencil, string, clothespins and bubble gum. Next to it was a pipe sticking out of the ground with a canister at the bottom of it.
First, Ken Mahnken, 45, of DeLand tried sucking up the canister as his teammates held their fingers over holes in the pipe. When that didn’t work, some other team members tried using straightened paper clips to slowly finagle the canister up. Then all eyes turned to Mitchell, who produced a nicely chewed piece of gum that aided in the success of the first task.
With the new set of GPS coordinates in hand, they went to the next task where they found four 10-foot-long pieces of wood, each with rope sticking out of them. The team’s challenge was to make it across a 100-foot section of land without anyone’s feet touching the ground. The group, balanced on the wood, walked in sync to move the wood slowly along the ground, inching toward the finish line. Success again.
For the last task, the group used three 10-foot boards that had to be perched on concrete blocks. They had to make it across a fictitious river using just the boards.
In the end, the cache, or prize, for each team was the same: candy.
The challenge emerged from the increasingly popular geocaching sport, said Bonnie Cary, education/outreach coordinator for Volusia County Land Acquisition and Management . For that, participants use GPS units and geocaching Web sites to find caches placed in secret locations by other players worldwide.
Cary, who put together the Saturday challenge, said the county has hosted this event for three years. This is the first year it was open to the public.
“It was a blast,” Cary said after the three teams completed the challenges. “You know, what made it so much fun was the people.”
Want to Compete?
The next Geo-Eco Challenge is set for Feb. 10 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Hickory Bluff Preserve, Guise Road, Osteen.
It is open to adults and families with children older than 10.
Contact Bonnie Cary, education/outreach coordinator for Volusia County Land Acquisition and Management, for more information or to register at (386) 736-5276 or bcary@co.volusia.fl.us. Space is limited.
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