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Geocaching Crackdown?
thejuggler writes "Some cities and counties are banning or considering banning geocaching in their parks. "It's good, clean, wholesome fun - just do it someplace else," said Brian Adams, chief of resource protection for the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, which has banned geocaching. The geocaching.com website claims there are over 600 caches within 100 miles of the twincities."
Naturally, the headline is a bit of an exaggeration of the article - only some parks are talking about banning it outright, and they do have a point - some of the material being left is unsuitable, large numbers of people traipsing to the same point causes erosion, etc. But if the caches are moved regularly, and only suitable material is left, then it wouldn't be a problem - except who would regulate it?
Robert Sime, a Richfield dad, takes his 4-year-old daughter out about twice a month. He said parks should adjust to what the public sees as legitimate use. "When volleyball came along, they all put in courts for that," he said.
This is one of the most insightful comments in the whole article. Instead of trying to fight the geocachers they should be helping them to establish the cache sites. The park would be able to create a more terrain friendly cache site, and in turn they would get more visitors.
Isn't this the kind of visitor you'd like in your park?
"Ninety percent of us pick up bottles and cans, whatever we find. It's part of the game," she said.
Man I wish I had the points to mod you up. Does anyone read Geocaching.com? These parks folks do have a point about paths being worn to the caches. Moving them once a year would probably help prevent this. Also, putting them near a path or almost on a path would be good too. Also, photo caches are nice too (just take a pic of yourself and of the GPS at the cache.....) and up load it to the web. Geocaching reminds me a bit of ham radio. Everyone searching for a contact(the cache). Sometimes they are hard to find (rare DX). Sometimes not (chatting on a repeater...). If there are ANY Geocacher's that leave trash and mess up the area, I would be surprised. Geocaching has a ethos like camping. Campers regularly leave their stuff on the table and stuff at the site and almost noone steals there stuff (in 20+ years of camping, I have never had anything stolen in a campground). Campers also usually leave the area as good as or better then it was when they got there. Now same as with Camping, there are BAD apples. Just deal with it and let us use the park. Noone else does!
Gorkman
What's to seperate these caches from ordinary litter.
Why not come up with park approved geocache containers that are standardized and therefor obviosly not litter?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I'm not going to get too deep into this whole thing but I suspect if someone were to find an ammo box concealed under leaves or stone in a public park around here it wouldn't be long before the bomb squad boys were called in.
Yeah, it sounds like fun, but after terror attacks and sniper whackos, people are kindof twitchy around here.
Though I see your point and agree to it to some extent, places like the Petrified Forest are a special case. I for one think this "hand's off nature" attitude thats made it's way into popular thinking is foolish. In the long run it's actually self defeating, since insulating the public from experiencing it in a personal way leads to a lack of appreciation for it IMHO.
;-] ). Those memories, along with teaching from my parents to be responsible and not destructive gave me a great love and respect for nature. Things have changed drastically now, and not for the better.
I'm old enough to remember a time when you were allowed off the trails in most parks. I have many fond memories of exploring, discovering and having the thrill of just maybe getting lost in the woods (hey, I was a kid
Now every park is like going to a theme park. Stand in line here. Walk here. You can touch this but not that. God forbid that you TOUCH that tree or plant, you may hurt it! Don't you DARE feed that squirrel or bird, you're disrupting nature!
Uh, pardon me, but 90% of the time this is utter bulls**t. Granted you'll have your small share of idiots ruining things for everyone else, but shutting down access for the common man/woman/child is NOT the way to solve it. Even with limited access the fools still find ways to litter, destroy and generally ruin a beautiful location.
So what is the answer? Well, IMHO the more people are connected to a place the more they will care about it. Give people the education and reason to care and much of the policing will be handled by the public itself.
Case in point: there is still one metro park in my area that allows people to go off trail to a long stretch of river. This is by *far* the most litter-free area of park I've seen. Since the river is wide and shallow you consistently see people fishing, parents with kids walking the shallows looking for crawdads, and people in general just enjoying actually EXPERIENCING nature - not just staring at it from behind a fence or barrier. You also consistently see people walking the bank and riverbed picking up any litter they see, since they know that THEY might be the next one to step on that piece of broken glass or bottle cap. I've even seen a fisherman take some teenage kids to task for throwing their litter on the ground. He talked to them in a friendly way and they actually listened to him and picked up their trash, joking around with him.
I'm not saying just open everything up and let people do whatever they please in our parks, I'm just saying that this "hands off" way of thinking is getting too strong. Nature is not some delicate construct that will fall over and shatter at the least little nudge from big bad mankind. It's been my experience that most people I've spoken to that think this way have an inate dislike of mankind to one degree or another, whether they realize it or not.
I guess I am willing to conclude that if:
Every story on something I KNOW something about gets it wrong
...then it is fair to assume that MOST stories get it wrong MOST of the time. It isn't that I am cynical. I just don't think the media/journalists are in the business of telling the truth. They want to entertain. They want to sell. OK, well, noted. But if you want facts, you are aren't going to get them from a newspaper or channel 9.
(PS: You are in charge of visi.com?! Wow... Personal aside to Saxton(34078)
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.