On Wed, 15 May 2002, Scott Nicol wrote:

> Some sad news as I awake this morning to read my emails. Above is the email 
> from Hap McDaniel in response to my email to him about the Bass Ackwards 
> Cache. You know, the cache that is over 530 days old without a find! That is 
> the official news from the cache owners mouth.

When I posted my off the cuff comment about it being the longest cache
without a find, I half expected somebody to figure out that there might be
a reason (like, for example, it's not there.. or is in a difficult to
access location).

> Am I the first geocacher to actually inquire to the cache owner about this 
> cache? 

Probably.  I didn't, because I had no way of actually going out and
finding it should the owner come back and say "yep, it's still
there."  Secondly, I assume that any cache that is not archived or marked
unavailable is still there (see rant below).

> I wonder why no one else ever even inquired about this cache to the cache 
> owner? I wonder why it was never archived? It appears the cache owner works 

The short answer to those two questions is: because if the cache is not
marked as "unavailable" or archived, one assumes that the cache is still
there and available.. and the cache maintainer is supposed to be regularly
visiting their cache to ensure that it is still there and in one piece.

<rant>

This is rapidly becoming a personal pet peeve of mine.  I'm currently
visiting Colorado, and a significant number of the caches in the Denver
area are in various states of "missing", with no update from the cache
maintainer.  Worse: there are a few that contain "notes" from the cache
maintainer that the cache is indeed not there, yet the are not marked
"unavailable".  

But the biggest issue is this "unmaintained" cache thing.  There are a
number of caches out there that have no active maintainer.  On a recent
trip to Bakersfield, there were no fewer than three caches (2/3 of the
caches in the area) that apparently have been abandoned by their owner and
not maintained.  One of the abandoned caches in question was placed by a
group of schoolteachers!

I don't blame the NPS for their policy.  It's one thing to place a cache
in a location that you can frequently visit: that's not
"abandoning" it.  But people often times place caches in locations that
they are visiting, or that they may never get to again.  This is just
wrong.  The NPS is charged with protecting the integrity of the sites
they control.. the don't want to have to clean up the mess that our hobby
can infrequently generate.

A Geocacher in California I had the pleasure of having coffee with after
meeting them at a remote cache site said that people should use a "24-hour
rule" when placing caches.  If you cannot be at the cache site in 24
hours after somebody posts a "can't find" log OR after recieving notice
from somebody to remove your cache, you shouldn't place it.  I think it's
a good rule: if you place a cache someplace in Utah and you're retired (or
work at home) so there's nothing stopping you from driving up to Utah and
retriving it on short notice, okay.  If you can't be where you've placed
the cache the next day, you probably shouldn't place it.  If there's no
way you could take a day off work to truck up there and get it, it
probably shouldn't be placed.

Unmaintained Geocaches are just more litter on the side of the road.

> A question to ponder: if a cache is found at least once every 24 hours, does 
> that make it not abandoned property? If I remember from a past post on the 
> list here, someone said the NP does not allow caches because they consider 
> it abandoned property and property cannot remained unattended for more than 
> 24 hours (or something like that). SO, if someone places a cache on NP land 
> that is pretty easily accessible and close to a city (like Saguaro NP in 
> Tucson), as long as there was a daily found log on that cache, would the NP 
> service be in the wrong to remove it (for at least as long as it remains 
> found on a daily basis)? This probably isnt realistic though. But, just 
> pondering a question. There might just be a loophole here!

Urban caches in Arizona often go weeks without a log, even when the are
easy to find and off major highways.  For example, my own Wednesday Equals
Geeks cache hasn't been logged in a week, and as of three days ago it was
still there.  And it's in an area with lots of other caches, easily
accessible from a freeway.

I think even in Grand Canyon National Park a geocache would be hard
pressed to catch a log each day.. even if it had a huge neon sign with an
arrow pointing to the container.  The sad fact of the matter is, there
just aren't enough Geocachers out there.  I mean.. consider that AZ is a
hotbed of Geocaching activity.  There are, what.. like maybe 100-200 
active cachers here?  Out of how many million live in this state?  And a
few of those "Active AZ Cachers" probably include people like Lost
Yankee.. snowbirds that are just here for a little while.

The last, more important observation I have is.. do we WANT a
loophole?  Wouldn't it be better for us to build our hobby to the point
that we can demonstrate to the NPS the benefits of a Geocache?  Wouldn't
it be cool if after a large segment of the population gets interested in
this hobby that the NPS actually places a few officially maintained caches
in appropriate locations?  This would benefit us a lot more than
potentiall pissing off the very people that we need to be on our side by
arguing and nitpicking at their policy.

-Fedl