I talked to a lady in the Scotsdale Parks and
Recreation department who is in charge of the
preserves.  The initial reason for the conversation
was to check on what areas are open and what ones are
closed.  Most all state trust land is currently
closed. In addition, most of the Scottsdale preserves
are closed.  The County regional parks are open. This
inclueds McDowell Mountain Regional Park and White
Tanks Regional Park.  The city mountain parks are also
open - South Mountain, North Mountain Preserve.

We also talked a little about geocaching.  They are
aware of geocaching in general and of some of the
caches in their area - Cone Mountain and McDowell
Mountain are 2 we talked about.  They think that
geocaching is an interesting usage of the GPS and
aren't against geocaching at this time.  They are
naturally concerned about off-trail usage,
particularly in preserve areas.  I explained the idea
behind geocaching, how we encourage people to be
sensitive to the environmental impacts, etc.  I gave
her my name, number, and e-mail address and asked her
to contact me about anything within her department
which might impact geocaching.  I also told her about
this listserve and invited her to check out the
discussions and to introduce herself to the rest of
us.  

In general I got the impression that geocaching is not
viewed negatively.  We need to make sure that they do
view it positively in the future.  They really haven't
made any policy decisions yet.  Hopefully we can
convince them that this is a valid usage of the parks
and preserves.

Bob

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