To address Dan's question, I believe the wilderness
areas are to remain "pristine" and since a geocache
would not be something normally found in a "primitive"
area, they're removing them. The way I read the rules,
anything modern is not to be left without permission
<cough> as well as traces of a visit.

Regarding permission, I don't think that the majority
of people hiding caches will ask until the agencies
know what the answer can be. We're fortunate to have a
number of agencies that are willing to be reasonable,
if we are, and educate themselves. Many places,
especially back east, don't seem to care to know and
lay down blanket authority, which usually means no.

Until someone has a chance of receiving "Yes" as an
answer, there's no incentive for people to ask. Until
the answer will be the same for a given situation, no
matter who is asked, there's no incentive. Unless
agencies come up with a mighty big stick, if there's
no carrot, caches will continue to be placed in
inappropriate places.

The biggest stick is for an agency to remove caches
but the ones that do so in a haphazard manner are the
ones which will continue to have caches placed in
their realm of authority. Most cachers can respect
when an agency says "No" and backs it up. It's the
ones that say "No" then don't do anything that have
their authority tested. Think of a parent who doesn't
discipline their kids. The kid is always testing them.

Overall, there's a lot of growing pains but much seems
to be from new cachers or older ones who aren't
informed of the current goings on. Keeping the lines
of communications open, respecting the authority the
agencies have over the land they are responsible for
and the agencies recognizing what is realist and what
isn't are the key points.


Eric
Team Dragon

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