In a message dated 8/9/2002 10:03:13 AM US Mountain Standard Time, wood@myblueheaven.com writes:

Let me ask a question. What exactly does this accomplish?

We are not trying to hide our caches from new cachers or land managers. We welcome new cachers to the sport and our caches are in public places accesible by all. The thought was that some people who read the article might think caching itself is a bad sport and there are people who would seek caches to destroy them just to be hateful. I think this is fresh in the minds of people right now and the time is more likely to be now rather than later for this to occur. As the article pointed out, there are vandals out there who seek to destroy and have no respect for others or historical artifacts. Perhaps we are being overly sensitive, but I think everyone is a little on edge this week and feeling defensive after being wrongly accused in a public forum.

The caches are not so fragile that cachers cannot handle them, but some of them required some time consuming construction on our part and even ordering of some parts from an outside source. These could be replaced eventually, but not by just buying another tupperwear container.

Now I will put in my 0.02 cents in as well, at the risk of offending someone: I encourage those of us who participate in the sport on a regular basis to support the geocache website by forking our a few bucks and joining as a member. This does not mean I think all or even any caches should be members only. I just get so much enjoyment from the sport that I want to do my part to make sure the website continues to exist, because without it, there would be no geocaching.

Look for our caches to be reinstated as normal on monday.
Jean
roadrunners