Regan,
I’m glad I read your log before I replied. Maricopa County Parks are not “national forest”, as you wrote below (you had me going there for a couple of minutes!).
I think what it comes down to is that it is illegal to enter a Maricopa County Park for ANY reason without paying the “user fee”. But the MCP representative at the land management meeting last month did say that they were planning to revise their policy to make it much more restrictive on the placement of geocaches than it has been. That saddened me, because I thought MCP’s “two mile rule” was a great compromise.
Coincidentally, I got a private email today from someone who wrote me that our “Grandma Sarah’s Cache”, which is in the McDowell Mountain Regional Park (part of MCP), may be missing and that a ranger there told him “it better not be there”. But as of this morning, when I was checking it for something else, their “old” policy is still on the web site (http://www.maricopa.gov/parks/news/). What worries me now is that they may have issued a new policy to the park staff, but haven’t yet bothered to make it available to the general public. I hope my fear is unfounded.
Steve
Team Tierra Buena
-----Original Message-----
From:
az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com
[mailto:az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com] On Behalf Of Regan L Smith
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003
5:10 PM
To: listserv@azgeocaching.com
Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] Who
Manages What
Hey Steve
I was told today by a Park Gestapo, see log for ARRGH!*^&$% that it is ILLEGAL to geocache in the national forest, but was also told that if you buy a pass it is ok to do whatever, in the same sentence....then he said yes please tell them who you are and where you placed your geocache so they can arrest you in impound your computer, that they just did this last month to a geocacher......
----- Original Message -----
From: Team Tierra Buena
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 12:04 PM
Subject: [Az-Geocaching] Who Manages What
There’s a front-page story today in my favorite <hack…kaff> newspaper, the Arizona Republic, about crimes being committed on public lands (I’m rather surprised they didn’t include Geocaching in the article!). But in the continuation of the article on page A28, there’s a nice little map and chart showing each of the federally managed recreation lands in the state and what agency (USFS, NPS, BLM, FWS) manages each. This could be a handy-dandy little reference when you’re thinking about where to hide your next ammo can.
I was able to find the article online but not the chart.
Steve
Team Tierra Buena