All;
You may have read the Email from Stu Olson to the list, responding to
Roadrunner's original slam on ATV and 4-Wheelers. Stu's a a very active
member of the Arizona Virtual Jeep Club (AZVJC), and is VERY active in
fighting to keep our public lands open for the public (us). After reading
Roadrunner's original Email, I also was very upset. But I knew the intent
wasn't to slam 4-wheeling in general, but those few "rotten apples" who give
4-wheeling a bad name. I'm also a member of the AZVJC. However, geocaching
has made me fairly inactive with the AZVJC. I know there's other AZVJC
members who are geocachers.
Before Stu knew about Roadrunner's Email to this list, Stu had already
Emailed a letter to the AZ Republic. Stu, and the entire AZVJC, are friends
fighting to keep lands open to geocaching and responsible 4-wheeling. The
following is Stu's Email to Ms. Leonard:
Ms. Leonard,
I read your "A high-tech scavenger hunt" article in today's newspaper.
Although I am not a "geocacher", I am aware of the popularity it has gained
over the past years. With the improvements in GPS receivers and their drop
in price, it is certainly easy to be the proud owner of one of these little
beauties.
One item was incorrectly reported in your article. You stated (on page A2)
that "Geocaching began in May 2000 when the Clinton administration
unscrambled the electronic signals of the government-owned global
positioning sytem, allowing civilians to use devices to steer cars or find
missing hikers with pinpoint accuracy." While it is true that geocaching may
very well have started in May, 2000, it was not because of any actions taken
by the Clinton Administration. On or about May 1, 2002, then President
Clinton lifted the requirement that caused the intentional degradation in
the accuracy of the GPS signal. Neither he nor his administration can be
given any kind of credit for making the GPS technology available to the
civilian population and its subsequent use for steering cars or finding lost
hikers. I was using a consumer grade GPS receiver long before May 1, 2000.
As to your comment about it being able to steer a car....no...no...no! Would
you feel confident in a car with a "steering system" that could guide your
vehicle to within an accuracy of 6 to 20 feet? (those are your numbers, not
mine) Thank you but no....I prefer to "steer" my vehicle with more precision
than that. I am afraid that a 6 to 20 foot error would very well put me into
the path of dangerous oncoming traffic.
But, enough about the basics of GPS reception. I need to get to the point of
this correspondence. As an environmentalist that fully enjoys virtually
everything our public lands have to offer, I am saddened to hear that some
irresponsible people are leaving their trash behind, making new trails, and
even picking up native artifacts they find in a geocache area. I wonder how
many of these people are familiar with the laws concerning removing an item
from an archaeological site? I can tell you, from first hand experience,
that many people have no idea that driving across the desert or up a big
hill, where there is no trail, is unlawful in most of Arizona. I can speak
to people leaving their trash behind....any road trip down I-10 or I-17 will
yield supporting evidence that people certainly do litter.
The main point I found quite interesting is the apparent blame that your
article places on those people that are participating in the geocaching
sport (I guess we can call it a sport?) Let's first look at the facts you
stated in the article:
1. There are at least 18 known Arizona caches listed on the Internet that
are on or near archaeological sites. (you didn't mention how many were
actually on a site)
2. There are more than 10,900 known archaeological sites in Maricopa County.
3. There are more than 50,400 archaeological sites in Arizona, not including
those on Tribal lands.
4. You stated that most of the archaeological locations have been kept
secret for years, and officials have even required a new site steward to
sign a confidentiality agreement.
So...let me see if I understand what you are really saying.
1. 0.0357143% of the geocache sites are located on or near an archaeological
site in this state.
2. Virtually no one, except the trusted site stewards and specific land
management officials, no where the archaeological sites are.....and we have
one or two site stewards (that you interviewed) that are upset because three
and one half hundreths of just one percent of the total geocache sites in
Arizona happen to be put on these secret archaeological sites.
It is sad that the geocachers are being held up as those that are ruining
our archaeological sites but yet we won't tell them where the sites are so
they wouldn't accidentally put their cache "at or near" an archaeological
site. I realize this might very well be a damned if you do, damned if you
don't kind of situation, but please apply some common sense here. Your
article indicates that many of the Arizona geocaches are in remote
locations....places that are difficult to get to. So, we then say shame on
the geocachers for picking a challenging location to hide their
cache.....and when it just happens to be on a secret archaeological site
that no one told them about.....and it is their fault? You've got to be
kidding, right?
Maybe it is not quite as bad as I am led to believe? Perhaps another way to
look at it is:
1. Wouldn't it be great if only 0.0357143% of our teenage population didn't
complete high school?
2. Wouldn't it be great if only 0.0357143% of the people driving through a
Phoenix intersection ran the red light?
I do commend you for reporting that Mr. Brian Cluff, a person who helps run
AZgeocaching.com, has not been contacted or notified about the apparent
problem that is occuring at or near the secret archaeological sites.
However, it is sad that the amount of text you devoted to Mr. Cluff is
approximately 0.0357143% of your article. None the less....I am certain that
all reading it will in no way be biased by this.
Now that you have identified this problem, what are the paper's plans to
help correct it? From what was written, it appears that a strong push
towards educating those that enjoy geocaching would certainly go a long way
in correcting this problem. Perhaps some public awareness commercials on the
local TV stations (maybe even radio too) would make more aware of their
inapropriate actions. Remeber, we have people randomly hiding little
tuperware containers of goodies on secret archaeological sites that they
have no knowledge of.
I look forward to your next article that outlines the plans that will be
implemented to help curb this problem.
King Regards,
Stu Olson
Phoenix
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