Although disappointed with this whole situation it reminds me of something that's been making me crazy (a little off subject, but I'll keep it short). People need to stop putting food in their caches! Brian and I were at a cache recently where there was a chocolate covered wafer that was opened and one was missing. Not only was it food.... but it was an opened package! Anytime Brian and I find a cache with food in it we grab all food items and bring it will us to dispose of. Sorry to be the party pooper... but we'll continue to remove food from caches.
Food attracts animals to places where people gather. I don't think I need to preach this nor do I think there's any argument of this fact. When animals come to these places and get used to eating our food they become aggressive and may eventually have to be put down. DON'T LEAVE FOOD IN THE WILDERNESS! I don't care if you think ammo cans, popcorn tins, and Tupperware are air tight!
Even if leaving food didn't attract animals, do you actually believe: A) a fellow geocacher is going to eat opened/unopened food that was left by a stranger for an unknown amount of time or B) A candy bar will last very long in a closed container in the middle of the desert?
:-)
Didn't mean to sound so harsh, but the last thing the sport of Geocaching needs is negative press from a bear attacking a little girl because it was trying to "protect" a cache that it (the bear) knew to contain food. You thought the negative press concerning archeological sites was bad!!
Mike
Team Leaplab
----- Original Message -----
From:
AZSaluki@aol.com
To:
listserv@azgeocaching.com
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 5:37 PM
Subject: [Az-Geocaching] Caches being removed from Superstition Wilderness Area
We just returned from a trip to the Superstitions. Our intention was to hit the "Cholla Forest" Cache and then continue on to the "Other Side of the Needle" cache and the new "Really Fantastic" cache.
Things were going good until we arrived at the Other Side of the Needle. While looking for the cache a ranger from the Mesa Ranger District came up to us and said we were not going to be very happy with him. Turns out he had just removed the cache. Both the Other Side of the Needle and Really Fantastic caches were sitting right there in his backpack. He told us that they just found out about geocaching and have decided to remove all caches within the wilderness boundary. In addition to these caches, they have already removed all of the caches along the Peralta trail in the Freemont Saddle area. The caches in the Reavis Ranch area were also being removed today. They are basically citing the regulation that it is property that has been abandoned after 24 hours. It seemed the biggest concerns were creating new trails and some of the items contained in the caches (food in particular).
He indicated that all of the confiscated caches would be taken to the Mesa Ranger station. The placers of the caches can pick them up and there will be no penalty or fine. We asked him if there was any chance caches would eventually be allowed in the area. He didn't give a definite answer but thought that with a proper permit and some advance approval from the district it may be ok. Hopefully the caches will eventually be able to return to this area, some of our favorite trips have been in the Superstitions.
I asked them to post a message on the list serve to let us know all the caches that were going to be removed. If you have hidden any caches in the area it may be a good idea to call the Mesa Ranger District of the US Forest Service.
On a side note, we are wondering if we should claim these two caches as a virtual finds. We made it to the cache sites and even found the caches (in his back pack). Unfortunately we couldn't exchange anything or sign the log books.
Hopefully there are not too many others in the Superstitions looking for these confiscated caches.
Jim & Kristen (AZSaluki)
(text/plain)