[Az-Geocaching] Caches in State Parks and other county/regional parks

[Scott Nicol]

Howdy all,

I was just checking out the North Texas Geocaching Association's web site. 
Nice site and cool to see an association of sorts formed in that area. They 
also have an email list, etc to keep everyone in touch with what is going on 
with local geocaching there. The site is:

http://www.ntga.net

Anyways, I noticed a page about 'park info'. It mentions, among other 
things, that most state parks (TX) dont yet have a policy for geocaching but 
some are in the process of forming guidelines. There is one park in the 
Dallas Ft. Worth area that does have a policy. I thought it was a very 
generous policy and a well reasonable policy to abide by. I know that Steve 
and others here have been working with land management agencies in our state 
(AZ) and are working to adopt policies concerning geocaching. I think our 
regional/county parks are too? If so, I thought I would pass this info on 
that I got off the NTGA web site. Curious to know some thoughts on this. 
Here is the link to the policy page:

http://www.ntga.net/parkinfo/fwnc.html

My personal opinion.... I think it is a great policy and very reasonable. 
The 12 month rule will also keep caches 'current'. Those caches that 
eventually get abandonded by their owners because they got out of the sport 
or whatever, would likely be removed. I have thought about adopting a one 
year rule to my caches (cache as it stands right now!) as well. This will 
keep the area near the cache pristine and free of new trails being formed, 
etc. However, considering only 2 teams have found my cache so far since it 
was placed way back on September 15, 2002... I dont think that will be a 
problem! (congrats to Trail Gypsy and IBBY!).

The rule that states no more than 5 caches at any one time will keep the 
area from getting 'saturated' with too many caches. I think this is a 
problem here in PHX. There are simply way too many caches way to close 
together. This appears to happen when a cacher visits a cache in a given 
area and decides to hide another one (and I guess doesnt want to make an 
extra hike or something to place it elsewhere?). Of course, being a cacher 
who enjoys finding lots of caches (!), I am not complaining! :) But, I do 
think there is a problem with saturation in given areas. This isnt' really a 
problem... but, if this situation occurs in city, county and state parks, it 
will eventually become an issue with the agency that is responsible for that 
park/land.

Anyways, just some thoughts and ramblings that I think are valid and would 
be a welcome discussion here on the listserver.

Scott
Team Ropingthewind

Team RTW's official web site:
http://www.safwp.bravepages.com/geocaching.html






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