[Az-Geocaching] archeaological sites

[Kyle Hagan]

This is a message from a member of the AZVJC.com to the Reporter.

I finished my phone conversation with Christina Leonard about an hour ago.

I am happy to say that it went much better than I thought it might.  I do
believe that she understands the problem that the geocachers and off-roaders
share.....a percentage of the population that shows no respect for the land
they recreate on.  While somewhat off topic from her article, we spoke about
the cleanups that AZVJC has done at the Coves, WhiteTank Mountains, etc. and
the fact that we (the club members) really do worry about loosing access to
public lands because of some irresponsible individuals that are NOT
representative of the off-road (or geocaching) community.

We also spoke about the site stewards and the fact that there are 18
geoaches located on or near the archaeological sites.  Christina said she
too asked the stewards how it was that the geocachers, who have no knowledge
of where the 50,400 arachaeological sites are located, are suppose to avoid
accidentally placing a cache on a piece of land that is a site.  She also
stated that until one actually knows what signs to look for, you have no
idea you are on a site.  She was shown a pottery shard at a archaeological
site and didn't recognize that it was a shard.  When she commented that the
18 sites is a very small number compared to the 50,400 in the state, they
told her "One is too many".  In my opinion, this zero tolerance thing is
going to grow into a bigger issue as time goes on.

I fully believe Christina was attempting to explain the Catch-22 situation
that the geoachers are caught in (don't put your stuff on an archaeological
site...but we won't tell you where that may be) and the fact that these site
stewards are just becoming aware of the increased traffic (and trash) that
their once secret sites are now accidentally getting.

While the article came across to me as being biased against the geocachers,
I do not believe it was intended to be that way.  My assumption is that the
site stewards, being all to much like the greenies we see at land use
meetings, made it seem a hundred times worse than it actually was (their
quotes dripping with sympathy, IMO).

Although I did not mention it to her, I wish Christina would have hooked up
with a local geocacher (perhaps Mr. Cluff from the article?) and experienced
the sport the way it was meant to be done.  For me, that would have gone a
LONG way to show she was neutral on this issue.  From my personal
expereince, until one has a chance to ride in a built up Jeep that is
tackling a tough trail, that person doesn't have any idea about our off-road
sport.  I would imagine that geocaching must be very much the same way.

Stu



Stu Olson
www.stu-offroad.com