[Az-Geocaching] Response to Jason Poulter

[Brian Cluff]

Thank you for your response to Jason's letter.
  You bring up sevral good points, and we at AzGeocaching would be
interested in working with you or anyone else to ensure that geocaching
is a fun safe and well respected sport.  As you said 95% of geocachers
are the types that wouldn't do any harm what so ever.  I personally
happen to think it's probably closer to 99%, but that still leaves 1%
that would damage sites and that is still too many.  Luckily my guess
would be that 1% would tend to be too lazy to go out in the middle of
nowhere where most of the historical sites are, but thats not an excuse.
The first thing that comes to mind would be for us (AzGeocaching.com) to
setup a place for people to report abuse and list the last few people
that were in the log or whoever they suspect of causeing some sort of
damage.  Then it would be easy after a few logs to see who is showing up
repetedly in the database.  That would give us a fairly educated guess
as to who is doing the damage if anyone.
I would also be willing to develop software that would inform the
necessary people of a geocache that is on or too near an area that they
would prefer not to have a geocache on.  I would be willing to sign any
NDA that would involve and never disclose any of the areas to the
general public.  That way we can avoid any accusations in the future.
I still feel stongly that whatever damage was done to the site mentioned
in the article had nothing to do with a geocache in the area and was
purely coincidental, but that still won't stop me from ensureing that it
can't happen in the future.

Brian Cluff
AzGeocaching.com
Team Snaptek
Geocaching since 10/08/2000


On Mon, 2002-08-12 at 12:29, Rand Hubbell - PARKSX wrote:
> Jason;
> 
> I would like to respond to your response to the article written by Christina
> Leonard on August 7th.  I think the title of your response was
> "Archaeological Sites - Maybe They Caused the Problem Themselves?". 
> 
> The article that you linked to, was an article about the new trail to Willow
> Springs.  If you haven't been to that area you should, particularly after we
> get some more rain.  It is a year around spring that is a great oasis in the
> White Tank Mountains.
> 
> Speaking for the Maricopa County Parks Department, we welcome park visitors,
> and we encourage our visitors to get out and hike our trail system.  I think
> that there is a clear difference between a Park System, particularly an area
> that requires a fee to enter.  And, the thousands of acres of open space
> around Arizona.  
> 
> In the county regional parks system we have a lot of park visitors, around
> two million each year.   They pay us a fee, we provide picnic sites, ramadas
> and campsites, clean restrooms and a maintained trail system.   We also have
> Interpretive Rangers, Park Police Officers, maintenance workers, etc.
> Because of the numbers of park visitors we need them to stay on the
> established trails, our trail system takes hikers, mountain bikers and
> equestrians to locations throughout our parks.   To prevent the
> deterioration of the vegetation in the park and for their own safety.   If
> you choose to come into a Maricopa County Park, you have to pay five dollars
> per vehicle.  We provide all the services and facilities that I listed above
> and if your car is still in the parking lot when the park is closing, we
> begin a search for you.  If injured or lost, we will find you and be able to
> provide first aid and eventually advanced medical care if needed.  
> 
> The above "Park" scenario is much different than most of the other open
> space in Arizona.  Most of Arizona does not have maintained trails, does not
> the large numbers of visitors that the parks do.  One of our greatest
> concerns is the spider webbing of new trails.   It appears to us that
> searchers will follow a trail to a point parallel to the cache and then
> trail across country to the location.   A couple of weeks of this and there
> becomes a trail or series of trails that converge near the cache.
> Non-searchers then see the trail split, or see a path leading off the trail
> or see searchers looking wonder what they see that is so interesting and
> wonder over.  This then become a problem for us.  If you are in a non-park
> environment, spider web trails are not an issue.  If there is not a trail
> system, then light paths are not a problem.   Everywhere, there are paths,
> cow paths, game trails, etc.
> 
> We are asking that if a cache is placed in a Park, place within three feet
> of a designated trail.  If a cache is placed near or on a sensitive site we
> acknowledge that most searchers will not intentionally cause any damage.
> The vast majority will come and go and leave only their foot prints in the
> soil.  However, if people will through trash out their car window, they sure
> as heck will be up shards or touch a petroglyph if no one is around.  Yes,
> the petroglyphs are interesting, the archaeological sites clearly add value
> to the cache site.  They provide a bonus to finding the cache.  They were
> created 600, 700, 800 years ago and in some cases much longer.   I don't
> know how many are in Arizona, and whatever the number I suspect others are
> around but have not been found.  There are a lot of archaeological sites in
> Arizona.  That's good because they have to last forever.  Petroglyphs are
> not being created any longer and everyone damaged or stolen is one less site
> for the future, for ever!
> 
> I personally don't think it is worth the risk.  You won't cause any damage,
> I won't, our friends probably won' t and if we can count on 95% percent of
> the Geocachers to not cause any damage then I ask you this question.  Who
> will show that 5%, who will cause damage, where our archeological sites are?
> Will they have to find them on their own, will they follow the new spider
> trails, or will they find the interesting sounding sites on geocaching.com
> to discover the remaining petroglyphs.
> 
> Why place a cache on a sensitive site?  The game is great, let the discovery
> of the cache be the reward in and of its self.  
> 
> Thanks for your time to read this lengthy rambling response.
> 
> Rand Hubbell
> Marketing Coordinator
> (602) 506-1114
>