[Az-Geocaching] Response to Jason Poulter

[Bob Renner]

>From what I have seen in the off trail caches I have
been to, none have shown any signs of a trail being
developed.  Granted, most of these I have visited
earlier in their existence.  However, I visited the
McDowell cache twice many months apart (visitor #1 and
#37).  On the second visit I saw absolutely no
evidence of any new trail being created.  The
vegetation in the area is somewhat sparse and not the
type you want to push through - you tend to want to go
around it.  Other areas of the state likely do have
areas where vegetation might become trampled by people
looking for a cache.  I think it is up to the cache
owner to maintain caches, by either visiting them or
reading the cache logs, and determine when the area is
starting to show the development of trails and then
archive the cache.

As far as the Sign From The Past III cache, the site
is marked on the USGS topo maps of the area, so I can
hardly say it should be kept a secret because it
ISN'T. The amount of additional traffic generated by
the cache has to be small compared to general
exploration of the area.  If it is kept as a virtual
cache, people won't be searching around moving rocks
looking for a cache container.  Perhaps you could give
the coordinates of a suggested parking spot and ask
people to please not try to drive any closer.  

Bob

--- Brian Cluff <brian@snaptek.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2002-08-12 at 15:30, kenh199@cox.net wrote:
> > Now that I have had time to cool down I would like
> opinions about removing "My Sign From The Past III"
> virtual cache site. I have mixed feelings about this
> but since it has impacted all of us I will go with
> the majority of the opinions here. One of the things
> I enjoy the most about geocaching is the great
> places that others have shown me and that was the
> reason for posting the cache. Randals posting was
> much more reasonable and intelligently written that
> the Az Repulsive story.
> 
> Yes, I thought it was a much more level headed reply
> than the article as
> well.  The were only 2 things that I would argue
> with and that is that
> the cache itself should be the reward and that
> everyone is going to take
> the same path to the cache.
> I haven't really ever considered the cache as THE
> reward... It's "A"
> reward, but the new places that I am taken and the
> scenery that is
> around are the biggest reward.  With that same
> thinking you could say
> that a hike itself should be the reward, but if the
> hiking part is the
> reward and the scenery or destination of the hike is
> not, I might as
> well just go to the gym and "hike" on a treadmill.
> As for the creating new trails... I would say that
> MIGHT be true for
> caches that are a short distance from the caches,
> but for caches are are
> a decent way off the trail people will either tend
> to take a game trail,
> a wash, or go bushwacking... either way, there is no
> set markers in most
> cases that people will automatically follow to get
> to the cache and
> therefore won't be making any new trails.  Also with
> caches that are out
> of town they get a significantly less number of
> people going to them and
> I would harld think that 10-20 people a year going
> to a cache (and that
> would be high for a lot of the caches) we even have
> a good chance of
> creating a train even if they DID take the same path
> repetedly.... which
> they most likely aren't
> 
> Brian Cluff
> Team Snaptek
> 
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