kleiner

I had a conversation with the management at Sand Dunes earlier this year. In that forest the SNA is off limits to everyone except on the established trails. (We ride our horses through there a lot, that's why I asked). That SNA has a special allowance for use during the hunting season. So I asked him about "hunting" caches?? He didn't think that was very funny. JK ps. This all happened before the ban on caching in the State Parks was being discused.

Brenna, Excellent!! JK

Brenna, I did get the same letter from that Forestville Manager. It was a carbon of what he sent to their superiors in St. Paul. The part about all this stuff to be watched by the local ranger or manager is the kind of grass roots level of input that will help keep the sport alive in the parks. I thanked him for the support. JK [This message was edited by kleiner on May 16, 2002 at 02:41 PM.]

So, today I'm out for a walk and a little cache maintainence and a Conservation Officer stops to visit. We talk about the weather and normal other stuff and then I ask for his opinion on geocaching. He had only heard a little about the sport so I try to fill him in. Told him it is good for young and old. I ask what he thinks about the State Parks position on no caching allowed. He talks about impacts and such, then asks me what one looks like. I just so happen to have one in my truck. I show him a 2 quart plastic container filled with toys for kids and other trinkets for adults. He likes the idea of exchanging one item for another. Then he says something about where would I bury this thing. (This is a misconception that must be common with non-cachers). I explain that I have never buried or even seen a buried cache. I explain the logbook and a little about logging on the web. He says "my kids would love this". (Him too, I think). Anyway it seems that at the grass roots level that he could see the benefit of the game. Mission accomplished!! JK

Bobhiker, thanks for getting started on talking to these folks. I recieved this note from Forestville Assistant Manager: The main reason the decision was made was because of resource protection. Practically all MN state parks have areas of fragile, if not protected environments that could be damaged by heavy foot traffic. If these caches are placed in these areas irreversable damage could be done to a single species or to an entire ecosystem. Feel free to contact Steve Anderson or Ron Hains, MN DNR, division of parks at our central office in St Paul for any other information. I'm just doing what I was told to do. In response I sent off a note to the manager at Forestville just this morning. Here it is: Thanks for dropping me a note. I think any responsible outdoors person understands the importance of respecting fragile areas. If you follow what the geo-cachers do you would see that their credo is to leave no impact. The motto "cache in trash out" is a good indication of what they are doing. In that Cleveland example you will see that both parks and cachers work together to not impact the sensitive areas. In my experience the number of visitors to the caches that I have placed is about 1 visit per week on average. Some of the original ones that I have set have even lower numbers of visits. If you have email address's of Steve Anderson and Ron Harris I can send them a note. But, I really think that comments have to come from folks like yourself . As a person in your position, working at the park would understand the uses in a case by case basis. It appeared that from your comments on using your mapping software and your gps that you may have enjoyed the hunt for the cache in your park. Maybe you could try some others and see for yourself the amount of impact and also how much fun this hobby is. Again thanks for getting back to me. Jim K So Bob if you find an ear that we can bend, please post it up here. JK

This is really bad news. Is there anything that we can do to show the State Parks that this is a good use. I can't believe how narrow sighted this looks on the part of the Parks. Pretty soon we won't be able to even visit them! Who would have made this decision?

If your survey is based on NAD83 we can figure this out fairly easy. If it isn't we will have to rotate the bearings to best fit the info that you have from your gps. The readings that you get won't be perfect, but we can get you within several feet if we are lucky. I did some work like this last fall on a project covering about 250 acres. At that time I was able to get within 20 feet on any of about 80 points that I recorded. The hand held GPS equiptment just isn't going to get you much better than that. On that project I had some very good control as I was working side by side with a surveyor. I still was amazed at how close those points ended up. If you want to fax me your map and the known info that you recorded with you GPS I can take my best shot at calculating "search areas" for the other points. Fax number 763-441-8604.

I have done this with one of mine. I gave the compass bearings from A and B. Then the searcher just has to walk those lines to the point of intersection to search for C. This is pretty easy when you use your compass. You can use your GPS to check if you need to. If you can keep your angles fairly strong the intersection is fairly easy to see. JK

15t, excellent points in your post. Now we as a Minnesota group need to get that into a form that we can get into the various park managements hands. They have been hit with all the negative and now we have to show them the positive, as you have noted. JK

Hi 15t, I too am waiting to hear what's happening with this park manager issue. I have one cache in an Anoka County park. I have been in contact with the king and am also under the impression that this might be someone not so official! The cache that was in the Coon Rapids Dam has been archieved, kind of because of this park manager guy, but also because the 3 Rivers Park may have a off-trail restriction. KO_DAT_VEY was the owner of that cache and is looking into doing something different there.

The weather sure has a lot to do with the attitude. Cabin fever has really set in in my part of world. The last two mornings it has been 25 below (wind chill). About 0 to 5 on the thermometer. I did see robins show up on wednesday, so there is hope. I wonder what they find to eat? With all the snow it must be hard for them, too.