americasroof

The hobby has just run head long into one of the hottest debating points in the backcountry -- the "leave no trace" ethos. The trend -- as exemplified by National Park Service policy -- is to stridently enforce this. As a result, we're seeing summit registers removed from mountain tops, a reduction in trail signs and the tearing down of trail cairns. The NPS Morning Report follows a chain of command from the field offices. This particular report came from a lesser known National Recreation Area. No doubt the office probably was not totally attune to the subtle differences between "stashing" and "burying." There probably wasn't a conspiracy to create misinformation. The Park was merely strictly enforcing its "leave no trace" mandate. The "leave no trace" in National Parks mandate incidentally is also recognized by Geocaching which specifically prohibits the geocaches on NPS property and won't permit them to be posted if they are on NPS property. Unfortunately, there was human error. Since this is a hot topic, the hobby will encounter more such bumps even on other public parks/forests. The rhetoric used in these encounters should definitely be toned down to reflect an understanding of valid pressures and concerns. You will catch more flies with honey...

This was in this morning's National Park Service Morning Report (Monday, March 11): 02-056 - Lake Roosevelt NRA (WA) - Geocaching Incident Rangers recently conducted an investigation into geocaching in the park. Geocaching is a sport in which individuals or organizations cache materials at particular locations, then provide the GPS coordinates via the Internet so that other people can attempt to find them. Some times caching entails digging, which presents obvious problems in national parks. On February 27th, Patrick Hall asked permission to bury a geocache within the park's historic Fort Spokane Unit. During the conversation, Hall made several statements which revealed that he'd previously been investigated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for this same activity, and that other geocaches might already be buried within the park. Ranger Jaime Green investigated and found that two caches had already been buried near Fort Spokane by a geocache player known as "Fuzzybear." Additional investigation uncovered a connection between "Fuzzybear" and Hall. Hall was interviewed and admitted placing both caches. Parks concerned about this activity within their boundaries may go to http://www.geocaching.com and search for caches located in their areas. [Chris Rugel, DR, Fort Spokane District, LARO, 3/8] http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/msg01095.html