Uplink

It seems to me that while the State of Washington asserts ownership of tidelands, the provisions for public access seem to have a lot of holes in them. Traversing private uplands to access many tidelands seems to be honored in principle more than fact. WAC 173-26-220 (4) Public access. (a) Applicability. Public access includes the ability of the general public to reach, touch, and enjoy the water's edge, to travel on the waters of the state, and to view the water and the shoreline from adjacent locations. Public access provisions below apply to all shorelines of the state unless stated otherwise. ( Principles. Local master programs shall: (i) Promote and enhance the public interest with regard to rights to access waters held in public trust by the state while protecting private property rights and public safety. (ii) Protect the rights of navigation and space necessary for water-dependent uses. (iii) To the greatest extent feasible consistent with the overall best interest of the state and the people generally, protect the public's opportunity to enjoy the physical and aesthetic qualities of shorelines of the state, including views of the water. (iv) Regulate the design, construction, and operation of permitted uses in the shorelines of the state to minimize, insofar as practical, interference with the public's use of the water. © Planning process to address public access. Local governments should plan for an integrated shoreline area public access system that identifies specific public needs and opportunities to provide public access. Such a system can often be more effective and economical than applying uniform public access requirements to all development. This planning should be integrated with other relevant comprehensive plan elements, especially transportation and recreation. Where a port district or other public entity has incorporated public access planning into its master plan through an open public process, that plan may serve as a portion of the local government's public access planning, provided it meets the provisions of this chapter. The planning may also justify more flexible off-site or special area public access provisions in the master program. Public participation requirements in WAC 173-26-200 (3)((i) apply to public access planning. At a minimum, the public access planning should result in public access requirements for shoreline permits, recommended projects, port master plans, and/or actions to be taken to develop public shoreline access to shorelines on public property. The planning should identify a variety of shoreline access opportunities and circulation for pedestrians -- including disabled persons -- bicycles, and vehicles between shoreline access points, consistent with other comprehensive plan elements. (d) Standards. Shoreline master programs shall implement the following standards: (i) Based on the public access planning described in © of this subsection, establish policies and regulations that protect and enhance both physical and visual public access. The master program shall address public access on public lands. The master program should seek to increase the amount and diversity of public access to the state's shorelines consistent with the natural shoreline character, property rights, public rights under the Public Trust Doctrine, and public safety. (ii) Require that shoreline development by public entities, including local governments, port districts, state agencies, and public utility districts, include public access measures as part of each development project, unless such access is shown to be incompatible due to reasons of safety, security, or impact to the shoreline environment. Where public access planning as described in WAC 173-26-220 (4)© demonstrates that a more effective public access system can be achieved through alternate means, such as focusing public access at the most desirable locations, local governments may institute master program provisions for public access based on that approach in lieu of uniform site-by-site public access requirements. (iii) Provide standards for the dedication and improvement of public access in developments for water-enjoyment, water-related, and nonwater-dependent uses and for the subdivision of land into more than four parcels. In these cases, public access should be required except: (A) Where the local government provides more effective public access through a public access planning process described in WAC 173-26-220 (4)©. ( Where it is demonstrated to be infeasible due to reasons of incompatible uses, safety, security, or impact to the shoreline environment. In determining the infeasibility, undesirability, or incompatibility of public access in a given situation, local governments shall consider alternate methods of providing public access, such as off-site improvements, viewing platforms, separation of uses through site planning and design, and restricting hours of public access. © For individual single-family residences not part of a development planned for more than four parcels. (iv) Adopt provisions, such as maximum height limits, setbacks, and view corridors, to minimize the impacts to existing views from public property or substantial numbers of residences. Where there is an irreconcilable conflict between water-dependent shoreline uses or physical public access and maintenance of views from adjacent properties, the water-dependent uses and physical public access shall have priority, unless there is a compelling reason to the contrary. (v) Do not allow public access improvements that would cause significant ecological impacts to shoreline ecological functions that cannot be mitigated. Require that public access improvements with the potential to degrade ecological functions be designed to minimize adverse impacts. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -- Oscar Wilde

Hey, I got my SporTrak Color this week too! The bad thing is that I've been so busy house hunting all week that I haven't had time to play with it . Now that I've got an offer in on a little rambler in Des Moines, I think I'll go play so I don't sit here twiddling my thumbs waiting for the phone to ring! Magellan sure does things differently than Garmin; going to take a while to reprogram my brain! Also, I must have $500 worth of mapping software, and I still need to buy more maps for the Magellan. What a roast! Looks like a pretty cool GPSr though; thanks Magellan for the free toy! It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -- Oscar Wilde

Well, if you can bring a bicycle with you, you can transfer to the Elliott Bay Water Taxi at Coleman Dock, which puts you in position to do my (shameless plug) Alki Tour #2 Cache. This one would be about a 10 to 12 mile bike ride (round trip) but it's board flat the whole way except the last 200 yards. Lots of great scenery with a bit of cache challenge thrown in at times. I am still hoping to run it via water taxi this summer just to see if it's as fun as it looks! -Edit- BTW, if you do this cache, you need to print out the cache page, and make sure the right edge of the table prints. Not guarenteed to work with palm/pocket PC programs! It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -- Oscar Wilde

Well, I think it's great that everyone figured out where the hole is, but I think it's a pretty rude place to put a cache. Just because it is not terribly difficult to get to doesn't mean that it's safe in any conventional sense. I think of it as the kind of place where proper equipment and skills will only take you so far - luck has a bit to do with it too... In the Oregon Field Guide video, one of the Geologists pointed out some Peterbuilt sized rocks that tumbled into the hole since his last visit. He said he thought it would be a really rotten place to be during even a small earthquake. They also mentioned how it seemed possible that a further fracture of the Hell Hole might one day dam the North Fork of the Willamette. Now that’s a scary thought (though small potatoes in the geologic scheme)! Personally, I like going to dangerous places, and maybe you all do too. However posting a geocache is like in open invitation that screams COME ON DOWN! I think it's like thumbing our collective nose at the Forest Service, who had some possibly well conceived reasons to make this place as obscure as possible. I don't think this thread should be locked. I think this is an important discussion about the degree that geocaching is going to be self policing. Forest Service policy toward Geocaching is not written in stone by any means, and how Geocachers behave in the next few years might have long term effects on geocacher access to FS lands. I think a bit of discretion now might be in our best interest in the future.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -- Oscar Wilde

Well son, it's like this. Life is only painful if you do it right. You could rearrange your life to try and minimize the potential for pain and injury, but then you would be playing bridge or something instead of geocaching (not much of an option). However, to answer your question, I don't think you can sue anyone because we're all covered by the Universal Disclaimer wherein it is written "If ya can't run with the Big Dogs, stay on the porch". I bet you are one of the Big Dogs, however, and I hope you recover from your injury and are back geocaching soon! It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -- Oscar Wilde

Hmmm. Might have to check that out. Looks pretty good!If I go, I probably won't be there till late afternoon. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. -- Oscar Wilde

When SA was turned on, the published standard was that 95% of the fixes would be accurate to within 100 meters. If you look at this plot from the US Space Command website, you can see that the maximum error during the 4 hour SA sample was about 80 meters (horizontal), and the average error was somewhere in the 20 to 40 meter range. Of course, individual fixes could be much better than that, and infrequently, much worse! Loved the article though! Good stuff !

Great article! Maybe the best piece of that length I've seen. The only mistake I saw (and they usually have a bunch) was the part where it said selecive availability pushed GPS is accuracy out to 30 feet (instead of 300 feet or 100 meters). Captured the essence of out addiction quite well I think!

Looks like someone dropped out. As of now, the ESPN league still has room for one more team, so anyone on the fence about joining better hop on it!

Well, there is always Haiku Duck. My extremely modest entry: Second of seven... Sunshine! Ducks are all lined up. Geocaching rocks! I took the Amber. Never know when I'll need that! Left lightstick for you. Yea, I think I better keep my day job too...

I used an Eagle Explorer for my first 100 or so caches, and it worked just fine. You should have no problem.

I am all set up in the ESPN league, and we still need two more victims -er- team owners, so if there are any more geocachers out there who aren't afraid to crack a few coconuts, come on down!

The part that got me was where it said he was walking in circles for hours! Any direction at all, and he would have been fine - it took some real creativity to devise a self rescue strategy that didn't work there. As far as paying for the rescue, the article mentioned that American Medical Response participated in the search. I believe that's a commercial ambulance company, and I'll bet there is a $2,000 - $3,000 bill headed his way. Hey, maybe we should start a Geocaching version of the Darwin Awards!

Hey, the race to the Magellan boxes is nothing compared to what happens when a Moun10bike coin appears somewhere in the Puget Sound area. Last time I recall the Hanson Creek cache went up at 10 at night - up near Snoqualamie Pass. I got there early the next morning, Misguided One got there earlier, and GEM's went up the night before and beat us both up there! Lots of dedicated folks on the hunt these days !

I just got the copy of the Oregon Field Guide episode I ordered and it was the wrong one!Turns out the Hell Hole tape we want is number 802, not 803! Now wildflowers of the Coumbia River Gorge is a cool topic, but I was pretty bummed. My fault for not double checking. The folks at audience services were super nice about it though, so I should have the right tape next week I hope. Don't let this happen to you!

makaio - Maybe this map will help you a bit; The red lines show Croaker's track log, and the yellow lines show some potential access points off of road 636 that I plan on taking a look at when I get a chance. Good Luck!

I'm Only Here For The Geocaching. Wouldn't You Like To Be A Geocache Too? Aaahh, Geocaching! Geo Comes to Those Who Wait. The Ultimate Cache Machine. I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole Cache. Cache Tested, Mother Approved. Just One Cache - Give It To Me! Today's Geocacher, Since 1903.

OK, here is the scoop. First off, most digital cameras take big honking pictures, 1600 pixels wide and more. Geocaching.com will shrink them to 300 pixels wide for display in the cache logs anyway, but if you want to have a bigger version available for folks who click on your photo, then upload 500 or 600 pixels wide versions. Any photo software will resize them for you, but the method varies. When you resize them there is usually an option to keep the existing aspect ratio - that is shrink width and height the same percentage. If you want to crop the photo, do that before you resize. Then save the photo as a .jpg file; you should have an option as to how much compression you want when you do this. You might have to play around to get the right ammount of compression to give you a file size under 100k. However, DO NOT compress the image multiple times in series, but rather UNDO the compression and try again at a higher compression value. Sounds complicated, but its easy once you get the hang of it. 100k is actually quite generous - 50 or 60k is usually plenty.

I agree with CoronaKid, you just have to make it look official. This cache is a great example. It's right out in plain sight, been there for 5 months, and not problem. Great cache by the way!

Navdog has a well done geocaching magizine called Caching Life. Check it out!

Looks like the Northwest is getting another one . Maybe you folks in Arizona should come up here for vacation!

Well, I don't know if being an oldtimer is good or bad, but at least nobody calls us newbie anymore! Hey, I registered the same day as Eraseek; that mekes me really feel old !

400 finds, 29 DNF's. I don't always log my no finds - if I don't find it 2 or more times, I usually consider 1 DNF enough. I almost always cache solo, my eyes are not the best, and I don't consider myself particularly good at spotting micros. I usually find them eventually (unless they have gone missing), but if I don't care for a location or cache I won't go back.

ravenbrk: The Thieves Isle cache was exactly the same. The Grand Prize Coupons were underneath the hat coupons in the lid. Maybe they ALL have one GP on top of the stack, and 4 more on the bottom (hidden prizes)! Marky: Yea, Pepper is lots of fun. Her and her running buddies Lucy (of LucyandRicky) and CachinCin are zipping through through all of the eastside caches at a rapid rate! [This message was edited by Uplink on July 06, 2003 at 07:56 AM.]