jonboy

I stand corrected Ed, I just did my own count of physical caches actually in Harriman/Bear Mt Park and came up with 105, two in Storm King, one in Fort Montgomery HS, five in Fahnestock, thirteen in the Hudson Highlands, seven in Rockefeller SP, nine in Hook Mt SP, two in High Tor SP, one in Blauvelt SP, and two in Tallman SP. So thats 157 caches in NY State Parks in the lower Hudson Valley three of which have permits, all of which are supposed to have permits by 4/15. I agree with Mark, many cache placers won't even know this. I also agree that it might be time for them to be advised of this, I would think by the cache approvers notifying them by e-mail. April 15th seems a very tough and probably won't be met, given that it coincides with the tax deadline, but it is certainly not too early to start thinking about it.

My point was not to trust the temperature ratings made by sleeping bag manufacturers, you can get by at those ratings, but don't expect to be cozy. In winter, I like to carry a bag rated 20 degrees colder than anticipated temperatures, just in case.

My sense of what the Fahnestock park manager was hoping for was voluntary compliance. He did not seem in a big hurry to have caches in his park delisted, he seems to be hoping that the majority of cache owners will obtain cache permits once they see that it not being made difficult. As he said to me, he does not see 20 caches in two parks consisting of 20,000 acres as being an urgent problem. He will probably move eventually to compell compliance, but hopes by then that he will be dealing with a handful of caches. Things may look a little more pressing to the Harriman/ Bear Mt Park Superintendent, with 200+ caches on 52,000 acres, or about four times the cache density.

The lean-tos in Harriman all have built in fireplaces, which is very nice for winter camping. They can also be A**hole magnets, attracting rowdy partiers, but this is less of a problem in winter. If you do opt to stay in a lean-to, finding dry wood can be a problem this time of year. You might want to carry in one of those duraflame logs, this will enable you to start a fire and thaw and dry out whatever wood you can find. Don't count on being able to cook over the flame, pack in a stove just in case you have problems with a fire. A tarp to tie across the front of the lean-to is good for keeping the lean-to warm. I wouldn't try and sleep out right now with a bag rated any less than zero degrees, you can read Brian's post on his Catskill backpack for an idea how comfortable a 20 degree bag is in winter. You also are going to want more insulation under you, a minimum of one inch, an inch and a half is better. You could try a regular full length pad with a light three quarter length thermarest. Water filters can ice up in winter, carry enough fuel to boil your drinking water and leave the filter home. Some people bring their boots into the sleeping bag, but that can be messy, plus frozen boots don't make good foot warmers. Just make sure they are spread open wide when you take them off, and a few minutes of stomping around will loosen them up in the morning. Do put your water bottles,socks and gloves in the sleeping bag with you. I sleep in pile booties and put the clothes I'm not wearing under my sleeping bag for extra insulation.

I stopped in the Fahnestock State Park Office and had a friendly talk with Bill Bauman, the park super and Paul Kaufman, his deputy. He gave me permits for "Candle in the Wind", "Clarence's Chimney" and "Benedict Arnold's Roost". He will begin the two year limit from the date the permit is issued and was not particular that the caches had to be 20 feet from the trail, only that they had to be near it. We agreed that I would remove one more cache, "Walk This Way, Master" because it it is in a rattlesnake denning area on Breakneck Ridge. The process was very painless and bodes well for geocaching in Fahnestock and Hudson Highlands State Park. I skied out and put a sticker on "Clarence's Chimney", he said I could put the other stickers on whenever I got a chance.

I see a proceedural catch-22 as this process is described. A cache cannot be approved without a permit number, yet the application asks for the website referencing the cache, which sounds to me like the URL of the particular cache, which cannot be obtained until the cache is submitted, which requires a permit number. Further more, most cacher placers will have to go home in order to log in the cache for approval and make a map of the cache location (presuming they have the mapping software to do this). I don't see the cache offices having wireless signal, nor do many people have a laptop and a portable printer. As it now stands, it is easier to get approval for caches already in place, requiring only one trip to the park office with the required documentation. and a trip to the cache to apply the sticker. For placing new caches, first one would have to go to the park office (which is usually only sporadically manned), obtain approval for the proposed location and place the cache. Then the cache placer will have to go home, print out a map, return to the seldom open park office, obtain the sticker and go out and place it on the cache, before finally be able to list the cache. One could shortcut this process somewhat by making a topo map (gridded with UTM coordinate lines) of the planned cache location in advance and manually plotting the location of the cache by converting the lat and long coordinates to UTM and using the metric scale bar on the bottom of the map as a template for a grid reader. I might also try and talk the park into giving me a sticker before I go out and place the cache, with the stipulation that the permit will not be in effect, until I return with the exact coordinates and the map of the location. This current set up favors caches that were placed without permission and as far as new cache placements, favors caches near the road as opposed to those in more remote locations.

Sounds to me like an eager NYGO trail volunteer.

I called the Fahnestock State Park Office (845 225-7207) and spoke to the assistant park manager, Paul Kaufman, who I have worked with before. He was friendly and knew about the cache permits. He took my name and number and faxed me a copy of the permit application. The copy was not very legible, or I would scan it and post it here, but the regulations are the same as those already posted on this site. This park is not requiring that all existing caches be removed, but they only had about 30 in Fahnestock and the Hudson Highlands to begin with, nine of which I have already removed. I did establish that the northern section of Breakneck Ridge, including Sunset Hill and South Beacon, as well as Fishkill and Scofield Ridges, are not in the park and hence not subject to the permit requirement. This means for me that my remaning caches on that ridge can stay. He was not sure if the two year limit will start from the issuance of the permit or the placement of the cache, I will have to clarify that with the park manager, Bill Bauman. He said I should call and make an appointment to meet with him in order to discuss these issues, which I will do shortly.

I also have had trouble finding my local State Park office (Fahnestock) open. I have been there four times, and only once found anyone in the office, a kid who knew nothing about it. Optimus Prime tells me that the best time to catch them is before 8:30 and after 4:30 on weekdays. As far as Sterling Forest, they patrol that park very zealously, even on ATV, and I have seen little sign of illegal ATV use in that park, especially compared to the anarchy on the New Jersey side. There are some very wealthy and influencial people living on inholdings along Sterling Lake, and I believe this is why they have a more generous budget and greater manpower than other more heavily used parks. I'm sure this is in at least partly why they built such an expensive visitors center here. I have to admit that I wish all the State Parks were so zealously protected, even if it meant more restrictions on geocaching and mountain biking. I place more priority on preserving the resource from abuse, and would gladly sacrifice my ability to do as I please, if such restraint was applied fairly to all users.

If a ranger told you that they remove caches, I would be inclined to take them at their word.

JOEK, At least they had the courtesy to e-mail you and say they would hold them for you. Based on the comments made to Mark by a ranger, I would say that some Harriman Rangers might just pick them up and trash them. That might explain why Bigbill had a rash of his caches go missing. It makes sense they would go for the easy ones.

JOEK, Which caches were archived? Although Sterling Forest is part of the PIPC under the main office in Bear Mt, they have a separate park manager, who seems very computer savvy and more zealous than the management at Bear Mt. They removed the caches because they were placed without permission. They didn't go to all the trouble of instituting a system for regulating the placement of caches in order to ignore the hundreds that have already been placed. They would not of removed them without authority from their main office, so we can assume this is a harbinger of what is to come.

Brian, that was an interesting set of caches and I enjoyed finding them. It is going to involve a good deal of effort to remove them, as they are not near each other. Mine were at least closer together and I was able to remove them in two days. The Harriman/Bear Mt Park management is supposed to be having a meeting today about the cache permit policy. I doubt very seriously if they will exempt the preexisting caches from the rules set forth on the permit application. I would say it is possible they may waive the 20' rule in some cases, but the big stipulation that we have not talked about much here is the two year time limit on each placement, along with the requirement that each cache be checked on twice a year. I don't think they can apply the checking requirement retroactively on the caches already in place, and I really don't see how they are going to be able to keep track of each cache to insure that it's owner complies with that provision. Clearly, any cache that is allowed to remain will have to have a permit, and this will involve contacting the park for approval and then going out and placing it on the cache. This alone could be a major stumbling block for many cache owners. In a short while we are going to see just how this park management chooses to implement the new rules, hopefully they will communicate with NY Admin or geocaching.com how they have decided to proceed in permitting caches already in place and what action they expect from us. I would not be surprised to see wholesale involuntary archiving of caches. They could be just temporarily disabled until a permit is obtained or they could be left in place with a permit to be obtained by the owner by a certain deadline. One thing we can be sure of, the status quo will not be allowed to remain for very much longer.

The specific rules have been formulated and the policy has been handed down, implementation by this individual park has yet to be finalized. No one has the right to expect that they can deposit items on public lands without permission, and that this abandoned property should remain untouchable. As a trails volunteer, I pick up litter all the time, and if the park has a cache removed from the website because the owner failed to comply with the new rules, it will be nothing but litter, and I would be happy to remove it with all the other trash. The fact that a you might consider me a pariah troubles me not in the least. I wouldn't waste my time looking for your cache because it was put in a stream bed and washed away in the hurricane flooding, no one has found it since. You could always prove me wrong by going out and checking on it, but it's a lot easier to just spew out insults.

I removed all ten of my caches from Harriman, so it is now jonboy free. That only leaves 200+ left, so I'm not sure quite what I accomplished. My point is it's not good enough just to say there are too many caches in Harriman, you have to do something to demonstrate your sincerity. I am hoping that I will be able to put new caches in Harriman/Bear Mt in the not too distant future. Geobernd makes a good point when he points out that Bear Mt State Park and Harriman State park are actually two different units. As I read the map, all but one of my caches were actually in Bear Mt State Park. This is one of several significant rulings the park management will have to make, the biggest being what position are they going to take on the preexisting caches. My reasoning has been that if I am going to have to get a permit for a cache that is only good for two years, I might as well start the clock at the time I obtain the permit. I would have had to go out there and put stickers on them anyway, and I really couldn't see going through all that trouble for a permit that would last less than two years. I predict that it is this enforcement of the stipulations in the permit application that will provide the leverage for the park management to insist on removal of non-compliant caches, and thereby greatly reduce the number of caches. My fear is that the park management might insisit that preexisting caches either be brought into compliance or removed before new permits will be issued. If this is the case, I would advocate that the caches of the owners of caches who fail to respond to requests to obtain permits be removed by volunteers amongst the geocaching community, but only with the express authority of geocaching.com and the Park management.

I hadn't been willing to get out front about the caching issue because I knew I had placed caches without official permission, and I was embarrassed to admit as much, being that I am an officer in a Search and Rescue group and a long time hiking club official. I don't have any contacts in Harriman, just a few in the Taconic Region and some within the trail conference, the DEC and the hiking clubs. I am delighted at this turn of events, because it enables me come out of the closet as a geocacher and not feel like some kind of outlaw. I have argued in the past that given the size of Harriman there are not too many caches, but I do have a problem with too many being clustered around a handful of parking lots. From the park manager's perspective, 220 caches is an awful lot of caches, no matter how big the park, and I can see how this could be an embarrassment to him, indicating perhaps that he had lost control of his park. If we are to get along with these park people, we are going to have to make an effort to see things from their perspective. It doesn't help to get on this board and insult them, especially when we know that at least one of them, who has lobbied for our cause, is on this board. Try not to say anything here that you wouldn't say to their faces, because one day you might be standing in front of one of them, asking for an exemption from the 20 foot rule.

I wouldn't say the DEC had no trouble with caches in the land they manage, I would say they were unable to show how it would cause great harm in order to justify the continued ban. They will be monitoring how geocaching affects their land, and I would say they would be very glad to call for it's restriction if they could show cause. It will be up to geocachers to monitor themselves in order to make sure this permission is not rescinded. I really feel that we do not have grounds to feel agrieved, rather we should feel relieved that geocaching has been endorsed by the two agencies that control state land. Did anyone really believe that we were going to have carte blanche to do as we please forever? They knew that there were geocaches were in their parks, and turned a blind eye to it as long as the impact was minimal, but it was the huge growth in geocaching and the proliferation of caches that forced them to act. Why did Parks and Rec place more restrictions on geocaching than the DEC? They did so because they could point to a park like Harriman, where the placement of geocaches had run amok in order to justify the restrictions. The selective enforcement of off trail restrictions by Parks and Rec is something we have grounds to question, but this does not make them idiots. Parks and rec lands are administered separately from the DEC lands because the pattern of use of a Forest Preserve is different from a park. Apart from the ADK High Peaks area, most of the use is less intense, and the people who use the land are by and large more experienced in wilderness travel. A park like Harriman, with 2.2 million visitors a year, many of whom are urban dwellers with little or no experience in wilderness travel, has many more incidences of lost persons, it happens every weekend in the summer. For this reason they are able to justify off trail restrictions. Quite frankly, most geocachers have little or no wilderness travel skills and venture only as far from their vehicles as needed to find their caches. I am surpised we have not had more incidents of lost geocachers. I feel it is this lack of experience and background in the issues involved in land management that cause many geocachers, who hardly set foot in the woods before geocaching, to leap to the conclusion that these Parks people are idiots.

JMBella, I wouldn't approve "Trepidation" or "Lurker at the Threshold" if I was park manager, and I'm not going to try and get away with questionable caches at this time. I wish I had not named another one "Break Dem Bones", as it is not that bad. Yes, going into mines is against park regulations, as is going off trail, and they did enforce that one by forcing the AMC to ban hikes that were listed as bushwacks.

I just got a very encouraging e-mail from Optimus Prime: John, Just talked to the Fahnestock people here in Cold Spring. They had a special meeting about the cache issue the other night and are expecting people to come in for permits. They were even issued stickers by the State to "legalize" the approved caches. They even said that there is no need to remove the caches, just go in show them were they are (coordinates) and show that they "somewhat" meet the guidelines. They are mainly concerned with placement in ecologically sensitve areas, and like I was just told "hunters get free-rain of the woods bith on trail and off, thus we can't totally prohibit off trail hiking..." I will probably go out some time this week and see ifI can register the few I have in the park. Let me know if you have any other info. MB It seems the Fahnestock people are going to be relaxed about the permit process. knowing this, one of the caches I removed probably could have been left in place. All the others were either more than two years old, just shy of being two years old, on the edge of a cliff or way off trail. I'll still have to remove one in Fahnestock and two in the Hudson Highlands, but I will be going in there to talk to them soon. Harriman is going to be more of a problem, I don't think they will let all those caches stay, I'll probably have to at least pull out my most interesting caches, they will not like ones on the edge of a cliff or in a mine. I am encouraged though, we are being treated reasonably.

Geocachers have to realize that most of the parks peronnel do not attach the same importance to geocaching that some of us do, not only that, but some of them probably disagree with the decision to allow geocaches to be placed in their parks. If you read NYAdmin's post you will see that the permits were sent to the regional headquarters, not the individual parks. It so happens that the Palisades Region headquarters is in Bear Mountain, but the Taconic Region headquarters is in Staatsburg. They may protest this decision, but they will not openly defy it, rather they will drag their feet about it's implementation. They know how to play this game, and they hold the cards, so we have to be a little patient. Instead of approaching them saying "Hey! I'm supposed to get a permit! What are you waiting for?", we should try something like, "What can we geocachers do to make you comfortable about having geocaches in your park?". Only a handful of parks people even knew about geocaching, and many of the others just don't care that much, it just gives them more work to do. Winter is a good time to deal with this issue, as they are not so busy now, but bureaucratic inertia is to be expected. We need to be persistent , without being hectoring and without displaying too much of a sense of entitlement. They will come around because they have no choice, just don't expect an epiphany on their part.

I recall there was some opposition to the Catskill 3500 Club joining the NY/NJ TC a decade or so ago. The argument was made that we were peak baggers looking for an endorsement from the Conference, not a hiking club and it probably took six months before we were approved, and only after we adopted a trail section to maintain. I could envisage similar objections to the joining of NYGO. NYGO can not be seen as joining the conference purely as a means of promoting itself and it's own interests, delegates must be convinced that NYGO has a sincere interest in helping to build and protect the hiking trail network. I was one of that club's early delegates.

I agree with Brian, The NY/NJTC is a trails organization, and if NYGO joins, they will be expected to contribute towards the maintenance of trails, as an organization. It will not matter that some members are already active volunteers, what will count is that someting is done under the auspices of NYGO. Also, there is some opposition to geocaching in the hiking community, so don't expect them to embrace a potentially divisive cause.

There is an analogy here and a lesson to be drawn. Mountain bikers started off under the radar, with little impact, riding where they pleased. As the sport grew, so did it's negative impact and bad reputation. They came to lumped together with ATV users as trail destroying vandals. Mountain bikers reacted to this kind of hyperbole and animas by getting organized, working to help maintain trails and educate and police the handful of irresponsible bikers who were causing them so much bad publicity and things have turned around. This is about where we are with geocaching. The days when you could put a cache anywhere you pleased are over, never to return. If we fail to better organize and bring ourselvers under control, there will be a continuing backlash against us. Yes, I wish for the freedom to just go out and plop down caches anywhere that takes my fancy, but I knew such free license couldn't last. So now, do we work to try and resolve the concerns of those responsible for the lands we use for our sport, or do we wait until the red lights start flashing in our rear windshields and we find our sport impounded?

I can see the interpretation of Jmbella, but if I could make an analogy to his argument, the state requires that automobile drivers be licensed, therefore driving is legal, therefore how can those who are driving without a license be doing anything wrong if they haven't had a chance to get their licenses yet? Sounds like a pretty shaky line of logic to me. I don't think we will be left to debate it much longer. I suspect geocaching.com will yank the listings once Parks and Rec makes up it's mind to pull the plug, which they will most certainly do once they have the permit system up and running. I am just removing my caches now because I see the train coming down the track and don't want to wait till it reaches me before I react. As far as how to notify the authorities about illegal ATV use, this link is useful: http://www.nynjtc.org/brochures/IncidentReportProcedure.pdf And yes, geocachers are easier to catch than ATV outlaws, they don't leave e-mail addresses where they can be contacted.

I agree that it will be quite a while before a system is in place whereby geocachers can receive approval for the placement of Geocaches in NY State Parks. Prior to this time, there had been no official ruling on whether or not geocaches were allowed, so I felt if it's not prohibited, then it is allowed. Now there has been a ruling, and there can be no denying those caches in those parks without permits are there unlawfully. While I was willing to bend the rules, I am not willing to knowingly remain in violation of those regulations by leaving my caches in the parks unlawfully. I'll admit that my motives are mixed, but my primary motive is that I know some of these parks personnel and some of them know me. The identity of the cache owner"jonboy" cannot be much of a mystery, since I posted my picture in my profile. I do not want the embarassment of being seen to be in willful violation of park regulations by parks people I have to deal with. I want to be able to say that as soon as it became clear that my caches were in the parks in violation of regulations, I started to remove them. Apart from being the right thing to do, I also feel that this is the smart thing to do. I want to show that geocachers are not scofflaws and to acknowledge that our activities in the parks are subject to regulation, just like everyone else's. This does not make me a wimp, but a responsible, law-abiding citizen.