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there used to be no trail no theres......


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In my neck of the woods in the few days that I have been caching (i think i need to start all my new topics this way so as to avoid the wrath of long time members) i have come across quite a few caches placed in locations that either did not have a trail before the cache was placed there or the trail was a lot smaller. Either there are some really big geocachers in my area, or there are a ton of them, or he people who play the game just keep treading in the same area, and the trail is super noticeable now.

 

I guess there is little that can be done about this, as the sport kindof exploded, and all that traffic, even if its just one person at a time, eats away at mother nature after a while.

 

so therefore, when my smartphone gps coordinates are all over the map, i can "cheat" by locating a heavily used trail in most cases, find logs nearly trampled, branches (not just twigs) twisted, and broke off, and just a general slew of dead plant life, and i can get pretty darn close to the prize.

 

I understand this is the main reason people get in trouble geocaching, they just plain trash the place in some cases, and destroy the beautiful area the original hider intended people to see. Especially since some geocachers are more about the numbers, rather than the scenic tours, is there anything we can do about this?

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I suspect that your first statment is incorrect. Trails exist in places you don't expect. These trails were probably there before, and you just didn't notice.

 

Have you ever done any 'bushwacking'? Whenever I have done any (unrelated to geocaching), I always find trails. Some are well developed. These are often from animals or other recreationalists.

 

Even if the trails were from geocachers, why does it matter. Trails are good. They keep people from trampling ALL the plant in the area.

 

As for GZ being devoid of life due to cachers, I have personaly never seen this, so I can't realy comment on that.

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Good morning all, Here in N. Calif. we have some sensitive areas and we have one cache owner who flags the cache location with a small piece of survey tape.

 

The rationale being as follows: direct quote here. " Hey I am sharing a wonderful site - it is about finding, it is not about GEO TORTURE and trampling of the environment. If we trample and destroy the areas we visit soon we will be banned. "

 

Just their take and it makes a bit of sense. Just thought I'd share.

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In fact geocaches were banned from the Humboldt Redwoods State Parks. Significant numbers of caches were removed. Compromises and solutions were negotiated thanks to a Ranger who is also a geocacher. Rather strict guidelines are now in place and the parks folks are all over caches which spring up to ensure compliance.

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Geotrails will form when caches that attract visitors are placed off trail, just as deer trails form when deer use a route through the woods. Certainly caches can be placed to minimize this. But it is probably better to have a trail to a cache than to have people wander through an area at random. Most caches with geotrails that I have seen do not appear to have caused lasting damage.

 

I certainly have seen some types of hides that have resulted in more significant damage or caches placed off trail in areas where cachers are likely to spread pathogens that are throughout our local woods. I believe that cachers should think about the impact of certain hides, to "walk softly" and take precautions in certain areas.

 

A land manager in my area (California State Parks) requires that caches be placed within three feet of a designated trail, perhaps to avoid this. Another agency set a 20 foot limit. The state parks also have rules designed to limit erosion into sensitive water features or marshes. I visited a cache where we were told that the land manager made sure it was moved periodically to allow an impacted area to recover.

Edited by Erickson
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It's called user trail. It's common to all human endeavor outdoors, not just geocaching: fishermen trails, hunter trails, potty trails in parks with no or closed bathrooms... bikers and hikers creating cut-through trails from one loop to another.

 

You started caching at the peak geocaching user trail moment in Florida - after a long winter. By early October, most of the damage you're seeing now will be gone....heat and rain will both heal the vegetation and keep the geocachers indoors, or closer to their vehicles.

 

Except where caches are placed in landscaped areas. blech. Humans are big clumsy animals.... all those squashed annual plantings, which neither the cache owner nor the cache seekers are offering to pay to replace.

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In my neck of the woods in the few days that I have been caching (i think i need to start all my new topics this way so as to avoid the wrath of long time members) i have come across quite a few caches placed in locations that either did not have a trail before the cache was placed there or the trail was a lot smaller. Either there are some really big geocachers in my area, or there are a ton of them, or he people who play the game just keep treading in the same area, and the trail is super noticeable now.

 

I guess there is little that can be done about this, as the sport kindof exploded, and all that traffic, even if its just one person at a time, eats away at mother nature after a while.

 

so therefore, when my smartphone gps coordinates are all over the map, i can "cheat" by locating a heavily used trail in most cases, find logs nearly trampled, branches (not just twigs) twisted, and broke off, and just a general slew of dead plant life, and i can get pretty darn close to the prize.

 

I understand this is the main reason people get in trouble geocaching, they just plain trash the place in some cases, and destroy the beautiful area the original hider intended people to see. Especially since some geocachers are more about the numbers, rather than the scenic tours, is there anything we can do about this?

 

Got any photographic evidence of significant damage? Before and after pictures?

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whats clear cutting?

 

I am getting the impression you are very young. Am I correct?

 

THere's this website called "google" (www.google.com) that can help you out with the most basic of questions, such as "what is clear cutting?".

 

I will help you this time though. Clear cutting is where logging companies go into a forest and cut EVERYTHING to the ground.

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of course i could google it, but that doesnt give me your definition of what it is, i was asking you because you mentioned it, everyones definition isnt always googles definition, i hate that "go look it up" crap, cause with the exception of the official rule book, the definition is not always the op's definition,

 

by the way, thanks for telling me,

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You guys may have missed this over the years:

 

It is a well established fact that just because there is a well worn path leading to a geocache or because there is evidence of trampling and erosion at the cache site is no reason to assume that it was the result of geocaching activity.

 

Unless you and an impartial witness have personally observed this and document it, or if you have a hidden web cam capturing someone opening a cache container after having possibly added to the level of observed 'damage', then no such damage has occurred. And if such damage has occurred, it is not the result of geocaching activity.

 

There is no other possible explanation for this. Individuals with some axe to grind against the game of geocaching are clearly responsible. Or there are simply non-geocaching hikers who carelessly pass by a geocache location waaaaayyyyy so many times that they cause the observed 'damage' to the location or the approach to the location.

 

I recall on several occasions visiting a geocache location in a relatively isolated location with no maintained trail and seeing what I thought was damage to the area that I was convinced could have been only caused by geocachers during their search activities.

 

As stated above, I soon learned just how wrong my thinking was on this topic.

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whats clear cutting?
I am getting the impression you are very young. Am I correct?

 

THere's this website called "google" (www.google.com) that can help you out with the most basic of questions, such as "what is clear cutting?".

 

I will help you this time though. Clear cutting is where logging companies go into a forest and cut EVERYTHING to the ground.

 

This guy's really good if he can annoy you, Bittsen. ;)

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This guy's really good if he can annoy you, Bittsen. ;)

 

He hasn't annoyed me. I was really, seriously, thinking this is a 12 year old (possibly mentally challenged) kid. I looked at his profile and it seems I may be wrong about the chronological age.

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whats clear cutting?
I am getting the impression you are very young. Am I correct?

 

THere's this website called "google" (www.google.com) that can help you out with the most basic of questions, such as "what is clear cutting?".

 

I will help you this time though. Clear cutting is where logging companies go into a forest and cut EVERYTHING to the ground.

 

This guy's really good if he can annoy you, Bittsen. ;)

 

hahahaha

hey at least im not a lurker, gleening, and not learning, im being active, and besides sitting on this forum reading, and posting, and getting responses worth listening to, im out there caching, and hiding, and donating money by leaving it in caches,

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when we first started we thought all caches had to be on a trail, with an obvious parking spot nearby. And these features are good "force" clues, but have since found many wonderful caches with no trails. On a side note looking for a cache by a Park-n-ride, the geotrail was so obvious muggles found it. The cache was busted open and swag strewn about by the parking lot .

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I guess there is little that can be done about this, as the sport kindof exploded, and all that traffic, even if its just one person at a time, eats away at mother nature after a while.

...[]...

I understand this is the main reason people get in trouble geocaching, they just plain trash the place in some cases, and destroy the beautiful area the original hider intended people to see. Especially since some geocachers are more about the numbers, rather than the scenic tours, is there anything we can do about this?

 

You are absolutely right. And this is a problem in geocaching - a problem many try to ignore one way or the other. Have often left a cache site without looking for the cache, because I did not want to contribute more to the nature's destruction at the site. I try to prevent this in the way I hide my caches (I create caches in another name than this one). I have e.g. archived quite a few caches on this account. I like nature to much. I have also moved caches to other places, when it is too visibly on the site, that something is happening here. And also hidden caches more visibly than wanted, so they are easily found. All to try to avoid to much destruction of Mother Nature.

 

Good you pointed this out. We cannot proceed in this direction.

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Ugh I grow tired of this. Some people have that "A Sound of Thunder" idea where if you step on a butterfly it'll destroy the Earth. Will breaking a branch kill a tree? Unlikely. Stepping on snails, grass, plants, ants or butterflies isn't going to kill mother nature. Animals (including humans) have been making paths longer than any of us can imagine and nature does alright. Worry about the Oil in the Gulf or burning down rainforests. If a geocacher burns down a forest to get to a cache, then people can complain.

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Ugh I grow tired of this. Some people have that "A Sound of Thunder" idea where if you step on a butterfly it'll destroy the Earth. Will breaking a branch kill a tree? Unlikely. Stepping on snails, grass, plants, ants or butterflies isn't going to kill mother nature. Animals (including humans) have been making paths longer than any of us can imagine and nature does alright. Worry about the Oil in the Gulf or burning down rainforests. If a geocacher burns down a forest to get to a cache, then people can complain.

 

But it's not just the one is it? How many branches get snapped, how much trampling? Is it going to kill mother nature? no of course not. Is it going to leave mother nature with some nasty pimples and in some cases scars? yes. Do we need to do our utmost to prevent those? yes, for nature and to be able to keep caching in pretty places.

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Ugh I grow tired of this. Some people have that "A Sound of Thunder" idea where if you step on a butterfly it'll destroy the Earth. Will breaking a branch kill a tree? Unlikely. Stepping on snails, grass, plants, ants or butterflies isn't going to kill mother nature. Animals (including humans) have been making paths longer than any of us can imagine and nature does alright. Worry about the Oil in the Gulf or burning down rainforests. If a geocacher burns down a forest to get to a cache, then people can complain.

Witness the awesome power of the

.

 

edit-- okay, it's a little off-topic, but I couldn't resist injecting a little humor.

Edited by oakenwood
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hahahaha

hey at least im not a lurker, gleening, and not learning, im being active, and besides sitting on this forum reading, and posting, and getting responses worth listening to, im out there caching, and hiding, and donating money by leaving it in caches,

 

Donating money by leaving it in caches? Donating it to whom? And why?

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Ugh I grow tired of this. Some people have that "A Sound of Thunder" idea where if you step on a butterfly it'll destroy the Earth. Will breaking a branch kill a tree? Unlikely. Stepping on snails, grass, plants, ants or butterflies isn't going to kill mother nature. Animals (including humans) have been making paths longer than any of us can imagine and nature does alright. Worry about the Oil in the Gulf or burning down rainforests. If a geocacher burns down a forest to get to a cache, then people can complain.

 

But it's not just the one is it? How many branches get snapped, how much trampling? Is it going to kill mother nature? no of course not. Is it going to leave mother nature with some nasty pimples and in some cases scars? yes. Do we need to do our utmost to prevent those? yes, for nature and to be able to keep caching in pretty places.

 

How do we cache in pretty places without trails? Where I live, trees get huge limbs snapped off from thunderstorms monthly and live. Pimples and scars are part of nature.

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Typical trails disappear after a season of non-use. Most "geotrails" are game trails that cachers have followed anyway. I have gone back to many areas that previously had trails and have found them gone. Even trails created by clippers several feet wide have disappeared in a few years (such as the ones that kids create to build forts)

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Ugh I grow tired of this. Some people have that "A Sound of Thunder" idea where if you step on a butterfly it'll destroy the Earth. Will breaking a branch kill a tree? Unlikely. Stepping on snails, grass, plants, ants or butterflies isn't going to kill mother nature. Animals (including humans) have been making paths longer than any of us can imagine and nature does alright. Worry about the Oil in the Gulf or burning down rainforests. If a geocacher burns down a forest to get to a cache, then people can complain.

 

But it's not just the one is it? How many branches get snapped, how much trampling? Is it going to kill mother nature? no of course not. Is it going to leave mother nature with some nasty pimples and in some cases scars? yes. Do we need to do our utmost to prevent those? yes, for nature and to be able to keep caching in pretty places.

 

How do we cache in pretty places without trails? Where I live, trees get huge limbs snapped off from thunderstorms monthly and live. Pimples and scars are part of nature.

 

Natural pimples and scars are part of nature, 200+ people trampling all the ferns in a 30 foot area 10 feet off the established trail and then destroying a stump to find a bison tube is not natural. And if not now this could soon be happening every 1/10th of a mile. Park rangers and the like have already noticed, and really have been quite understanding. What are we going to say as more and more often the general public walks through their local park or state park and sees a new trail heading off every 528 feet? Or a favorite withered old stump that has been slowly decaying over 100 years gets torn apart in 3 weeks? Are we going to say, "Well nature was going to do it anyways why not do it real fast and make it less attractive to look at for the next few years at the same time?" That will be helpful in keeping access to the pretty places.

 

Even if I concede that most parts of nature will recover reasonably quickly, and in fact I do, some areas are truly sensitive and as a community we should not be allowed anywhere near them with our tupperware.

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Natural pimples and scars are part of nature, 200+ people trampling all the ferns in a 30 foot area 10 feet off the established trail and then destroying a stump to find a bison tube is not natural. And if not now this could soon be happening every 1/10th of a mile. Park rangers and the like have already noticed, and really have been quite understanding. What are we going to say as more and more often the general public walks through their local park or state park and sees a new trail heading off every 528 feet? Or a favorite withered old stump that has been slowly decaying over 100 years gets torn apart in 3 weeks? Are we going to say, "Well nature was going to do it anyways why not do it real fast and make it less attractive to look at for the next few years at the same time?" That will be helpful in keeping access to the pretty places.

 

Even if I concede that most parts of nature will recover reasonably quickly, and in fact I do, some areas are truly sensitive and as a community we should not be allowed anywhere near them with our tupperware.

 

When did human interaction with nature become unnatural?

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Natural pimples and scars are part of nature, 200+ people trampling all the ferns in a 30 foot area 10 feet off the established trail and then destroying a stump to find a bison tube is not natural. And if not now this could soon be happening every 1/10th of a mile. Park rangers and the like have already noticed, and really have been quite understanding. What are we going to say as more and more often the general public walks through their local park or state park and sees a new trail heading off every 528 feet? Or a favorite withered old stump that has been slowly decaying over 100 years gets torn apart in 3 weeks? Are we going to say, "Well nature was going to do it anyways why not do it real fast and make it less attractive to look at for the next few years at the same time?" That will be helpful in keeping access to the pretty places.

 

Even if I concede that most parts of nature will recover reasonably quickly, and in fact I do, some areas are truly sensitive and as a community we should not be allowed anywhere near them with our tupperware.

 

When did human interaction with nature become unnatural?

 

When did destroying an area because humans are desperate to get a smiley become just an interaction ?

 

And the following is merely a humorous/sarcastic answer only.....

 

When did human interaction become unnatural?

 

When humans starting thinking that it was a good idea to try and pet the bears. ;):)

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Trails are the result of repeated traffic, it matters not human or critter. In fact, I have regular trails in my back yard because my dogs won't detour to let the grass recover around the corners. Deer, rodents, and even water can make a trail.

 

The important part of leaving no footprint behind is to cause no additional damage. This is done by utilizing trails to as near the goal as possible, then carefully leaving the trail attempting to break no branches, push over no trees, or move the rocks that were slowing the water. If an area looks especially ripe for damage, proper conservation and courtesy dictate going around. If you find that cache, but leave the area looking like a grub-hunting bulldozer has been through, your hunt was not successful even if you get the smiley.

 

We do need to take care of our environment, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the outdoors responsibly.

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I understand this is the main reason people get in trouble geocaching, they just plain trash the place in some cases, and destroy the beautiful area the original hider intended people to see. Especially since some geocachers are more about the numbers, rather than the scenic tours, is there anything we can do about this?

 

Oh, man. I really have to bite my tongue here so as to remain cordial and in compliance with the TOS. I'll just suffice to start by saying cool your jets, turbo.

 

It really chaps me to see such blanket statements. I am not ALWAYS about the numbers. I often enjoy -and sometimes prefer- the multi-mile hikes in the forests/deserts for a single ammo can. But to get back to your statement....

 

Most of the numbers types I know cringe at breaking a twig (and they still manage to pull off numbers that'll make your head spin). With one exception, I've never seen or heard of a numbers type -crazed or otherwise- wreaking such havoc just to grab another smiley. This goes for the FTF crowd as well. I dunno, maybe it comes from living in the PNW and always having to watch out for poison ivy/oak. Whatever. Point is, most of us have more of a conscience that you might think.

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I have only rarely seen such geotrails. In those few areas I am quite certain the 'damage' was short lived.

 

In about a thousand cache hunts and seeing the areas around close to 300 of my hides, it is my observation that these trails are rare, and nearly always at caches very near parking or a road. Not exactly sensitive areas.

 

Many caches are placed at or along game and social trails. They provide access to otherwise difficult areas. I do it myself. I know other cachers who do. The casual observer may think the cache caused the trail, when in reality the cache is there because of the trail.

Edited by briansnat
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Well, I found a trail. But it wasn't a geotrail. No one has hunted the cache in almost 2 years.

 

The trail was a 4WD trail back to a fishing hole. It appears to be a popular spot. I think someone should have a talk with those fishermen keeping that trail beaten down. (I hiked it in)

 

The good news is the other caches had no trails. ;)

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whats clear cutting?

 

I am getting the impression you are very young. Am I correct?

 

THere's this website called "google" (www.google.com) that can help you out with the most basic of questions, such as "what is clear cutting?".

 

I will help you this time though. Clear cutting is where logging companies go into a forest and cut EVERYTHING to the ground.

:laughing:B):laughing::laughing:

+1

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You guys ever complain in the winter when there's a fresh snow trail leading right to the cache?

Yes. But that is because some of the cachers around here like to make extra trails and stick piles to confuse the following cachers. :laughing::laughing:

I love stomping down patches of snow, not just multiple trails. Make 'em think the gps is off. B)

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Many caches are placed at or along game and social trails. They provide access to otherwise difficult areas. I do it myself. I know other cachers who do. The casual observer may think the cache caused the trail, when in reality the cache is there because of the trail.

 

It's absolutely amazing how many non geotrails start right at the main trail and run right to the geocache isn't it?

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