Geocaches on the Finger Lakes Trail

[+Walkin' Ed]

The Finger Lakes Trail Conference has recently adopted a policy on Geocaches and Letterboxes on the Finger Lakes Trail. For those of you who aren't aware of the FLT, it is a 563 mile trail across the southern tier of NY State. The trail is managed and maintained by the Finger Lakes Trail Conference. The trail crosses public lands and private property with the permissions of land owners and land managers. Their permissions are granted only for hiking and trail maintenance. The conference's concern is that any other activities might conflict with these permissions and may lead to a loss of permission for the trail. So it was felt that a policy was needed to protect the continuity of the trail.

 

The policy states that Geocaches and Letterboxes would be allowed only if all these conditions are met:

Written permission has to be obtained from the landowner or land manager

This permssion must stipulate that the CO take care to avoid damage caused by digging, trampling or other damage to the landowners property.

The written permission must be forwarded to the Finger Lakes Trail Conference at least 2 weeks in advance

The cache must be labeled with the owner's name and contact information.

 

Caches or letterboxes not in compliance with the above may be removed.

 

The full policy can be found at their website www.fingerlakestrail.org.

 

I think they have a legitimate concern. The only extra requirements they request for a geocache is that the CO provide proof that they have adequate permission and label the cache with their contact information. It seems like a small concession to ensure that the trail remains intact.

[GOF and Bacall]

As of yet nobody has been able to point to one thing that give this group the authority to impose there will on cachers or property owners in this situation. If the CO has permission from the owner of the property what gives anyone else the right to steal his cache? On property owned by the state, such as state parks or NY DEC lands what is the authority the FLTC is using to supersede the policies of the land managers?

 

Here is what Sapiencetrek posted on another forum.

 

As I'm sure you are aware, the finger lakes trail is a patchwork of land owned by the state of New York in state parks, forests, WMAs and also land owned by county and town governments.

 

Much is also on private land, of course.

 

I have archived a few caches on the FLT where required or requested. But I'm not going to request permission from the FLT when caches are on NY DEC land which has an open geocaching policy. I'm not going to request permission from the FLT when caches are in state parks or WMAs as they have their own policies.

 

For private land it's not always clear if the land is on the FLT, near the FLT, or unrelated to the FLT.

 

Geocachers need to be responsible for their own actions and cache placements.

 

If you believe a cache is on the FLT without permission, feel free to contact me or post an appropriate note on the cache page.

 

Does anybody know the percentage of private vs public land for the FLT? Right now there is no reasonable way of checking this without going into the county GIS to research tax records.

 

I agree with GOF. There ARE geocaches placed along the FLT that have permission (at least they said they did) from the property owner. Does the FLT trump the property owner's wishes?

 

The way to solve this is if you place a cache on the FLT with property owner permisison, make sure your cache write up says so, and make sure there is a note in the cache saying so as well.

 

If the FLTC feels a cache is lacking in permission they have a couple of legitimate avenues to peruse the matter. They can contact the landowner/manager, the cache owner, or Groundspeak and request information or action. If they follow through with their threat to remove caches it is nothing less than petty theft.