We can finally see Alien Head from space!

[Clan Riffster]

I call heavily biased paraphrasing...

Guilty as charged. From reading the heavily biased comments made by you and a few others, I assumed such communication techniques were the norm. Is that not the case? Sort of a "Hello, Mr Kettle. This is Mr Pot" kind of thing. How else can we explain such snark as this?

 

split the hair and rally the troops

those who complain about the e.t just can't afford to go so they complain

cow pasture in the desert

sage brush hugging side of this debate

wrings their hands

the intrinsic wrongness

Save the cow pies

Oh for crying out loud..

I walked down a sidewalk and left prints in the snow. I hope no one notices

But we know by now that you lack imagination outside of NJ, right?

OMG Right??

to ram your point home

or cow pie that dies under foot or tire

Except for what the cows trample and eat

if what's-her-name from the BLM

Apparently you are the professional on desert tracks

the finger wagglers

A few squashed sagebrush

Too bad you can't see the bushwack trails through the trees

Do you honestly think no one would drive it? Puleeze!

Nothing there but cachers trashing the environment

Driving around & yelling "take that, momma Gaia!"

And cows, but cows don't count

The remaining choice puts you in the "pot-stirrer" category

maybe those where created by the aliens themselves?

yeap, here's evidence of an UFO

A huge mountain is being made out of a very small mole hill

those who have been arguing it isn't have no true knowledge of the area

Reno is burning now....<snip>, probably started by Geocachers

and the cows will be bothered by them not at all

and is being SO exaggerated

But everybody needs something to whine about

You're not really fooling anyone

those who know nothing about it claim it's horrible

your vast experience of desert impact

rub everyone's nose in

C'mon just fall on the sword why don'tcha

comparing what goes on in the deserts of Nevada with the woods of the south

need to start running them over with the car, roundup won't even kill that stuff

This picture looks like a trail that's been there longer than the alien head

Honey Badger don't care" when it comes to off roading

the evil sage brush killers

wave the flag of blame over

i think its from a the heard of bull

This is a symbolic debate

a better whipping boy

that is in fact a non-issue on the site used for example

I find none for this location

while poking at your real motivation

save the sage brush and cow pies

A big pissing match

personal vendetta

with the exception of garbage, there isn't much you can do to "hurt" the area

keep the tree huggers happy

The fragileness of the desert in this area has "left the building"

East Coast perceptions

big sarcastic splash

sacred image is in question

unworthy of hand wringing or gnashing of teeth

it is a roadside dump of cast off trash, construction debris, and cow pies

tree huggers

Trust me, the crap grows everywhere

the yippy god of political correctness

open their eyes to the evel underbelly of geocaching

it's all dirt, sagebrush and Joshua Trees. There's nothing to damage

CO = Cat Herder

but what exactly is it there that can be torn up?

I guess China needs to be banned now

Not every weed needs government protection

Somewhere there is a teapot brewing a tempest

there is soooo freakin' much of this blessed desert

Lawd Lawd. This is sooo freakin' rich

You'd think geocachers were playing whack-a-mole with endangered owls

Maybe we should all just move into outer space to protect the planet

chest beating and gnashing of teeth

Time to BAN Geocaching, everywhere we leave a mark

 

unless you can quote the posts that support your answers.

Well, I can try...

 

jholly:

Cars, has to be the cars. Certainly hundreds of people walking the same path in the desert simply wouldn't leave a trail, now would it?

 

t4e:

if an area is ecologically sensitive there should be appropriate signage

 

The_Incredibles:

Trails in the desert? There are trails everywhere. Not to mention roads. Personally I'm not going to get worked up about it. Are there any rare plants or animals in that area?

 

PokerLuck:

Let's not go overboard here just because something we did is visible from space. Your house is certainly visible from space. Are you going to tear it down because of that?

 

sbell111:

The 'trails' could be normal trails caused by several hikers taking the same route, for all we know.

 

Snoogans:

The area isn't pristine wilderness or wildlife refuge.

It's most probably BLM land <snip>. So what if there's a geotrail.

 

skraeling:

Humans have been leaving their mark on planet earth for eons.<snip>

The great wall of China How - exactly - are those different/better/worse/ok than what is happening now?

 

sbell111:

What I am legally permitted to do trumps the whims of the cache owner.

 

t4e:

what is so special about a desert?

 

Snoogans:

That area so close to the highway, BLM land or not, is potential commercial property and unworthy of hand wringing or gnashing of teeth.

 

LostinReno:

Have you ever been to the Nevada desert? If not, maybe visit before you make a judgement.

 

t4e:

No one yet has proved that the said marks are left by geocachers.

 

LostinReno:

A big pissing match started by people that don't even cache in the area or much less live on this side of the country.

 

LostinReno:

NPS is one thing. How much BLM land is there in New Jersey?

 

LostinReno:

It's just humorous to me when some east coast tree huggers think there's this huge impact on a desert flat that is on public land.

 

LostinReno:

To put it in perspective of the east coasters.

 

The red-haired witch:

Hey, my house is so big it's visible from space!

 

I think that covers all the salient points...

[+briansnat]

It is hard to tell if those who keep trying to raise some alarm about Geocaching getting a black eye from thousands of miles away, are really concerned about what the BLM might do, or if they are secretly hoping that the federal government has the caches removed.

 

Why would any geocacher hope, secretly or not, that geocaching gets a black eye? What I am openly hoping is that careless geocachers don't give us a black eye.

Edited December 16, 2011 by briansnat

[+SwineFlew]

It is hard to tell if those who keep trying to raise some alarm about Geocaching getting a black eye from thousands of miles away, are really concerned about what the BLM might do, or if they are secretly hoping that the federal government has the caches removed.

 

Why would any geocacher hope, secretly or not, that geocaching gets a black eye? What I am openly hoping is that careless geocachers don't give us a black eye.

 

Amen!!! I feel the same way.

[WashoeZephyr]

You mean unanswered questions that myself and others have answered repeatedly?

Of course! We're ready for a whole new round of such silliness as;

"It's only a desert. Who cares?"

and let's not forget the awesome,

"There are no signs prohibiting damaging stuff, so it's OK"

Or even the classic,

"You can see the Great Wall of China from space, so it's OK".

Oh... Almost forgot,

"You guys don't live there, so your opinion is irrelevent"

 

Yup... You guys really came up with some great answers...

Besides most of everything above being taken out of context;

I was actually referring to the individual who was griping that NDOT just passed the problem to someone else. AFTER I provided an actual news story (twice!) as opposed to some ramblings on a podcast. It was even from Fox News...I'm just taking a wild guess that a lot of people around here take Fox news as gospel?? As far as my visit to the BLM yesterday, they were aleady closed. I'll stop by on Monday. I'm going to ask them about an offroading trip from Gerlach to Denio..I've already done this trip, there are some areas where the roads aren't clearly marked and we had to "wing it" via GPS. It will be interesting to see what they have to say as this same area (minus the wildlife refuge) is a big hunting area, you know the hunters aren't staying on the road...and for the sake of arguement, I realize the hunters aren't creating the same track over and over, therefore not visable from space.

I have never disagreed that people should be walking the alien head as opposed to driving it. Sadly it is what it is. If there is any resemblance of a trail (2 tracks) people are going to drive it. In the whole scope of things, this is such a small area being whined over (yes, y'all are whining). I'm not saying it's right. It's more of you people really are making a mountain out of a molehill.

[+briansnat]

As far as my visit to the BLM yesterday, they were aleady closed. I'll stop by on Monday. I'm going to ask them about an offroading trip from Gerlach to Denio.

 

I don't see what that would prove.

 

We may well be "making a mountain out of a molehill" but we won't know for sure until the BLM weighs in on this. It's telling that nobody will directly address the specific subject of geocaching and the Alien Head trails with the BLM.

Edited December 16, 2011 by briansnat

[+tozainamboku]

It's telling that nobody will directly address the specific subject of geocaching and the Alien Head trails with the BLM.

It may be. Certainly it goes to prove your point against the comment I made that someone is secretly wishing that the BLM takes some drastic action.

 

It does seem a number of people who are bringing this up are the same who have been warning that power trails are more likely to cause problems for land managers. Many of these people had no problem saying "I told you so" when NDOT started removing caches from the ET trail. But what we have seen since then is that geocaching (and power trails) have benefits as well. NDOT was willing to work with geocachers to develop guideline that let the ET trail be reconstituted.

 

It could be that BLM finds the tracks going from cache to cache in the Alien Head an unacceptable impact. Should this happen, I think the likely course will be for the BLM to work with local geocachers to develop guidelines to allow caching to continue. It's very unlikely that they are going ban geocaching now that they have seen what local communities like Rachel feel about it.

 

Might a land manager in New Jersey see this and decide to ban caching? That too seems pretty unlikely. If some land manager can't see the differences between a wooded area in the Northeast and desert in the Southwest perhaps they are in the wrong line of work. In any case, local geocachers should be prepared to argue why such a thing couldn't happen where they are. I'd argue that we should be honest that anybody with a GPS or a smartphone can geocache and that not everyone is going to follow the suggestions of the cache owner or be aware of the rules for driving off-road. I think we can make a decent argument that geocahers are at least as good of stewards of the environment as other recreational users like ATV riders or mountain bikers. Land managers have a broad set of tools that they have applied to control environmental impacts of other activities, and they have the same tools at their disposal here. In addition Geocaching.com volunteers have been very active in helping to enforce local land manager guidelines by applying them as part of the review process.

 

If the BLM were to react the way some are predicting, then why hasn't this area been closed to all off road use? Clearly there are signs of off-road vehicle users straying from existing trails. Why haven't cattle grazing permits been canceled because some cowboy drove off the established trails to get to a calf. Why is prospecting allowed after some miner dug a hole without getting the proper permit? And why aren't guns prohibited because someone left the desert littered with spent shell casings after shooting targets?

Edited December 17, 2011 by tozainamboku

[Clan Riffster]

NDOT was willing to work with geocachers to develop guideline that let the ET trail be reconstituted.

I thought the official stance of the NDOT was, "Get those things off our property."? Is that not the case? At least I thought I read in here that the revamped ET Series caches were between 50' and 150' off of the paved roadway. Unless Nevada does things way different than other states I'm used to, 50' would put them outside of the NDOT right of way. Or, to put it another way, entirely off of NDOT property.

 

Now if I see some kids playing catch in my yard, and I take their ball and toss it into someone else's yard, telling them, "Go play over there", would my actions really be interpreted as me being "willing to work with" those kids, just because I didn't try to get their game outlawed in its entirety?

 

Has the hyperbole level in here gotten so low recently that we have to stretch, "Get off my property" to "We will work with you"?

[+briansnat]

It's telling that nobody will directly address the specific subject of geocaching and the Alien Head trails with the BLM.

It may be. Certainly it goes to prove your point against the comment I made that someone is secretly wishing that the BLM takes some drastic action.

 

It does seem a number of people who are bringing this up are the same who have been warning that power trails are more likely to cause problems for land managers. Many of these people had no problem saying "I told you so" when NDOT started removing caches from the ET trail. But what we have seen since then is that geocaching (and power trails) have benefits as well. NDOT was willing to work with geocachers to develop guideline that let the ET trail be reconstituted.

 

It could be that BLM finds the tracks going from cache to cache in the Alien Head an unacceptable impact. Should this happen, I think the likely course will be for the BLM to work with local geocachers to develop guidelines to allow caching to continue. It's very unlikely that they are going ban geocaching now that they have seen what local communities like Rachel feel about it.

 

Might a land manager in New Jersey see this and decide to ban caching? That too seems pretty unlikely. If some land manager can't see the differences between a wooded area in the Northeast and desert in the Southwest perhaps they are in the wrong line of work. In any case, local geocachers should be prepared to argue why such a thing couldn't happen where they are. I'd argue that we should be honest that anybody with a GPS or a smartphone can geocache and that not everyone is going to follow the suggestions of the cache owner or be aware of the rules for driving off-road. I think we can make a decent argument that geocahers are at least as good of stewards of the environment as other recreational users like ATV riders or mountain bikers. Land managers have a broad set of tools that they have applied to control environmental impacts of other activities, and they have the same tools at their disposal here. In addition Geocaching.com volunteers have been very active in helping to enforce local land manager guidelines by applying them as part of the review process.

 

If the BLM were to react the way some are predicting, then why hasn't this area been closed to all off road use? Clearly there are signs of off-road vehicle users straying from existing trails. Why haven't cattle grazing permits been canceled because some cowboy drove off the established trails to get to a calf. Why is prospecting allowed after some miner dug a hole without getting the proper permit? And why aren't guns prohibited because someone left the desert littered with spent shell casings after shooting targets?

 

I suspect your questions can be answered by asking the BLM directly.

[+SwineFlew]

Besides most of everything above being taken out of context;

I was actually referring to the individual who was griping that NDOT just passed the problem to someone else. AFTER I provided an actual news story (twice!) as opposed to some ramblings on a podcast. It was even from Fox News...I'm just taking a wild guess that a lot of people around here take Fox news as gospel?? As far as my visit to the BLM yesterday, they were aleady closed. I'll stop by on Monday. I'm going to ask them about an offroading trip from Gerlach to Denio..I've already done this trip, there are some areas where the roads aren't clearly marked and we had to "wing it" via GPS. It will be interesting to see what they have to say as this same area (minus the wildlife refuge) is a big hunting area, you know the hunters aren't staying on the road...and for the sake of arguement, I realize the hunters aren't creating the same track over and over, therefore not visable from space.

I have never disagreed that people should be walking the alien head as opposed to driving it. Sadly it is what it is. If there is any resemblance of a trail (2 tracks) people are going to drive it. In the whole scope of things, this is such a small area being whined over (yes, y'all are whining). I'm not saying it's right. It's more of you people really are making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

Its more of the other way around. BLM is known to make a mountain out of a mole hill. I know enough stories (non geocaching) of people dealing with BLM. I am not in a mood to tell all those stories. People back east dont have to deal with them like us western people.

[+TerraViators]

I call heavily biased paraphrasing...

Guilty as charged. From reading the heavily biased comments made by you and a few others, I assumed such communication techniques were the norm. Is that not the case? Sort of a "Hello, Mr Kettle. This is Mr Pot" kind of thing. How else can we explain such snark as this?

 

split the hair and rally the troops

those who complain about the e.t just can't afford to go so they complain

cow pasture in the desert

sage brush hugging side of this debate

wrings their hands

the intrinsic wrongness

Save the cow pies

Oh for crying out loud..

I walked down a sidewalk and left prints in the snow. I hope no one notices

But we know by now that you lack imagination outside of NJ, right?

OMG Right??

to ram your point home

or cow pie that dies under foot or tire

Except for what the cows trample and eat

if what's-her-name from the BLM

Apparently you are the professional on desert tracks

the finger wagglers

A few squashed sagebrush

Too bad you can't see the bushwack trails through the trees

Do you honestly think no one would drive it? Puleeze!

Nothing there but cachers trashing the environment

Driving around & yelling "take that, momma Gaia!"

And cows, but cows don't count

The remaining choice puts you in the "pot-stirrer" category

maybe those where created by the aliens themselves?

yeap, here's evidence of an UFO

A huge mountain is being made out of a very small mole hill

those who have been arguing it isn't have no true knowledge of the area

Reno is burning now....<snip>, probably started by Geocachers

and the cows will be bothered by them not at all

and is being SO exaggerated

But everybody needs something to whine about

You're not really fooling anyone

those who know nothing about it claim it's horrible

your vast experience of desert impact

rub everyone's nose in

C'mon just fall on the sword why don'tcha

comparing what goes on in the deserts of Nevada with the woods of the south

need to start running them over with the car, roundup won't even kill that stuff

This picture looks like a trail that's been there longer than the alien head

Honey Badger don't care" when it comes to off roading

the evil sage brush killers

wave the flag of blame over

i think its from a the heard of bull

This is a symbolic debate

a better whipping boy

that is in fact a non-issue on the site used for example

I find none for this location

while poking at your real motivation

save the sage brush and cow pies

A big pissing match

personal vendetta

with the exception of garbage, there isn't much you can do to "hurt" the area

keep the tree huggers happy

The fragileness of the desert in this area has "left the building"

East Coast perceptions

big sarcastic splash

sacred image is in question

unworthy of hand wringing or gnashing of teeth

it is a roadside dump of cast off trash, construction debris, and cow pies

tree huggers

Trust me, the crap grows everywhere

the yippy god of political correctness

open their eyes to the evel underbelly of geocaching

it's all dirt, sagebrush and Joshua Trees. There's nothing to damage

CO = Cat Herder

but what exactly is it there that can be torn up?

I guess China needs to be banned now

Not every weed needs government protection

Somewhere there is a teapot brewing a tempest

there is soooo freakin' much of this blessed desert

Lawd Lawd. This is sooo freakin' rich

You'd think geocachers were playing whack-a-mole with endangered owls

Maybe we should all just move into outer space to protect the planet

chest beating and gnashing of teeth

Time to BAN Geocaching, everywhere we leave a mark

 

unless you can quote the posts that support your answers.

Well, I can try...

 

jholly:

Cars, has to be the cars. Certainly hundreds of people walking the same path in the desert simply wouldn't leave a trail, now would it?

 

t4e:

if an area is ecologically sensitive there should be appropriate signage

 

The_Incredibles:

Trails in the desert? There are trails everywhere. Not to mention roads. Personally I'm not going to get worked up about it. Are there any rare plants or animals in that area?

 

PokerLuck:

Let's not go overboard here just because something we did is visible from space. Your house is certainly visible from space. Are you going to tear it down because of that?

 

sbell111:

The 'trails' could be normal trails caused by several hikers taking the same route, for all we know.

 

Snoogans:

The area isn't pristine wilderness or wildlife refuge.

It's most probably BLM land <snip>. So what if there's a geotrail.

 

skraeling:

Humans have been leaving their mark on planet earth for eons.<snip>

The great wall of China How - exactly - are those different/better/worse/ok than what is happening now?

 

sbell111:

What I am legally permitted to do trumps the whims of the cache owner.

 

t4e:

what is so special about a desert?

 

Snoogans:

That area so close to the highway, BLM land or not, is potential commercial property and unworthy of hand wringing or gnashing of teeth.

 

LostinReno:

Have you ever been to the Nevada desert? If not, maybe visit before you make a judgement.

 

t4e:

No one yet has proved that the said marks are left by geocachers.

 

LostinReno:

A big pissing match started by people that don't even cache in the area or much less live on this side of the country.

 

LostinReno:

NPS is one thing. How much BLM land is there in New Jersey?

 

LostinReno:

It's just humorous to me when some east coast tree huggers think there's this huge impact on a desert flat that is on public land.

 

LostinReno:

To put it in perspective of the east coasters.

 

The red-haired witch:

Hey, my house is so big it's visible from space!

 

I think that covers all the salient points...

Really disappointed I didn't make the list, so here goes:

 

"Who cares about the planet? It'll be my grandkids problem."

[Clan Riffster]

"Who cares about the planet? It'll be my grandkids problem."

[+SwineFlew]

"Who cares about the planet? It'll be my grandkids problem."

 

We are doomed!