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Caches Hidden in National Parks?


Bob&TheGang

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Ok,I have been out of the game for a while, but now that my kids are bit older, I have been Geocaching a lot more.

 

Way back when, I thought Geocaches were prohibited from being hidden in National Parks.

 

Though in doing some recent searches of the Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks, I noticed there are bunch of caches hidden in those two parks.

 

Can someone bring me up to speed with the current National Park regulations concerning geocaches?

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Ok,I have been out of the game for a while, but now that my kids are bit older, I have been Geocaching a lot more.

 

Way back when, I thought Geocaches were prohibited from being hidden in National Parks.

 

Though in doing some recent searches of the Kings Canyon and Yosemite National Parks, I noticed there are bunch of caches hidden in those two parks.

 

Can someone bring me up to speed with the current National Park regulations concerning geocaches?

Depending on the park physical caches may be allowed. Earthcaches seem to be popular these days. Washington State has been a leader in getting caches allowed to be placed in National Parks thanks to Hydnsek who has been the WSGCA President for several years.

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Most of what you're seeing are not physical caches - they are old Virtual caches and Earthcaches.

 

Some parks within the national system are allowing physical caches, some are even placing them. There's a series of physical caches in Everglades National Park placed by staff, and a physical cache in Key Biscayne NP, placed by one of their volunteers. Some of the GeoTours feature caches in NP; check out the hosts on tours at the bottom of that list of GeoTours.

 

There was never a flat ban, but the NPS had some internal memos early on that identified geocaching as likely to be damaging, and thus discouraged.* It can still be difficult to get permission for a cache, especially the first one to be placed. I suspect that it's still true that the bulk of caches left in national parks are clueless vacation caches, with no hope of permission or publication.

 

 

*One of the early caches in Florida's Everglades NP was buried, "dug at the foot of every hardwood in the hammock", a log on this - this will cause land managers to ban an activity PDQ.

Edited by Isonzo Karst
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Geocaching in National Parks and Forests, and the BLM (out West) is at the descretion of the local manager. I have not had any problems with the BLM. Find the park that you want to leave your cache and contact the park manager. The park manager will probably give you some do's and don't that are pretty common sense. (Don't bury a cache in an archeological site.) Follow the rules. Confirm your location. Say thanks. Monitor your site. Visit every now and then. Promptly remove if it is causing problems. In other words, don't make the manager hate geocachers.

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The only physical caches in Kings Canyon/Sequoia and Yosemite that I'm aware of are two on top of Mt Whitney and Mt Langley which have permission, and one or two in Wawona which are placed on private inholdings within the Park boundary. Everything else you're seeing on the maps are either Virtuals, Earthcaches, or Wherigo's which have virtual elements inside the park boundaries, but the physical Finals are outside the Park.

Edited by Touchstone
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Here are four sites on four different NPS land. “Searching for Coronado” is actually at the park headquarters. If you select any of the sites you will find plenty of other caches on NPS land. Fort Bowie only has one cache because it is an archeological site.

 

Coronado National Memorial

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC19DEP_searching-for-coronado#

 

Chiricahua National Monument

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2G047_the-hands-of-the-pass#

 

Saguaro National Park - West

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2BWP0_the-saguaro-cache#

 

Ft Bowie National Historic Site

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCH04B_fort-bowie#

 

The National Forest Service and BLM also have many caches on their land.

 

National Forest Service

Huachuca Mnts

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4GGXP_reef-camp#

 

Dragoon Mnts

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCHKTE_china-camp-cache#

 

Mt Graham

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3613_v1nd4l0000-alpine-1#

 

Santa Catalinas

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC241GC_what-a-view#

 

BLM

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC113AX_eager-beaver#

 

The NPS and other Federal lands are open for caching and will remain so as long as we follow the rules that Groundspeak advises.

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