Lake Metro Parks

[Guest mcb]

There was an artical in the Plain Dealer here about geocaching and the Cleveland Metro Parks. I did not have a chance to read the artical but a fellow geocacher sent me an email that said although the artical says that Cleveland Metro park liked geocaching it looked like Lake Metro Parks were frowning upon Geocaching. So I called the ranger station for the Lake Metro Park System today and talked to a friendly and open minded park ranger. Although he said he does not make park policy he didn't seem to mind the idea of geocaching in the park system after I explain geocaching to him. He gave me a number for the main office that I will call in the morning to talk to someone about Geocaching. Hopefully we can work out an exceptable arrangement for both the park system and the geocachers in Lake county. Any suggest or comment on how to go about this would be great. Feel free to post them here or email them to me. I will post updates to this thread as I have new info.

 

Wish me luck

mcb

[Guest clatmandu]

Good Luck. Hopefully other park systems will begin to copy the attitude of the Emerald Necklace park people.

[Guest Rambler]

As a supporter of caching I hope things can be settled, but I think it is important to remember that this park system has a policy against hiking off trail. This is not a policy to prevent geocaching, but a policy to protect pristine areas found in the county.

[mcb]

Quick update here. I have called two time now after my initial contact and have not heard back from them. I will continue to try.

 

More later

mcb

[mcb]

I was contacted by a park ranger from Lake Metro Parks today and we discussed geocaching breifly and he seemed please that I had come to them first about geocaching before it became a problem. He has a meeting next week with his colleages and will get back to me the middle of next week. Will see how it goes

 

mcb

[+zoisrus]

Thanks for being proactive and taking the initiative to approach Lake Metroparks representatives BEFORE they decided officially what stand to take with regard to allowing Geocaches in their park system.

 

I've spoken with Carly Martin, the Naturalist for the Cleveland Metroparks System who has hidden the caches and who was interviewed by the Plain Dealer. During our conversation, she mentioned that they will be giving a presentation about Geocaching to naturalists from various park systems at an upcoming meeting (in Mid-March).

 

Hopefully since the Cleveland Metroparks are publically promoting Geocaching and obviously feel it is a benefit for their parks to allow it, the other park officials/naturalists in attendance at that meeting will follow Cleveland Metroparks' fine example and view Geocaching as yet another way to promote their parks to the public. Once other park representatives have a chance to find out exactly what Geocaching is about from one of their own and can ask some questions they may look at it in a more positive light. They will see that Geocachers really ARE sensitive to environmental issues and other concerns in addition to wanting to enjoy the parks their hard earned tax dollars are paying for in a fun new way.

[+SherwoodForest]

i am certainly glad that Cleveland Metroparks is supportive of GeoCaching, and I hope that they do put in a good word for us with other areas. But there is one thing I think we as Geocachers can do to help this situation. The recent move of the Ranger Pond Cache, and the archival of the Tinker's Creek Multi-Cache due to their placement (one too near a firing range(?)) and the other being placed in a environmentally sensitive area) got me thinking about this. I think that those placing the caches should talk with the governing area before placing their cache in a park. I know there is a lot of sentiment about it's public land therefore i can do what i want on it. Well, I can't completely disagree with that, but... the park districts are responsible for maintaining the land, and some have special projects/areas that they would like to keep even-lower impact, such as Brecksville Reservation with its tall-grass prairie and forest restorations. These are therefore places that I would not want to place/find a cache in. I am trying to scout a location to place a cache in Brecksville, one a little easier/less remote than the other two, but I would have never thought to place a cache without first talking to the Park District about their feelings on the placement of my cache. And, I was surprised when I talked with Carly at the kickoff session and asked her about how many of the caches in the Cleveland Metroparks were placed with some contact to the Park District. She knew of none... now i know there are different levels and maybe the naturalists may not know if the rangers or park managers were informed about a cache... oh well, enough soapboxing, I guess. I really enjoy geocaching, and I do think that all the different park districts out there might be more likely to allow caches if they were asked/consulted prior to placement

 

[This message was edited by SherwoodForest on March 13, 2002 at 06:04 PM.]

[+SherwoodForest]

i am certainly glad that Cleveland Metroparks is supportive of GeoCaching, and I hope that they do put in a good word for us with other areas. But there is one thing I think we as Geocachers can do to help this situation. The recent move of the Ranger Pond Cache, and the archival of the Tinker's Creek Multi-Cache due to their placement (one too near a firing range(?)) and the other being placed in a environmentally sensitive area) got me thinking about this. I think that those placing the caches should talk with the governing area before placing their cache in a park. I know there is a lot of sentiment about it's public land therefore i can do what i want on it. Well, I can't completely disagree with that, but... the park districts are responsible for maintaining the land, and some have special projects/areas that they would like to keep even-lower impact, such as Brecksville Reservation with its tall-grass prairie and forest restorations. These are therefore places that I would not want to place/find a cache in. I am trying to scout a location to place a cache in Brecksville, one a little easier/less remote than the other two, but I would have never thought to place a cache without first talking to the Park District about their feelings on the placement of my cache. And, I was surprised when I talked with Carly at the kickoff session and asked her about how many of the caches in the Cleveland Metroparks were placed with some contact to the Park District. She knew of none... now i know there are different levels and maybe the naturalists may not know if the rangers or park managers were informed about a cache... oh well, enough soapboxing, I guess. I really enjoy geocaching, and I do think that all the different park districts out there might be more likely to allow caches if they were asked/consulted prior to placement

 

[This message was edited by SherwoodForest on March 13, 2002 at 06:04 PM.]

[+Cleveland Metroparks]

Geocaching is relativly new to us as an orgainzation. We are pleased to be supporting Geocaching currently and we certainly apprciate any support we recive from Geocachers in the way of open communications.

[+zoisrus]

"As a supporter of caching I hope things can be settled, but I think it is important to remember that this park system has a policy against hiking off trail. This is not a policy to prevent geocaching, but a policy to protect pristine areas found in the county."

 

With regard to the above statement that would make sense if it was public knowledge, however my friends and I have NEVER EVER seen anything posted publicly on site at any of the parks I've visited that states the above.

 

Examples of this policy not being adhered to:

 

1. Fishermen have created their own trailstrails to get to various river locations to go fishing in the parks and the park sytem park obviously has allowed that to happen as they continue to permit fishing. I've seen the many resulting social trails personally.

 

2. I also know for a fact that the Lake Metroparks Horse Posse has gone off trail with Lake Metropark owned horses in Lake Metroparks as have many other riders. Surely a few Geocachers looking for a Geocache will have far less impact environmentally than the hoof prints of 1200+lb horses!

 

Like most people, I appreciate the importance of protecting the environment and preventing damage of fragile plant life. However not sure why walking on dry leaves (not on plants) in nonfragile areas would pose a threat to the environment especially in rural parks that are several hundred pristine acres in size with minimal miles of trails of trails running through them. Not that many people go Geocaching in rural areas anyway.

 

Just playing Devil's Advocate here and giving my opinion about this so called policy with regard to Geocaches specifically when the same policy hasn't been inforced for other instances which cause far more environmental damage?

 

The best idea I have heard so far is for a Geocache site to be approved ahead of time by the park system it to be placed in (as Carly was talking about in another forum) and then to be moved as needed to prevent an obvious trail from forming and to never be placed in a fragile area to begin with. However one thing to keep in mind, IF caches are hidden too close to a trail they are subject to being easily discovered accidentally or otherwise by nongeocachers and vadalized or stolen as has happened.

 

Will be interesting to see what happens!

[mcb]

No word from the park service yet. I figure there going to drag their feet on this a little so I am not to worried. I figure we will here more from them before the weather gets better. I will let you know if I hear anything.

 

Later

mcb

 

GPS-Yote

[mcb]

I received a call from Lake Metro parks and they have decieded for at least the short time to not allow Geocaching in the Lake Metro Park system. A park range gave me a call today to give me the bad news. I had, as you know form the above posts, started talking to the park system about geocaching. Maybe sometime in the feature they will allow it,and the park ranger sounded like they were still in the process of making a final desicion but untill they did they are not going to allow Geocaching.

 

So I will be removing my goecaching this weekend and would ask that other with geocaches in the Lake Metro Parks also archive their's for the time being. Hopefully if they see how responsive we are to their request we will be allow to geocache in the parks sometime in the near future.

 

Later

mcb

 

P.S. I going to start another thread in the section to let every one know that may not be following this thread.

 

GPS-Yote