Geocaching in MN State Parks

[fvmcranger]

Hello Geocachers, I'm with the MN DNR, Division of parks. Today I met with our field operations manager in St.Paul and asked if it was ok to notify the cache owners when a cache is located and confiscated for pick up in a MN State Park. I kind of volunteered to do this on a state wide basis, and also be on a committee to discuss Geocaching in MN state parks and try to come up with a viable solution to this subject, which will both adhere to Park policies and hopefully make this sport available again in state parks. Since my first confiscation in Forestville/MC, I became active with geocaching.com and have even went after some legeally placed caches. I'm not your enemy, hopefully more your friend and collegue. Let's all try to work through this. By the way, there are still 8 parks with caches in them, the GIS representitives in all 4 regions have been contacted and hopefully they will be removed shortly and made available for the owner to pick up (without any hastles). With the DNR's GIS capabilities, the caches are very easy to find.

 

Arol

[irvingdog]

I'm in. dialogue, action, whatever. Feel free to P.M. me at any time. And, thanks for your decision to work with us and use logic rather than an outright ban.

 

It's a game folks..........

[+KingBoringAce]

I would like to thank you for your understanding tone and the respect that you have displayed towards our community. We have received quite the opposite response from some government sector employees in the past.

 

One thing that I would like to suggest is to allow that the cache owners time to remove their caches themselves. I know that a posting was made on the DNR’s web site and plenty of conversation has been made of this subject on our various forums, but not all of the Geocachers participate in the forums or visit the DNR’s web site. Some cachers may be unaware of the State’s stance on Geocaching in State Parks and could be contacted via email to inform them of the policy and request that they remove their caches.

 

BTW, what is a ‘GIS’ representative?

 

Thank you for your support. I will be interest in hearing how this committee proceeds.

 

[This message was edited by eroom on September 26, 2002 at 11:02 AM.]

[fvmcranger]

The Geocaching community has been aware of the Park policy on caching in State Parks since May. These caches aren't being confiscated and burned, they're just finding a more comfortable place to stay in the park office until they can be retreived by the owners. Either the manager of the park where the cache was located or I will inform the owner that it has been confiscated and can be picked up.

 

As far as GIS reps, each region has at least one person well versed in Geographic Information Systems (GPS is a tool for GIS). These reps, as I was for Region 5, do most of the GPS work to retreive these caches. Trimble Pro XR's are the weapons of choice.

 

Further ??'s, feel free.

Arol

Assistant Park Manager

Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park

[fvmcranger]

EROOM,

Email me and I'll send you a map showing just how easily a cache can be mapped and found using GIS. Many time a GPS unit isn't even necessary.

I posted a map of "Trout Trot" (waypt GC1C3F) on Trout Trot's cache page. GIS (ArcView) makes it very easy to find a Park cache, and to not go on wild goose chases looking for the cache as you posted on May 14, 02 in the "Illegal Caches in Minnesota" forum. If the cache is in the park we will get it, if it's outside by even 10', we know that too (if coordinates are accurate).

Arol

 

[This message was edited by fvmcranger on September 27, 2002 at 06:56 AM.]

[+KingBoringAce]

I disagree that the whole Geocaching community has been aware of the DNR’s policy on caching. A posting was made on the DNR’s web site. Not every Geocacher visits the DNR web site. Someone from this forum saw the message and posted it here. Yes, the work was spread, but not every Geocacher participates in these online forums. If you look at the people who still have traditional caches in the State Parks, you will see that they do not post to this forum. It is unknown whether they read the forums or not.

 

All I am asking is that these cache owners be given the benefit of the doubt and allow them to remove their caches themselves. Send them a note stating the DNR’s policy and asking them to remove the caches before they get removed. I think a little bit of education directed at the cache owners could go a long way towards developing goodwill between the Geocacher and the DNR and this could strengthen future compliance with the State’s policy.

 

It seems to me that it could also be a cost saving effort on behalf of the GIS rep. A trip or just the time it take to hike out to a cache and searching for it, could be save with a simple email.

 

I did not think that these confiscated caches were being destroyed by the State. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.

 

Thank you for you explanation of ‘GIS’.

[+Bobhiker]

You mean these GIS reps. get paid to geocache! Sounds like a fun job. I think after doing it for the DNR, they are discovering that it is not such a bad activity after all. I see Arol was a GIS rep. and has found about four caches outside of state parks within just the last week. Great to see, welcome to geocaching. It is a fun activity to do with your family. Thank you for your efforts to work with us.

 

I wonder what a ranger would do if you said you went looking for a cache and then discovering that it was confiscated, went to the ranger office and ask to see it. Then cache through it and leave it for the next cacher to find.

 

The DNR web site said "no Geocaching without permission." Do you think we can set up some sort of environmentally safe cache with the involvement of a ranger on an individual level. Such as in Forestville State Park with Arol's involvement. I think an experiment like this would give us a lot of ideas on working with the DNR on the issues.

[fvmcranger]

Bob,

Don't count on it, at least not for now. At this time Geocaching without permission basically means no Geocaching. Maybe someday in the not-so-faraway future it will be different.

 

and I'm up to 7 caches.

Arol

[+welch]

hello fvmcranger/arol (which do you prefer?)

 

i was wondering if you could explain what why the MN state parks desided to have the caches removed in the first place? (im assuming a major part was lack of permission prior to placement) but did they* just wake up one day and say "hey we have all these non-state approved boxes out there, and they may be causing damage to the environment?"

 

[+welch]

hello fvmcranger/arol (which do you prefer?)

 

i was wondering if you could explain what why the MN state parks desided to have the caches removed in the first place? (im assuming a major part was lack of permission prior to placement) but did they* just wake up one day and say "hey we have all these non-state approved boxes out there, and they may be causing damage to the environment?"

 

[fvmcranger]

In answer to your question, here is a cut/paste from the forum "Bad new for Geocachers using Minnesota State Park". The paste is from our Field Operations supervisor in St.Paul.

 

From: Ron Hains [ron.hains@dnr.state.mn.us]

 

We appreciate your interest, and must confirm that the rumor is true.

Over time, we will continue to consider and reconsider geo-caching in parks. There are many aspects of the sport that seem very appealing and appropriate for state parks. At this time, though, we are concerned about some aspects of the activity, related to our responsibilities for resource protection and public safety, that we feel would require policy and on-the-ground attention to resolve. We are simply unable to deal with those issues in the short term. Budget problems and other pressing issues preclude us adding this work load now. We feel that the responsible thing for us to do, is to not allow the caching until we see if the issues can be resolved and until we have adequate time and funds to responsibly manage the activity in a way that is consistent with our mission. In the mean time, please keep in mind that state parks are only about 250,000 acres of the millions of acres of public land in the state of Minnesota. There are many places that geo-caching may be pursued and enjoyed, while we deal with our pressing issues and then determine if, and how, we may participate in the sport in the future.

 

***************************************

 

And no, it wasn't just waking up one day and saying no geocaching. One of our GIS people alerted us to the practice and nobody in the Dept. really knew what geocaching was all about. Leaning towards caution, Parks banned Geocaching on any DNR Parks property until the practice could be looked into further.

 

Arol

[+welch]

so are there any indicators of when they* will have looked into the "practice"? Or when a more permanent discission will be made?(and favorably i hope )

 

[+welch]

so are there any indicators of when they* will have looked into the "practice"? Or when a more permanent discission will be made?(and favorably i hope )

 

[bk11]

Thanks Arol, for posting on the cache logs that they were picked up. We knew Trout Trot's fate because you emailed me when it was confiscated, but there were a few in the area that that we didn't hear anything about at all!

 

I had wondered about our Charity Cache in John Latsch State Park. I was unable to make it up the bluff before the deadline to retrieve it. Turns out that they picked them up before the July 1st deadline anyway. (hehe to whoever had to go get Charity, it isn't exactly a quick dash from the parking lot! jk) I knew it was gone now, but didn't know who had it. So thank you, I'll be picking it up!

 

And thanks too for being so nice about everything. We missed you when we went down to F/MC to pick up our cache, we really had a great talk with your boss and the other folks down there.

 

The sad part about all this is we didn't take our annual weekend-after-labor day camping trip to F/MC this year even though we had planned to after enjoying ourselves so much there last year. And my state park sticker expired in September and I'm not getting another one. We used to spend most of our time wandering around in Whitewater. I really hope that something good comes out of this some day. Until then, it just makes me sad.

 

Geocachers Exploring Minnesota

[G35]

I was made aware of the MN DNR stand on caches in State parks on these forums when it was first posted. I made the decision to go and remove my Afton State park cache right away.

 

Guess the DNR is too dense to see that geocaching is bringing people to their state parks and bringing them income and helping to clean up there parks. It's a win-win situation but they don't get it. Maybe they forgot how bad the budget is in MN and there not allowing geocaches will not help that.

 

I personally have bought a yearly pass for about the last 10 years. Guess what? Mine expired in October and I have no plans to get a new one or visit a state park again.

 

All of my caches are going to be in local county parks. They still understand the big picture.

 

G35