What are the most interesting "Landowner Permission" hoops that you have had to jump through?

[+Awesnap]

I am almost 2 months waiting for a park to follow up with earthcache placement permission, and I started thinking about how many times I have trudged up this slow hill to get a virtual marker placed. This hasn't been my longest wait, and I am grateful the park is still responsive with my follow up emails.  Then I think of all the emails I have sent out that have never been responded to, and how nice it was that when I mailed letters through the postal service I have gotten 100% feedback. I started thinking back to some of my more memorable landowner permission quests.

 

Once I tried to place one at a church once and got back this in all caps "WE DO NOT THINK THIS IS A  GOOD IDEA THANK YOU."

 

I contacted a college president once, and she pushed me over to the Geology Professor. People who think that simple earthcache questions are like taking a quiz have no idea. That was a full on exam! I was sweating that one out. The even walked over to the stone and sent my earthcache page back and marked all my mistakes (mostly grammar and spelling) in RED. LOL  

 

Another time I got passed around the offices of the City of Baltimore once for over a month.  Each department more confused than the last.  One of them asked how long would I be needing to rent the entire park out. I was like "Rent? What you talking about, Willis?" Finally I think they were sick of me, and where like "You are not putting anything there. Great. Sure. Go ahead. Just go away!"

 

Twice I had to attend zoom meetings with officials to get earthcaches placed. One of those was really cool because the Maryland Environmental Service came back and asked me to place another one for them elsewhere in the state, and they took me out by boat and gave me a tour of Hart Miller Island.

 

My friend FloridaFinder2 has me beat. He once had to attend a Town Council meeting to propose his Earthcache as "new business."  He swore never to place another earthcache after that one (but he did).

[+niraD]

"Hoops? We ain't got no hoops. We don't need no hoops. I don't have to show you any stinking hoops."

 

Seriously, I haven't had any issues. But I've hidden caches (including an EarthCache) in public spaces with official geocaching policies that didn't require caches that met their rules (not "guidelines") to get individual permission, or in spaces managed by people I already knew personally.

 

The closest I got to an issue with a land manager was when the community garden closed (the church sold the land to a developer), but I was notified well in advance, and I archived the cache and collected the container before the garden closed.

Edited January 14 by niraD
clarification that this is on topic...

[+lee737]

I was given verbal permission by a ranger to hide a cache in a naitonal park here, 'yep- sounds ok, go ahead' - so we hid a container, then waited for her to get back to us. A year went by, 'sorry - my manager feels the area is too fragile'....

The container is still there! 

She was deaf to the fact that in this remote area, our public area roadside hides about a mile away are visited about twice yearly, this one would have involved a 2 mile hike, so it was never going to get a lot of traffic. The wild horses in the area meanwhile are busy trashing the place.....

[Keystone]

As a reminder, this is the EarthCache forum section. Posts to this thread should be about EarthCaches. 

[+Goldenwattle]

I don't understand why people would need to have permission for an Earthcache or Virtual, as long as it doesn't involve off track walking and the land is open to the public, such as a National Park is. No container involved, and if you say take someone to a feature on the public path, that's no different than any other visitor would do. The icon could be placed outside the park even, other coordinates taking your for a walk to the feature. I understand why a container needs permission, because usually that's hidden off the track, and I've seen damage that can cause. I have never published an Earthcache (my geology isn't good enough), so have no experience here. Being in Australia I suspect we would be freer with cache placement than in some other countries. Many of the Nature Reserves around Canberra are full of caches, and I doubt permission was asked for all those.

[+barefootjeff]

13 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

I don't understand why people would need to have permission for an Earthcache or Virtual, as long as it doesn't involve off track walking and the land is open to the public, such as a National Park is. No container involved, and if you say take someone to a feature on the public path, that's no different than any other visitor would do.

 

The New South Wales National Parks official geocaching policy specifically states that "Virtual caching, including EarthCaching, does not involve leaving any type of physical object in a park, and does not require consent under the NPW Regulation." My own Virtual Rewards cache is inside Brisbane Water National Park at a location where I was told a physical cache couldn't be formally approved, on what I still consider to be a technicality, but they said they were okay with people going out there informally so a virtual or EC would be okay. Had I not received a virtual reward, I was considering doing an EC there if I could get my head around the site's geology.

 

My own EarthCache, now archived due to siltation from multiple major floods, was in the intertidal zone on a rock shelf at the end of a popular public beach, so I wouldn't have even known which government body to approach if someone had insisted on formal permission. The local council's zoning map puts it pretty much on the border between a land reserve zoned RE1 (public recreation), a local government responsibility, and seawater zoned W2 (recreational waterway), a state government responsibilty. A few years back, the two were at loggerheads over who should be responsible for dredging the navigation channels in that waterway, so would likely each try to pass the buck to the other if pressed for formal EC permission. Anyway, muggles are constantly walking past that rock feature without concern or issue so I doubt any official would object to the odd geocacher doing the same thing.

[+Goldenwattle]

  

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

I was considering doing an EC there if I could get my head around the site's geology.

I would likely only attempt that if I found a railway station with interesting geology and try to make a SideTracked Earthcache. I have seen such a station (it had a small waterfall flowing down the large cutting on my visit), but not likely to return to that area anytime soon. I must keep a lookout for other potential stations. I would need assistance with it though; geology not being my forte. I used my Virtual cache to make a SideTracked cache of a remote station (GC9P6QB). Only one other cache for 80kms (and then only two more).

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

The New South Wales National Parks official geocaching policy specifically states that "Virtual caching, including EarthCaching, does not involve leaving any type of physical object in a park, and does not require consent under the NPW Regulation."

The open spaces near where we lived in California encouraged virtual caches. At the time, there were no Virtual Rewards, so the only virtual caches were EarthCaches. There were still a few rules (e.g., they had to be listed on the geocaching.com site), but most of the rules applied only to physical caches.

[+thekingofbattle]

I teach an EarthCache Writing class...and while I stress that obviously you need to have a location and lesson, before doing the work, go get permission to ensure your time spent doing all the research, writing everything up, etc isnt in vain. 

 

When folks ask me the best way to find the person to grant permission...I typically fall short on advice. I tend to stick with public locations where it's "easy" for me to find the park ranger/manager. 

 

For Alabama State parks...thankfully we dont have to jump through hoops. It's a straight up application to the park management that's applicable for any type of cache.  

[+lee737]

15 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Anyway, muggles are constantly walking past that rock feature without concern or issue so I doubt any official would object to the odd geocacher doing the same thing.

Yes - but said official may feel differently about it if they then have to sign their name authorising it. If a child ends up in the water drowned etc etc

I think it is government over-reach that anybody should need approval to develop an EarthCache for anything in a public space, where the public are free to access. Given that the EC is just an electronic pointer suggesting people check it out - really no different to someone putting pictures on instagram..... I'm thankful our NP don't carry on about ECs....

[+Goldenwattle]

15 hours ago, lee737 said:

Yes - but said official may feel differently about it if they then have to sign their name authorising it. If a child ends up in the water drowned etc etc

That's no different to an non geocacher visiting the site. Do they have to sign?

[+lee737]

2 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

That's no different to an non geocacher visiting the site. Do they have to sign?

No they haven't signed off.... that's my point. 

[+Goldenwattle]

39 minutes ago, lee737 said:

No they haven't signed off.... that's my point. 

I don't understand. Do you have to sign in NZ to visit a National Park. Here I just walk in.

[+lee737]

The NPs I've been to in NZ don't require a sign off.....

What I was saying is some bureaucrat hasn't specifically signed off on whatever activity is being done - like an EC on a rockshelf. I think they have a perception that they are taking on some risk in signing off on these things - whether they are or not, who knows?

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, lee737 said:

What I was saying is some bureaucrat hasn't specifically signed off on whatever activity is being done - like an EC on a rockshelf. I think they have a perception that they are taking on some risk in signing off on these things - whether they are or not, who knows?

 

Yep, no public-facing bureaucrat worth their salt is going to say yes in writing unless there's an existing policy and a form to stamp. A wise man once told me that, when dealing with government offices, it's easier to seek forgiveness than permission.

[Neos2]

Not exactly a hoop, but an eager request...

I once asked permission to place two EarthCaches in a state park. I was developing them with 80 Earth &Space students (high school freshmen and sophomores, mostly). The park ranger I was talking with to plan the trip asked if he could be involved. My Co-teacher and I gladly accepted his offer/request. 

It ended up going very well. It was a cold day. We had rented the shelter and lit fires in the fireplaces. The ranger gave a nice (short) talk about the geology of the park and then we broke up in groups to gather the information we needed. He guided the students to answers they couldn't find, explained things they didn't know, and made suggestions to improve their working ideas. We walked a couple of trails and generally had a great day. My co-teacher and I brought supplies to make Smores and hotdogs for all the kids to eat after they finished their explorations. 

We did publish two EarthCaches. Cache by  Mrs A, Mrs V & the kids:

Big Clifty & Little Clifty Falls EarthCache GCZBWG 
Fossils, Tunnel Falls, & Bough's Folly EarthCache GC10EBW

 

 

[+Ringrat]

I have one where I needed permission from town council and the local Rotary Club who built & maintain the nice boardwalk to GZ. It wasn't particularly difficult to get permission and also didn't take too long, but the Rotary Club asked me to come to a meeting to give an informational talk. It wasn't a condition of permission, but I felt compelled to agree.

[+GeoTrekker26]

With your experience I’m sure you were an excellent Geocaching Ambassador!