large growth

[+cachew nut]

The sport is growing really fast. Lots of people are just hearing about it for the first time. What happens when our little secret grows into a monster? Lots of agencies have no rules in place because no one ever anticipated geocaching, or its growth. What will happen when it grows so big and everone has heard of it? Will there be any organized movement to stop it?

[+cachew nut]

hmm, a day later and my post finally shows up. Please ignore any duplicates

[+oregonature]

Coming soon....GPSr control. Yes you will have to register you GPSr with Uncle Sam. Private land will be the only place you are allowed to place a cache. Because of the 'impact GeoCaching is having on the public parks and lands' no GeoCaching will be allowed on public owned property.

 

Seriously though, mountain bikes are not allowed in Wilderness areas but horses are. Horsed tear up the trails way more then a bike tire but the horses are 'natural' and are more easily accepted by the general public. The key words here are......ACCEPTED and GENERAL PUBLIC. Anything that the general public does not understand they will condemn.

 

Did you know that the base of my wine glass fits perfectly into a family size tomato soup can?

[+Nurse Dave]

Oh, given my line of work I thought your topic meant something very different.

 

---Real men cache in shorts.

[+High Desert Fish]

My thoughts are similar. Only I wonder when the caches will be filled with travel bugs. We will just have to wait and see. Lets enjoy for now!!!

[Captain Chaoss]

I see this type of wondering a lot, and heres my theory. We'll have to take it underground. Covert night time placeing of caches, no more open, un-encoded public access co-ordiantes. They will be passed between trusted comrades, searched for with the utmost secrecy, camoflauge and cover of inclement weather. Viva La Revolution !

Seriously though, it will probably wind up being a lot fewer caches, more red tape for permisso to place, and more private land caches. Hey, I'll put one on my 5 acres for ya to find. The biggest thing is though, they will be passed on between trusted groups, word of mouth. if its hidden right, who's gonna know anyhow ?

 

Two roads diverged in the woods and I,

I took the one less traveled,

and that is how I found the cache.

[damian007]

If it gets really big, The Governments will notice it. They will then want to get there little piece of it. That'll mean Taxes, Licensing, Tolls.

 

You'll have to pay a tax on the GPSr, You'll have to be licensed to use it then If you go to look for a cache you'll probably have to pay a toll to walk onto Government owned property. Ok, That might be going to far but mark my words, The Government will want their piece of the action. Assuming it does get really big.

 

Oh, One other thing, You'll have to have Liability Insurance if you want to hide a Cache. Just in case someone gets injured while looking for it.

 

Damian Mueller

damian007@optusnet.com.au

[Dinoprophet]

I honestly don't think it will get a whole lot bigger than it is now. This isn't something that just anybody is going to want to do. First, I believe most geocachers (not all, I know) are pretty avid outdoors people to begin with. That's a pretty small percentage of the general populace right there, and most of them have probably already at least heard about it. Of the people who try it, a lot will drop out because they're not impressed by the prizes they find. Others will be bored by 1/1s and 2/2s yet won't have the gumption to pursue more difficult caches (just check the number of finds on the difficult caches in your area to see if whether this is true) and they'll drop out. Others will drop out for other reasons, offsetting to some degree the influx of new cachers. Maybe it hasn't peaked quite yet, but I think it will within the next two years, and it won't be much more popular than it is now.

 

"Winter's just the curtain. Spring will take the bow"

-- Richard Shindell, Spring

[+Renegade Knight]

quote:

---

Originally posted by cachew nut:

Will there be any organized movement to stop it?

---

 

Yes, absolutly.

 

We already have cavers against us. The NPS. All nature preserves (even if they invite people in). Envronmentalists who think mans place is the concrete jungle ONLY.

 

The list will grow. But then so too will the list of allies. Find out about the Utah on the Move group and enlist them. (if there is going to be one). Find your local greenway foundation and enlist them.

 

Show up at your BLM and forest service planning meetings and make your mug stick in their minds.

 

These meetings are coming up this year. Geocaching is a valid recreational activity. With the new land use plans coming out we have to be there and fight to make it recognized.

 

That might make more paperwork but it's better than being banned.

 

As for the growth, I'm still getting people interested. There may be places it's saturating but it's not everwehre yet. My hometown (Fairbanks AK) has 18 caches in 100 miles and I'm introducing a from there to the sport. Maybe it will grow there too.

 

=====================

Wherever you go there you are.

[+pdxmarathonman]

I don't know how big this hobby will become, I am just happy that this topic isn't about some medical condition that CachewNut wanted advice on. Whew!

 

Actually, I think the sport is still pretty small. When GPSr units can be purchased for under $100 lots of people will jump in... oh wait a minute...

[+Sissy-n-CR]

While I think there is room for a lot more growth, there will be more efforts made to control it. I see small town officials saying "not in my parks!" Land managers and city officials who don't understand will try to regulate it.

 

So we will have the friendly folks and the sour pusses.

 

If there are too many sour pusses, then the sport will go underground. Caches will become very well intergrated into the environment. Cache lists will be encoded. Cache lives will be shortened. But, hell, I like all the James Bond type stuff anyway.

 

One thing that we may want to do is emphasis the cacher's version of LNT. Just like a recent post about tramped areas states, you have to watch out for the impact you have on the area.

 

CR