Permission DENIED by Mojave National Preserve

[Guest karl]

Oh gosh, this guy sounds like a butt hole. Here is an idea.. DONT CLAIM YOUR CACHE. He has your email address, big deal. If you don't go to say hi, he won't be able to do anything! Unless you leave your name and home phone in the cache?? Anyway, good luck resisting this american gestapo bullcrap. The third reich is still alive and well in american law enforcement agencys!

 

karl

 

quote:

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Originally posted by Zar:

Jeremy, and others. You said you didn't know of case where someone was cited? Well, you got one here.

 

I placed a cache in the Daley Ranch area of San Diego, and was just informed by a Ranger via E-mail that I could come to the Ranger Station to claim my cache...AND my citation. The offense is "going off-trail" in a park. This sucks.

 

I have heard a couple more cases of this happening (caches being confiscated) in these forums and in cache notes, and I'm starting to get worried. I don't know if this Ranger found the cache because of the writeup in our local newspaper, or because he found it on the site, or what. He wasn't very happy about it.

 

Whatever the case, it's not good for geocaching.

 

We run a real risk of becoming antagonists with the Park Services at the national, state, county and city levels. This happened in the 1970's with the off-road people, and it led to a very nasty 10 year fight that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Eventually they shook hands and now work together to share the resources. If possible, I'd like to avoid this happening to us.

 

If we don't do something, we're going to have some problems in the future -- I can just see it now. Interest in geocaching is growing every day. I've been invited to two different Boy Scout leader councils to discuss geocaching. Search and Rescue teams are hiding caches to encourage people to learn to use their GPS's. Outdoor interest is up, and the GPS vendors love this new sport. I'd hate to see this all get messed up.

 

I would like to see us start a new forum here (not just a thread) for issues like this. Jeremy, I'd volunteer to moderate the forum. The title could be "Legal/Policy Issues" or "Government Cooperation" or anything like that. I feel like we need to come up with a suggestion list, a code of ethics (like GoodDogSD proposed), establish an MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) with the Park Service, get some public support, news media coverage, etc. I would be happy to take the lead on getting something going, but I'm going to need a top-level forum for discussions, and of course, participation and ideas from other cachers/searchers.

 

Whaddya say?

 

thanks,

bruce

 

---

[Guest logscaler]

What about working with the NPS as to marking the entrance boxes as the cache location? Work out a discount for geocachers visiting the park, Then when you stop at the pay shack to go in, you ask for the geocaching discount for entering the park and maybe get a special map with coordinates of off beat and out of the way spots to look at. All on the trails and/or roads of course. Maybe even get a discount coupon for the gift shops? Lunchcounter? Another Park? get the drift, we work with them and the rules for our benifits.

[Guest Iron Chef]

official stamp of the park when you visit. There are also stamps (postage type not the ink type) that go along with it that you can collect. Granted, these stamps are usually located in the visitors center or the gift shop, but it does kinda parallel geocaching in a way. Maybe we could encourage the NPS to place little kiosks or something similar actually out in the park (im sure something more creative can be dreamed up), nothing too elaborate.

 

I don't know if anyone had mentioned this yet so I just posted it. Just a thought from me since I would really like to see more geocached (traditional, virtual, or otherwise) in National Parks. Given time we should be able to cook something up with the Authorities. :~)

 

------------------

-Iron Chef

_ _ _________________ _ _

agefive.com/geocache/

"But a big booming voice from the sky is exactly what you have found..."

-Contact

[Guest crwdog]

If I could offer a little advice in dealing with the NPS - I'm a skydiver, and we've been fighting for the right to hurl ourselves off cliffs in Yosemite for quite some time now. Please take a hint from some of the people who have ruined it for us - when you plead your case, or write your representative, or do whatever you are thinking of doing regarding placing a cache in a NPS area do this one thing for the rest of us: PLEASE BE FRIENDLY AND INFORMED. Coming off as an *** does not help you get your cache on NPS land. Talk to the authorities. Tell them you want to place your cache on-trail or in an acceptable off-trail location. Talk over WHERE exactly. If they say "absolutely not!" politely ask for a reason, and walk away. If you get snotty or do one little thing to antagonize us [geo-cachers], we're done for. There is no way I'm ever going to be able to BASE El Capitan because one of our own piled in off the wall jumping borrowed gear during a "protest" dive. Try to be civil and work things out with the authorities - take a clue from the post about the Santa Fe trail above - sounds like they are on the right track! --Mike

[Guest myotis]

Intresting reading. I agree we need to be careful where we place caches and there are some places where they should not be placed.

 

I looked up the Park Service regulations and they state:

 

Sec. 2.22 Property.

 

(a) The following are prohibited:

(1) Abandoning property.

(2) Leaving property unattended for longer than 24 hours, except in

locations where longer time periods have been designated or in

accordance with conditions established by the superintendent.

 

So it can be allowed.

 

Another issue is the First Amendment. Caching is expressive conducted protected by the 1st Amendment (i.e., writing the log entries is expresive conduct). They cannot prohibit it. The Supreme COurt haas stated:

 

The First Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . ." 6 There is no doubt that as a general matter peaceful picketing and leafletting are expressive activities involving "speech" protected by the First Amendment. E. g., Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S. 455, 460 (1980); Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 112 (1969); Jamison v. Texas, 318 U.S. 413 (1943); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88 (1940); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938); Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147 (1939).

 

It is also true that "public places" historically associated with the free exercise of expressive activities, such as streets, sidewalks, and parks, are considered, without more, to be "public forums." See Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators? Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983); Carey v. Brown, supra, at 460; Hudgens v. NLRB, 424 U.S. 507, 515 (1976); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569, 574 (1941); Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 515 (1939). In such places, the government?s ability to permissibly restrict expressive conduct is very limited: the government may enforce reasonable time, place, and manner regulations as long as the restrictions "are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication." Perry Education Assn., supra, at 45. See, e. g., Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U.S. 640, 647 , 654 (1981); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 115 (1972); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559 (1965) (Cox II). Additional restrictions such as an absolute prohibition on a particular type of expression will be upheld only if narrowly drawn to accomplish a compelling governmental interest. See, e. g., Perry Education Assn., supra, at 46; Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981).

 

United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 176-7 (1983).

[Guest CharlieP]

The rationality and flexibility of a bureaucracy tends to vary inversely with the size of the organization. For Geocachers, this means that the best way to approach this acceptance problem is from the small end, i.e., sell Geocaching first to city and county park administrators. Then the state park folks will see that this really doesn't cause any problems, and will actually bring nice responsible people into their parks. After about 40 state park departments are on board, and there are about 5 million voting Geocachers, the feds will begin to listen. Of course, by then I may too old for this

 

FWIW,

CharlieP

[Guest CharlieP]

The rationality and flexibility of a bureaucracy tends to vary inversely with the size of the organization. For Geocachers, this means that the best way to approach this acceptance problem is from the small end, i.e., sell Geocaching first to city and county park administrators. Then the state park folks will see that this really doesn't cause any problems, and will actually bring nice responsible people into their parks. After about 40 state park departments are on board, and there are about 5 million voting Geocachers, the feds will begin to listen. Of course, by then I may too old for this

 

FWIW,

CharlieP

[Guest BigDoggie]

Interesting that the official NPS bulletin specifically mentions "treasure". I wonder where they got THAT idea.

 

Certainly not from geocaching.com, where the official position is that nobody cares if they call it "treasure hunting". It must have been from somewhere else.

[Guest ALacy]

are placed in the ground, and there are no apparent regulatory violations

 

Again they seem to be upset about the act of leaving something, not the use of the word treasure. I believe if the word treasure had never been mentioned in relation to geocaching, the denial would still have happened, they don't want anyone putting items out. I don't think that is fair, but that appears to be their beef.

[Guest geospotter]

I agree with logscaler. Perhaps, for the purpose of Natioanl Parks, we could work with the service and "slightly" modify the game.

 

To keep people on trails, have the service make up signs and post them at specific locations. Perhaps include the next location on the sign. Using our GPS we could then navigate through the park disturbing nothing. Perhaps each sign could also carry a code to be written on a park sponsored form. Get all of the codes and....

 

We're happy, they're happy, and GPS vendors are happy.

 

It's not perfect, but it beats the alternative.

 

Geospotter

[Guest LoCache]

CharlieP, who posted above, is absoutely correct! The NPS were the first to forbid Geocaching. They will not be the last. The thing to do is start local, then regional, then national. It is MUCH easier to deal with local level parks systems, and get them on board, then take some statistics to the next level and so on.

 

Geo

[Guest Reservoir Dog]

Options/Ideas(?):

 

1. Use this medium (Internet) for a coordinated letter (e-mail) writing campaign to the proper Federal Offices promoting the sport.

 

2. Do mention the the Bureau of Land Management, also under the control of The Department of Interior, has recognized and accepts the sport, and allows placing of GeoCaches on Public Lands with coordination.

 

2. Futher develop, expand and refine "virtual cache" ideas to be used on Public Lands.

 

3. Tell the Park Ranger that you'll haul out a bag of trail trash if you can hide a cache.

 

4. Do be courteous.

 

5. Do observe park regulations.

 

6. Do continue to enjoy and promote the sport.

 

7. Do continue an ongoing forum of the subject.

 

[Guest BigDoggie]

ALacy, I have found your replies to these threads to be particularly non-responsive.

 

In a variety of threads here, I have said this: The unfortunate and inaccurate mis-characterization of our hobby as TREASURE HUNTING by the geocaching.com website is ONE of the factors that causes govt bureaucrats to think poorly of us, and is ONE of the factors in their decision to ban our hobby from their properties. I have gone on to give specific examples to show that TREASURE HUNTING is a part of their thinking, including the geocacher who was charged with the CRIME of treasure hunting in a park, the specific mention by Larry B in Georgia, the newspaper article, the Parks communication mentioned in this thread, etc.

 

Your response is always to list OTHER factors which have gone into the decisions. I agree with you that there many factors. And, unless you can make a case that their view of treasure hunting has NO impact, you agree with me.

 

It is like I say that it is raining outside. And you reply that your dog has worms, and you caught poison ivy last week, and you got a speeding ticket on the way home, and your kid fell and scraped his elbow. These things are... interesting... but it is still raining outside.

 

So, what's your point?

[Guest found]

I'm new to this caching thing, but I love it. I'm also originally from Calif so I know how they think. Both sides. The public is going to want to fight the government on this and visa versa. I agree that we should use our heads when dealing with the authorities. So please keep your mouths in check?

I'd like to point out that in the few caches i've looked for in my area, I have seen no evidence of land destruction. If I had, it may have made it alot easier to find..

Also, just in my area alone, I found 2 state parks that I didn't even know were there!! And I live here!

And maybe a thought about an alternative to hiding something. How about just taking a picture? It could be a plant, rock, view, sunset or sunrise. After all, isn't that part of the reason we enjoy this so much? just for getting out somewhere and seeing something we hadn't noticed before?

But don't tell the park rangers we're having a good time.. they may find a law against it.

[Guest found]

I'm new to this caching thing, but I love it. I'm also originally from Calif so I know how they think. Both sides. The public is going to want to fight the government on this and visa versa. I agree that we should use our heads when dealing with the authorities. So please keep your mouths in check?

I'd like to point out that in the few caches i've looked for in my area, I have seen no evidence of land destruction. If I had, it may have made it alot easier to find..

Also, just in my area alone, I found 2 state parks that I didn't even know were there!! And I live here!

And maybe a thought about an alternative to hiding something. How about just taking a picture? It could be a plant, rock, view, sunset or sunrise. After all, isn't that part of the reason we enjoy this so much? just for getting out somewhere and seeing something we hadn't noticed before?

But don't tell the park rangers we're having a good time.. they may find a law against it.

[Guest ALacy]

? as a kid, where clues were hidden which led to an item, not a treasure just a little toy or some similar, you know like we put in caches. So instead of worrying about the term ?treasure hunt?, we should worry about making sure people who can give permission know

 

1. That the majority of geocachers, are just out enjoying nature,
2. That some people who hadn?t been going out, are now doing so because of the ?treasure hunt? nature of the game.
3. The fact a lot of them take trash out means places are in better condition if the a geocache is there than if one is not.

 

[This message has been edited by ALacy (edited 12 October 2001).]

[Guest CharlieP]

ALacy,I hear what you are saying, and do not disagree, but do you think that if a geocacher agreed that he or someone else would go to the cache at least every 24 hours and inspect it, that the NPS would agree that it was OK? Nah ... they would think of something else. This is a clear case of NIH (Not Invented Here) which is a disease that runs rampant in large bureaucracies. When the NPS folks discovered caches were being placed in *their* parks, and it was not *their* idea, they went to the rulebook and searched until they found a rule against it. Does any rational person think that placing these little cans and ammo boxes in inconspicuous places in these parks actually causes any real damage, compared with other activities that are allowed?

 

FWIW,

CharlieP

[Guest ALacy]

That is the point I have been trying to make. There is no reason to worry about geocaching.com calling it a high tech treasure hunt, because even if it was called something else, the NPS would have banned it due to NIH.

[Guest BigDoggie]

>So again my point is that I don?t think

>describing geocaching as a ?treasure hunt?

>caused the NPS to ban geocaching,

 

You are stuck in this all-or-nothing mode.

 

I don't think that "describing geocaching as a ?treasure hunt? **CAUSED** the NPS to ban geocaching" either. Nor the Ga Parks people. However, it is clear that they did see the reference, and did repeat it, and it is **A FACTOR** in their decision... just one more nail in the coffin.

 

The difference is that this is the one factor that we have absolute control over... we, of course, meaning the powers-that-be at geocaching.com.

 

It is like talking your way out of a speeding ticket... you stand a better chance if you refrain from flipping the cop off as you go by.

[Guest hfmcan34]

Everbody go back and read "lost and found". He has a very simple solution to avoid all this confrontation. Have you ever heard of a park ranger saying "no pictures"? This method doesn't leave anything, doesn't deface anything, doesn't do anything that anybody can complain about. When working in a park just state that the site can be reached by an approved trail. And how many of us have found anything in a cach that we couldn't live without? Not having a box of trinkets at the end is a small price to pay to be able to use public parks. And what about the kids? Will they miss it. Why not take their picture standing at the exact spot of the phantom cach? They would probably value that more, anyway.

[Guest CharlieP]

Abandoned property. It might be interesting to consider just how strictly the NPS enforces this rule that any property left unattended for 24 hours is abandoned and therefore forbidden. I could immediately think of at least one big exception. In the Biscayne National Park, south of Miami, most of the park is underwater, and the park allows commercial lobster trapping, which means that lobster traps are commonly left on the bottom for days or even weeks "unattended". These traps also commonly cause damage to coral reefs as they are dropped and retrieved from lobster boats, or snagged accidentally by other passing boats. The difference here is that lobster fishermen are well represented politically at both state and federal levels. Money talks.

 

Are there other big exceptions to this rule?

 

FWIW,

CharlieP

[Guest ALacy]

I wish I could dig up the URL that I had to the rule, but as I remember the abandoned property rule applies to items that are acceptable to be in the park, and don't require explicit permission. You know camping gear, water, food, and so on. Therefore it is ok to leave a supply cache some where for day without permission, but not for over a day. But as far as I know they can approve or disapprove leaving anything for any length of time. They just decided that they wouldn't approve of geocaching and therefore the abandoned property rule applies. My assumption is they do this because there would be nothing unacceptable in the cache, so they use the 24 hour rule. But lobster trapping is approved and therefore the abandoned propery rule doesn't apply.

 

[This message has been edited by ALacy (edited 16 October 2001).]

[Guest DahMooser and MsPea]

at too many people can do to a park. It's really sad. However, if you get a mere 5 miles into the interior, everything is just fine, except for high sierra camps (what a joke).

 

I am most fond of the idea that someone posted of having the Park Rangers determine the best places to hide a Geocache. They can monitor it, and ensure that nothing dangerous is inside, AND they can also MOVE it and repost the coordinates if they feel that its getting too much traffic. Lastly, they can ensure that its not so easily accesible.

 

The only way we'll get what we want is to either work with our government, or become "rogue sport enthusiasts" and have a special hidden website that stays off the radar of the government (really, you think this is possible, I doubt it with the current search technology they have).

 

The chioce is simple, solicit the government's assistance.

 

DahMooser (humble finder of ONE cache!!)