› Forums › Geocaching in Wisconsin › General › Backpacker Mag: Does geocaching violate Leave No Trace?
- This topic has 22 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 8 months ago by
Ry and Ny.
-
AuthorPosts
-
05/09/2008 at 4:54 am #1726516
Has anyone read the article in Backpacker magazine April 2008 that discusses “leave no trace” vs “Cache In, Trash Out”? I find it rather interesting that an organization such as Wild Wilderness would have such a debate. Will Geocaching eventually need to raise money to hire lobbyists to protect our right to use public land in the manner that we do? Or will states – like MN – realize what geocaching does for park attendance.
The magazine did take a poll and thankfully 58% of the readership defended Geocaching.
As the sport continues to grow will we have to defend what we do to more people / organizations like Scott Silver of Wild Wilderness? If so, what can we do as individuals to defend what we do?
05/09/2008 at 3:34 pm #1889050This was recently discussed in the National Forums as well…
05/09/2008 at 8:02 pm #1889051is there a link to the article?
05/09/2008 at 8:16 pm #1889052How could any cacher say yes to this…. but still cache??
05/09/2008 at 8:41 pm #1889053I could only find a forum on backpacker.com relating to the article. I will be more than happy to type the article if someone else can’t find it.
http://www.backpacker.com/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=852107219;t=9991100891
05/09/2008 at 9:45 pm #1889054Well, I did see this quote..
“In a 2002 speech the Chief of the Forest Service, Dale Bosworth, said geocaching is a legitimate recreational use of the National Forests.”
Works for me. If the government said it it must be true! And since they just gave me $1800.00 today, I will trust their opinion!
(P.S. That was not a polarizing political statement. All government people are poopie heads no matter WHAT letter comes before their name on C-SPAN.)05/09/2008 at 9:46 pm #1889055I’m pretty adamant about Leave No Trace, but I know there are some folks out there (probably not on these forums) who will tear a place apart. Granted, these are often dead trees anyway, but I have seen one in our area that was pretty much gutted in a short time by folks trying to find a difficult hide. I struggle with that aspect of the game.
Also, and I’m as guilty as any of us, but how often do we follow “geo-trails” to the cache? Unless it was a deer trail prior to placement, we can’t really say it’s not a trace. I guess the point is this; how exactly do we define a “trace?”
05/09/2008 at 11:00 pm #1889056The reality is that NO ONE leaves no trace. If you walk through a wild area (or any area not paved, for that matter), you will compress the dirt, break leaves, stems and branches, and generally disturb “nature”. You will carry off dirt, leaves, and seeds on your boots, clothes and hair. Of course, so do the birds, deer, bear, and raccoons. If you put a boat in a lake, pond or river, you slightly displace the water up the bank, which both slightly erodes the bank and also deposits silt/algae on the bank. I’ve found that LNT is one of those political slogans which people try to use to make their argument against this or that, rather than having any legitimate meaning.
That said, there is no reason to tear up a location looking for a cache, but there is also no reason to place a cache that would tempt someone less ethical to do just that. In the end, it is up to the hider to select locations which can support the level of searching they will require. This has become more important as we have grown in numbers, especially near population centers.
05/09/2008 at 11:10 pm #1889057That said, there is no reason to tear up a location looking for a cache, but there is also no reason to place a cache that would tempt someone less ethical to do just that. In the end, it is up to the hider to select locations which can support the level of searching they will require.
So what you are saying is we should stick to magnetic keyholders stuck to light poles rather than micros in our parks that are hidden on or around trees?
Geocachers who harm trees, plants, shrubs, etc for the sake of making a find should be ashamed of themselves. Period. Let’s put blame where blame is due. I can place a cache in a tree and have 100 cachers log it with no problems. Should I not place it there because there are a few bozos out there who ruin it for the rest of us?
Yes responsible cache owners should monitor the impact their hide has on the surroundings and think of the potential impact but at the end of the day you can’t predict just how idiotic some people will be. People are people.
05/10/2008 at 12:01 am #1889058I think the most important thing we can do is to stick to existing trails as much as possible; wonton bushwhacking and going cross-country should be discouraged.
Some soils and terrains can handle the abuse, but most can’t. I have seen geotrails gully out, within months after a hide. Even a rocky outcrop can suffer — there was a cache up in Forest County where you could see where folks had walked across and worn off swaths of lichen growing on the red granite.
I understand that on a well-used trail, off setting the cache from the trail often is the only way to keep the cache from being muggled. My point is that folks hiding caches should keep caches close to trails. Seekers need to be a tad more patient. Most hiders make their hides surprisingly accessible (remember, they will visit a cache multiple times whereas most seekers will visit only once).
05/10/2008 at 2:54 am #1889059Page 44 of the April issue of BACKPACKER magazine:
The question asked in the article is: Are these hidden containers harmless, or do they flout low-impact ethics?YES Whether you consider a geocache box as litter or a semi-permanent stash, the practice is against national park and forest regulations, even if some land managers choose to bend the rules. “Cache In, Trash Out” is merely a public-relations campaign to overlook the sport’s clear-cut violation of many LNT principles. Even if every geocacher removed a ton of trash from wilderness areas, it doesn’t erase the fact that they deliberately left a box filled with toys behind. No individual has the right to lay special claim to any portion of our public land. Hiking should be a personal exploration, and any reward, if there is one, should be chanced upon and not tracked down by technology. -Scott Silver Executive Director Wild Wilderness
NO The geocaching community strongly promotes “Cache In, Trash Out.” We try to leave an area in better shape than we found it, which can’t be said of all hikers. A well maintained and hidden cache is not trash, but rather a place that has frequent visitors and is maintained by a specific person in the region. Geocaching is a great activity for all ages that attracts people to parks and forests who wouldn’t otherwise visit them. We would love to see all public land open to geocaching, but we recognize that sensitive areas need more protection. As a result, we work with local managers to set limits on cache locations. After all, we want to encourage the growth of this sport while also preserving where we play. Allen Waterman President Iowa Geocachers Organization
I typically don’t let people like Scott Silver bother me, but at the same time if more people like Scott Silver speak out against Geocaching I fear we may run into problems with the sport. I would hope that big companies like Garmin and Magellan would stand up for the sport.
This past March I was hiking in Alabama. I was shocked at how many times I walked past random campfire / beer cans. If I had to guess this trash was not left behind by a hiker or geocacher. In my opinion those are the people Scott should be focusing on. I realize it is much easier to pick on a large group.
Happy caching and keep CITO.
05/10/2008 at 11:44 am #1889060The only cache type that truly allows for “Leave No Trace” is a Virtual Cache. Merely arrive at a location and observe. Nothing to move.
The Leave No Trace movement has a website that is quite good http://www.lnt.org/programs/index.php
05/10/2008 at 8:23 pm #1889061@nohandsgps wrote:
Page 44 of the April issue of BACKPACKER magazine:
The question asked in the article is: Are these hidden containers harmless, or do they flout low-impact ethics?YES Whether you consider a geocache box as litter or a semi-permanent stash, the practice is against national park and forest regulations, even if some land managers choose to bend the rules. “Cache In, Trash Out” is merely a public-relations campaign to overlook the sport’s clear-cut violation of many LNT principles. Even if every geocacher removed a ton of trash from wilderness areas, it doesn’t erase the fact that they deliberately left a box filled with toys behind. No individual has the right to lay special claim to any portion of our public land. Hiking should be a personal exploration, and any reward, if there is one, should be chanced upon and not tracked down by technology. -Scott Silver Executive Director Wild Wilderness
1. There are no geocaches in National Parks, and
2. Geocaching is NOT against National Forest regulations
3. Cache In, Trash Out is not a PR campaign, It is part of a geocacher’s life
4. If no individual has the right to lay claim… back off Scott Silver that would include you.~tb
05/10/2008 at 9:12 pm #1889062I think that Geocaching definitely violates the principals of “leave no trace”.
Let’s face it, if you can tell someone was at a spot before you, then they “left a trace”, thus violated “Leave no trace”. You can usually see evidence of foot traffic or sometimes a volunteer trail near the cache. I’ve seen it over, and over, and its leaving a trace.
I think that “leave no trace” is often a hardcore philosophy. I can tell you that the deer, bear, rabbits, squirrels, and other critters create heavier trails then any geocache!
There’s a place for everything. Geocaching fits in just fine in most situations.
05/11/2008 at 12:59 am #1889063I believe there is an ideal that may be more important than “Leave No Trace”. It is the land ethic of Aldo Leopold. The notion that our land and lakes, and the creatures that inhabit these places, deserve consideration when we make plans involving land or water use.
I think that some “Leave No Trace” die-hards are actually folks who would rather NOT have people visit these wild places at all. They love to be the only person for miles around and cringe when they see the caravan of cars driving through places like Yellowstone. They are as greedy as the oil companies that want to drill in ANWAAR. My thinking is that these wild places are more likely to survive and be treated with respect if more experienced these places.
(Should, for instance, ANWAAR be saved? Some would have you believe that ANWAAR is the last Eden, others a barren waste. Few have visited, so how would the average citizen know which it is. If your only exposure to nature is a country club, my guess is that most of the natural world looks like a barren waste.)
Geocaching is a net positive if for no other reason than it gets a lot of people out into wild places, even if it is just an overgrown corner of a city park, and it gets them out year round so that they can appreciate the changes of the seasons, the eternal cycle that we are all apart of. They also get a sense how apart their everyday lives are from the natural world.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.