› Forums › Geocaching in Wisconsin › General › Geocaching Wildlife Safari
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campwebb12.
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08/30/2009 at 2:27 pm #1728769
I was wondering if anyone had been to MN and done any of their state park Geocaching Wildlife Safaris? http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/geocaching/safari/index.html I think that it’s a great way to introduce people to geocaching and the parks in the state (great publicity for both) they have one in each park, and you collect a ‘critter card’ at each one that tells you about an animal in that park. Once you collect 10, 20, 40 or 60 cards, you get a patch, so they are encouraging the use of their parks all over the state! Has anyone thought about something like this in WI? I think it would be a great way to get people into the parks as well as into geocaching. Let me know your thoughts, how we might be able to do this, who to talk to about it? Thanks!
08/30/2009 at 9:55 pm #1913243I’ve done 3 of them so far this year and I maintained one the caches during last year’s program. This is an excellent idea. Every one of those caches gets hit a lot as they all tend to be reasonably high quality caches with reasonably nice locations. They tend to be easy to find because they tend to have distinct cacher’s trails leading to them. Because they are hit a lot by geocaching newbies, some TB’s and Geocoins tend to disappear. Last year the sponsor, Best Buy, released a lot of 40% off handheld GPS coupons (which is when I decided to upgrade to my Oregon).
It would be great for Wisconsin to develop a program like this.
08/30/2009 at 11:56 pm #1913244@elfdoctors wrote:
I’ve done 3 of them so far this year and I maintained one the caches during last year’s program. This is an excellent idea. Every one of those caches gets hit a lot as they all tend to be reasonably high quality caches with reasonably nice locations. They tend to be easy to find because they tend to have distinct cacher’s trails leading to them. Because they are hit a lot by geocaching newbies, some TB’s and Geocoins tend to disappear. Last year the sponsor, Best Buy, released a lot of 40% off handheld GPS coupons (which is when I decided to upgrade to my Oregon).
It would be great for Wisconsin to develop a program like this.
I have done about 5, and agree on all points above. Great program.
z
08/31/2009 at 3:45 am #1913245I like the pins you got last year, too. It would be great if WI did something like this.
08/31/2009 at 5:07 am #1913246We did several of them last year, and now with the new series, have found about 15 of them so far….with three years this go around, we hope to find most if not all of them.
I know we’ve bounced around the notion on the WGA board of working with the Parks to create a similar program. It sure seems to have brought a lot of people into the parks in MN.
Blaise is correct in that with so many newbies, things tend to get lost in them. Not sure how that could be averted if we created a program like that here, but ideas would be great. Some of the caches this year have been much tougher…William O Brien, Fort Snelling and Sakatah Lake all stand out as stellar caches that were a little tougher to find and had longer hikes than most….so far!
09/08/2009 at 5:13 am #1913247I also have completed about 5. One that stood out to me was Soudan Underground Mine State Park Wildlife Safari (GC1P4ZE).
I was really impressed with the park staff at all the parks. Every one we ran into picked us out as Geocachers and came up to us and started a friendly conversation. It was a very nice warm welcome to the parks.
09/08/2009 at 11:00 pm #1913248We found a similar situation and reception at Arkansas state parks last spring. All 52 state parks have an “official” geocache, put out & registered & maintained by a local cacher, plus several more caches. Park staff seem to know where the caches are and were very friendly to us visitors. Each official cache holds a clue to an ultimate state park cache, which sounds pretty cool. We only need to find 47 more…
The WI state park naturalists have been encouraged by their Madison leader to do something similar. The WGA was represented again this year at the naturalists meeting in June, held at Hartman Creek S.P. Each of our state parks has access to a bunch of eTrex GPS units. They also have a standing offer of help from WGA members in every state park neighborhood who would be happy to help get things rolling – all they need to do is ask. The naturalists seemed to want to have a handle on placement due to environmental concerns, which I’m sure we’d all concur with.
Has WGA been contacted? Or any of us individually?
Here’s another avenue we can push a little, for our own benefit and the good ole State of Wisconsin.
cYa, Jim
09/08/2009 at 11:02 pm #1913249@Gram&Gramps wrote:
We found a similar situation and reception at Arkansas state parks last spring. All 52 state parks have an “official” geocache, put out & registered & maintained by a local cacher, plus several more caches. Park staff seem to know where the caches are and were very friendly to us visitors. Each official cache holds a clue to an ultimate state park cache, which sounds pretty cool. We only need to find 47 more…
The WI state park naturalists have been encouraged by their Madison leader to do something similar. The WGA was represented again this year at the naturalists meeting in June, held at Hartman Creek S.P. Each of our state parks has access to a bunch of eTrex GPS units. They also have a standing offer of help from WGA members in every state park neighborhood who would be happy to help get things rolling – all they need to do is ask. The naturalists seemed to want to have a handle on placement due to environmental concerns, which I’m sure we’d all concur with.
Has WGA been contacted? Or any of us individually?
Here’s another avenue we can push a little, for our own benefit and the good ole State of Wisconsin.
cYa, Jim
i agree, and have been pushing for this.
z
09/08/2009 at 11:36 pm #1913250I was contacted individually by a naturalist at a nearby state park. We had discussed some tentative dates, but those have since passed. I know these folks are really busy this time of year, and geocaching is just one part of a big picture.
I’m just glad to see the interest is building, and would be happy to help out.
09/09/2009 at 12:39 am #1913251Birdin, if it was perrot state park, it may have been the park naturalist I gave a geocaching 101 lesson to after she gave me and the family orientiering 101. We got talking and your name came up and she said she knew you from your story telling and the birding forums. I wish i could remember her name.
09/09/2009 at 10:59 pm #1913252Lois?
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