I'm kind of suprised no one has brought up the
monuments themselves. Remember, areas under NPS
control are usually set aside for a particular purpose
and have the most restrictive rules of any of the land
management areas. IMO, I think this policy comes from
the blanket "control everything" mentality that comes
with managing memorials. Am I correct in assuming no
one wants caches hiding behind Lincoln's chair?

The problem is that they have this blanket policy and
Geocaching is new. Add to this the fact that a snail
moves faster than most government agencies and you get
the current situation.

The NPS has shown that it will allow other activities
on the land it controls. Snowmobiling in Yellowstone
anyone? Add to this the fact that some rangers show
themselves capable of independent thought and we have
a situation where caching may one day be allowed in
select areas of NPS parks.

The attitude of "we pay their salaries" has never been
good for anything but blowing off steam. Expressed in
public though, agents that are firmly opposed will
become even more intractable. The best agent for
change is education, not an entitlement mentality.

I don't know how many people are currently on this
list but if everyone made a single call to a NPS site
that has a lot of land that wasn't obvious monument
protection, and politely expressed interest, things
might start to change. One, two, three calls won't do
anything. 50 over 2 months will get some heads
scratching wondering if someone ought to look into
this.

Of course, it may be easier to moan.


Eric
TD 


--- Brian Cluff <brian@snaptek.com> wrote:

> I guess I would rather see them send an e-mail to
> people that placed the
> cache and work with them if they are a problem in
> the first place.  If they
> aren't a problem, they should be considered an asset
> to the park.  They
> might even want to place a bunch themselves and then
> give out the coords as
> a park program.
> 
> Brian Cluff
> Team Snaptek
> 

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
http://taxes.yahoo.com/