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> I thought the article was pretty straight forward and absent of malice. Certainly the reporter was not a geocaching zealot, but neither is she an eco-freak like

I agree with Dick. The article is fairly even-handed compared to other press we've received in the state. Actually, this is part of a campaign that's being conducted in the US and Canada by Tread Lightly. It's tied in, I'm certain, to the training that they're conducting in Phoenix week after next that I wrote up here a few weeks ago. If you do a search on Google News for "tread lightly geocache OR geocachers OR geocaching" (without the quotes) you'll come up with three or four recent articles from around the country, most or all of which quote the same Patti Klein that's mentioned in the Prescott article.

I'm personally impressed with the campaign that Tread Lightly is orchestrating. They seem to be focused on getting the word out to the caching community that you don't just go in the direction the arrow on your GPSr is pointing. They're attempting to educate us, perhaps because we haven't done such a good job of it ourselves. I believe that the majority of harm caused by caching and cachers is as a result of ignorance rather than laziness or a sense that "the rules don't apply to me". I ain't proud of it, but Judi and I bushwhacked when we first started out, but only because we didn't know any better. The earlier and the more thoroughly we can instruct new cachers that there are right and wrong ways of hiding and seeking caches, the better off we and our game will be.

AZcachemeister hit the nail on the head. We see that instructional role as a major function of the organization we're trying to put together. If you want to be a part of making it happen, let me know.