In the early days of geocaching down here in Tucson, several geocaches were
placed in the National Parks around town before we all understood the NPS
rules regarding caches and a park ranger who was also a geocacher and had
visited many caches in the area was presumably "put in charge" to remove any
caches that violated the NPS rules. I had the impression that the ranger was
given the task by superiors. So I wouldn't rule out an agency taking the
trouble to remove geocaches.
BTW, I had a geocache down here at the base of Cat Mountain off of Ajo road
which was on a side trail off the main trail from Sarasota Blvd. The trail
had been maintained not long before one of my visits to the cache, so I felt
that it was placed in an area that met all requirements. So a week or two
after my last visit, I got an e-mail from a city police officer who was in
charge of the Tucson Mountain Park area saying that he had my geocache. It
turns out that the trail I had found was a "wildcat trail" that he had been
trying to close to preserve the area and someone had been maintaining the
trail against his wishes. He placed a trail closed post were it left the
main trail with his business card attached. I was happy to cooperate with
him and he was very geocache friendly, offering to check out possible
placement sites in the area and in fact, I replaced the cache (with a new
name) less than half a mile away not far off the main trail where it still
sits today. So agencies will do what they need to and generally are friendly
to work with (with a few notable exceptions), especially if you follow the
rules and if you talk with them when in doubt.
Jim.
On Mon, 17 Nov 2008, MEL HOCKWITT wrote:
> I wonder is there is a contact on the sticker as to whom made it (print
> shop) I don't think this was done by a official agency but someone who is
> against Geocaching. I agree that the cache is usually hidden so someone
> must have the coordinates in order to find it, don't think any agency would
> go to that trouble just to remove a cache that is out of sight.
>
> Mel
I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me,
Superman! - Homer Simpson
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Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/