How to fight geocaching bureacracy

by Clan Riffster

IkeHurley13, on 26 January 2012 - 05:39 AM, said:

Michaelcycle, on 25 January 2012 - 05:35 PM, said:

In bill H3794 signed by the governor of South Carolina on June 2, 2009, the South Carolina General Assembly prohibited geocaching on all state wildlife management areas, heritage preserves, and all other lands owned OR operated by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

I added the bold. This is what happens when one cache hider (or finder) chooses to not follow the rules laid out.

Actually, this is what happens when your Government forgets who they work for. This has "Big Fish - Little Pond" written all over it. SCDNR allows a whole host of activities on their properties other than geocaching. I simply cannot fathom that they would outlaw any of these other activities over one single rules violation. The fact that they were so quick on the trigger with geocaching tells me they have some anti-caching mook whispering in their collective ears. I would guess this mook works somewhere fairly high in the DNR food chain.

I don't know what your current tactics are, but as someone who has worked in Government all my adult life, I speak Bureaucrat like a native, and I know how I would combat foolishness like this. My first step would be to gather enforcement data from DNR properties over the past 5 years. Every single arrest, every single citation, every single warning. Sort these by activity. (camping/mountain biking/ATV use/hunting/etc) It's all a matter of public record. Then I would watch for town hall type meetings set up for politicians to mingle with the little people. Either I or someone else who was on my side and spoke the language would attend every single one of these meetings, bringing the collected data, and raising my hand.

When called upon, I would ask the following question:

"Sir/Ma'am, as you know, House Bill 3794 outlawed geocaching on all SCDNR lands, because of a single, isolated rules violation by a single person. According to public records, which I have here for your perusal, in the past 5 years there have been X rules violations by campers, X rules violations by hunters, X rules violations by fishermen, Etc. And yet, there has been no call to ban these activities. Can you tell me why our elected officials are treating geocaching so unfairly?"

The closer you get to an election, the more impact such a question would have.

Tips for new geocachers

These tips come courtesy of 6NoisyHikers:


1. MARK YOUR CAR - get the co-ordinates of your car or the trailhead where you started so you can find your way back home.

2. ALWAYS CARRY EXTRA BATTERIES - for your flashlight and your GPS.

3. CLEAN UP A CACHE - don't be afraid to take out swag that is damaged or inappropriate (wet stickers, tattoos, burst batteries or any unmentionables). Dry out a container if it needs it.

4. MINIMUM 25 FINDS - before you even think about hiding your own cache. When you do hide one, make sure the location means something to you and that you will be able to take care of the container.

5. WRITE A GOOD LOG - be friendly, share your experience and also let the cache owner know the status of the container: in good shape or needs some TLC.

Caching on the boardwalk

Enjoyed a winter afternoon of geocaching
on this winding boardwalk in the woods.
January 21
iPhone4 app: Snapseed

Applying Markwell's Selective Criteria

This post got me thinking about my own Selective Criteria:

Markwell

Posted 05 December 2011

What the premium membership WILL do is allow you to be more selective on the caches you choose to hunt.

From my December 1 pocket queries, there are 3,467 caches within 20 miles of my house.
Of those 3,467 caches, 435 are temporarily disabled leaving 3,032 caches
Of those 3,032 caches, 309 are not traditional leaving 2,723 caches
Of those 2,723 caches, 1,479 are micro leaving 1,244 caches
Of those 1,244 caches, 124 are not chosen in their size leaving 1,120 caches
Of those 1,120 caches, 79 are terrain=1.0 leaving 1,041 caches
Of those 1,041 caches, 107 are difficulty=1.0 leaving 934 caches
Of those 934 caches, 39 are are ones I've found or placed leaving 895 caches
Of those 895 caches, 144 are placed in a parking lot (based on my scouting reports) leaving 751 caches
Of those 751 caches, 13 are terrain>=4.0 leaving 738 caches
Of those 738 caches, 26 are have a size of "other" chosen leaving 712 caches
Of those 712 caches, 509 are excluded based on other criteria I use in GSAK (polygon filter, number of recent DNFs, etc.) leaving 203 caches.

That criteria gets me down to about 5.86% of the caches.

My Selective Criteria results:

• There are 689 caches within 20 kms of my house.
•  Of those 689 I haven't found 313
• Of those 313, 303 are enabled (10 are disabled)
• Of the 303 when I exclude micro, unknown and other (because these almost never are swag size) I get 136
• Of the 136, I exclude the following cache types: earthcache, whereigo, virtual, gps maze, event, project ape, unknown, and webcam (not my cup of tea but if I can solve an unknown cache I'll hunt for it as long as it's swag size). That leaves 13 caches
• Finally exclude any cache with a D/T rating of more then 3.5, that leaves 8 geocaches.

8 geocaches within 20km that meet my criteria. I think I may be a little pickier then Markwell. 
That criteria gets me down to about 1.16% of the caches.

Clan Riffster's Explosive Ordnance Disposal/Geocache Flowchart

Another microcache in a parking lot was blown up in the United States.
Clan Riffster's flowchart explains what the process involves: