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Stick to the Trails, People!

paulandstacey

Anyone who has done any amount of caching with me knows that I am not afraid of a good hike or a tough bushwhack. In fact, some of my most memorable finds involved caches that were downright miserable to get to ground zero. That being said, with the continued growth of our game, I think it is important that we continue to stress Leave No Trace mentality as much as possible.

This past weekend, the ACGA and Fundy National Park hosted one of my favorite events of the year which involves exploring the park and some of it’s trails. Some of the previous caches have been archived or moved due to cacher activity creating new trails or causing stress to the flora. This year while finding the caches, I was really bothered by the number of people who took it upon themselves to take shortcuts and deviate from the trail. Follow the trails and switchbacks? No thanks, I ‘d rather cut straight down the hill. Stay on the boardwalk? How silly when my gps is pointing 90 degrees in or, perish forbid, I’m momentarily getting farther away from the cache!!!

This type of mentality is harmful in so many ways. It doesn’t take much longer to just follow the trail and find the cache. The whole purpose of placing caches on trails is so that we can enjoy the trails and get a little bonus of another smiley. National Parks and many other areas are protected. There are plants and animals that are disturbed by our activity if we are not careful. I have heard many arguments about how we cause no more damage than some of the animals we share the woods with when we are outside, but none of them sway me at all. We should know better than to damage these beautiful places. We should enjoy them and protect them.

29 thoughts on “Stick to the Trails, People!”

  • As a wildlife biologist and amateur naturalist, I couldn’t agree more. Unlike a lot of wild places we bushwack in, the Parks are protected areas for a reason. Usually these are unique ecosystems, the last ones in these regions because of the our own human nature of modifying the landscape to suit our needs.

  • Amen to that! Now to be the devil’s advocate here, I heard some newbies talking and some were saying that for one of the cache they could not target a trail head and thought it was odd that they had to bushwhack in the park. So although some may have bushwhacked on purpose, some did not know any better.
    In my book there is no problem with a cache in the middle of New Brunswick on the crown’s land, where bushwhacking is needed as there is no way in hell that there will be so much caching traffic that it will create a geotrail, but in places like Fundy or near sensitive ecosystem, we must as geocacher be aware of that, and perhaps educate the new cachers on this. Is there something clear on this on GC.com? I’ll have to check. I think I heard Rev at one point stating that when a cache starts to create a geotrail perhaps it’s time to change its location.

    • This made me revisit the Fundamental Placement Guidelines. I have to admit that one of my last caches in a greenbelt near a stream may not be appropriate. Although you do not need to dig or use a shovel to find it, I had to dig a bit of a hole to put half of the container in the ground. Looking back now it was not the best of my moves! I will repair to this immidiately. Good by Ka-Boom cache.
      Guideline 3 reads as follow: If a shovel, trowel or other pointy object is used to dig or break ground, whether in order to hide or to find the cache, then it is not permitted.
      Geocache placements do not deface or destroy public or private property.

      Bad Nemo, BAD!

      • Well I did not think there was a problem with your cache. You called it greenbelt, but it was also next to a road. The cache did not seem to be in a place that would affect the stream. And the rule about shovel i thought meant that it could not be buried, i.e. covered with earth, while your cache was actually partially out of the ground. I have seen caches in these situations before and never thought they were a problem.

  • Confession is good for the conscience, Nemo 😛

    I think we’ve all been guilty of bad judgement at one point or another, but if we learn from it and don’t repeat it, it will get better. As for people not knowing about a trail head or things of that nature – this is where our responsibility really comes into play. More and more you see people loading in hundreds of caches at a time and just picking them up as they can, not really knowing what they are going for. Even being quite familiar with the Park, we took the time to ask other cachers and even Park employees what would be the safest and most apporopriate route to each cache. I think that this is a practice that is being lost as more cachers go strictly for numbers, numbers, numbers.

    Each Fundy cache has parking coordinates, but it might be an idea for them to identify which trail you will be using in the write up as well.

  • A while ago Mr. CD led a group of tourism officials through the Rocks as a hands on demo of Geocaching. We placed caches of various types and sizes throughout the park as demos. As in any group there were varying opinions. One person in particular was very anti caching. He spoke about everything from the harm to the environment to the fact there was no money to be made from it as a tourist based business operator. At the end of the day, he did coincide that if all cachers were as aware of the environment as the group he was part of there would be no to little damage to flora and fauna. Caches were hidden along trails, with a little forethought they were easily cammoed and easily found when you had an idea of what you were looking for. No damage to the park, no danger to cachers. Obviously these were removed after the event but the park still maintains several caches that Mr. CD keeps his eye on. He has had to notify cachers that newly placed caches were in places that were off bounds or off limits and they were quickly removed. By everyone doing their part, caching can continue to be a great part of the outdoor experience in our parks, both National and Provincial.

  • While we are on the subject of sticking to the trail, lets look at an on-going problem that cachers have not helped with. I am refering to a virtual cache placed in the Wilson Brook Protected Natural Area. This is a Class 1 PNA, which means no tresspassing by any means incuding by foot. We have all logged that cache and I suspect that most of us stayed on the trail all of the way in and out. As this cache location has been a local attraction since time began, the authorities look the other way as long as visitors stay on the trail and act like responsible adults. As with anything, there are always a few who spoil it for everyone. Last summer I found some people camping at the cache site, complete with a roaring bonfire on an extreme fire hazard day… Yes, they were charged. It is actions such as these that will get us all banned from entering wonderful places, so please think before doing something that will ultimately affect all of us.

  • I made an erroneous cut off a trail in Fundy this past weekend, but I honestly thought I ought to. The GPSr pointer was showing a short distance down an elevation, but the wooden walkway continued a distance. I misjudged, and ended up down at the bottom of the slope. In hindsight, I should have continued down the walkway and backtracked. Meq culpa.

  • I’m sure some of the off trail is accidental, but I know a lot of it wasn’t. I didn’t intend for this thread to be a witch hunt or a confessional, but I hope your conscience is clear now Zonker 🙂 Now, for penance, you must say the geocachers creed 30 times 😛

    http://www.geocreed.info/

  • Well I don’t know how many people made that mistake at Fundy this past Sunday,but I am thinking a few.I have to confess that I too made the same mistake as Zonker,probably being the one dragging him and Snake9 along with me.I should have know better and do know better.
    When out caching with Snake9 in wooded areas he likes to pick up sticks to use as swords.I tell him to only pick up those that are already on the ground and not to break them off of trees.I also tell him when we are at a cache not to leave any sign that we were in the area.Practice what you preach.
    I knew that when we started the caches at Fundy they were all accessible from the trail and that was for the reason of not leaving any trace behind.But as the day wore on and we were going for the last cache time was also ticking away to get back to the event there for the prize draw.This is when the lapse in judgement kicked in and the shortest distance between two points became a straight line to the type of destruction the park is trying to avoid.My fault, my mistake, my responsibility to take the blame.When deciding which way to go, down the walkway or the shortest route, I called over the side and Snake9 and Zonker followed the leading idiot.Bad call!
    After reading the post here I realized what I shouldn’t have done at Fundy.It isn’t like I did something illegal or hurt someone,nothing as drastic as that.But I did forget a basic rule of geocaching, “Leave No Trace Behind”.Another leason learned.My apologies.
    End of confession.

  • I think the issue was exasperated this year by the early release of caches. This has evolved into an event where people feel they should be able to get all the caches in one day and leads to rushing around. Even people staying on the trails are not taking the time to really appreciate the beauty surrounding them. In previous years, some cachers complained about not being able to get the coin on the event day, etc. etc. – which I feel is really missing the point.

    I suggested to Dan (from Fundy) that if all event caches were longer hikes, people would know that doing them all in one day was not the purpose and might encourage people to slow down and smell the flowers (rather than run by and trample them).

    • I think Di and I smelled those flowers too much, we ended up taking our time so that we only got one cache! (with one DNF) 🙂
      We bought the season pass this year so we may end up finding the others later this summer.
      We were there mostly for the events and to RELAX, it was our 3rd wed anniversary getaway. And relaxed we did! Enjoyed every minute of it.

      Perhaps a big ”STAY ON THE TRAILS” in red on the cache page could help, and whoever does the intro speech could add that in. I am not convinced that longer or shorter hike would change anything. Perhaps I’ll ask some of my biker friends to come and help with the stay on the trail speech, with a serious ”…or else” at the end. Bet that would work.

    • I agree with stopping and smelling the roses, I’m not sure I’m keen on paying park entrance fees multiple times in a season to get a wooden nickel. FNP is getting cheaper and cheaper with the reward item, while raking in the cash on cachers coming that first weekend and all summer long to complete the challenge. They gave a nice trackable coin the first year, a wooden trackable the next, a non-trackable coin the next, and this year?- a non-trackable wooden nickel. And fewer to boot (350 last year vs. 250 this year). There is no additional outlay of cost to them beyond that reward item; FNP opens that weekend regardless of the caching event, and the ACGA creates and places the caches, and hosts the event.

      • Maybe the issue is that they have a reward at all. I have heard many cachers complaining about things related to the coin/token, etc. Our reward is that as a family we get to spend some time together on some beautiful trails in the outdoors. The cache and smiley at the end is a nice little bonus as it is. If someone gave me 1000 dollars, my initial reaction wouldn’t be “Well, you gave it to me in twenties.” I love this years wooden nickel, but we’d still be there and do the hikes and caches with or without the passport.

        • I agree that the park is being some cheap with the geocoin business. I cannot care less if it’s made out of wood, rubber or gold, if it’s not trackable, it’s a useless swag to us. And Forestfauna is darn right that they did not improve on this but rather did quite the opposite, and yes it’s frustrating. But having said that, although it’s a bit of a downer, the real reward for us is the same as Paulandstacey, and geocoin or fake geocoin, or no coin at all, we will be there for the fun.

          Coming back to the main topic, it would be a good idea next year to add at the very top of the description, the name of the parking lot and possible trail head and the fact you need to stay on the trails to inform people who may not know about this.
          🙂

          • I agree, the hike and getting out with friends and family is what is important. I had started a post on our Fredericton geocachers facebook group about the non-trackable wooden nickel being passed off as a geocoin, and that FNP was making a lot of money and the reward item was getting cheaper and cheaper each year. The ACGA chimed in and said that “What I would recommend is that you craft a letter and get other geocachers on board to sign on to it and send it to the park superintendent, demanding that being an important and revenue generating event for Fundy, that the park should increase its budget accordingly so that it’s does not fall behind the other parks that have taken its model and created its own geocaching program. Fundy deserves to be the leader in this area.” Uhm, isn’t that what the ACGA should do, considering they are the partner in this event?

  • I was thinking of doing some caching in FNP later this summer. I think part of the problem is that, for a majority of the caches, they provide parking coordinates, but no information on the trailhead. Is it really that difficult to include the description “take either xxxx trail or xxxx trail to the cache”?

  • I do agree that the wooden nickel this year is far from a geocoin, but I wonder if that is just ignorance on the part of the park? If that is the case, the ACGA certainly knows better and as a partner should educate. Maybe the NB rep can discuss this with the ACGA.

  • I know the NB rep very much and I will talk him into this. He listens to me as we are friends now 🙂

  • A few points here, all are great – I’ll try comment on a couple.

    1. The whole cheap thing. No surprise that the park has been reducing the budget for the event, even though it is drawing more people to the park, etc… At the start, our position (ACGA) has been that the reward item needs to be trackable or people won’t care. Problem is they ask “how many coins are actually being traded”, we go back, do some research , crunch numbers and find that barely 10% are traded. So what’s the point of spending money on a tracking number that won’t get used?

    2. Wood nickel – having dealt with a few parks – they like wood over minted. They like buying local than going to china. Depending on the year they’ll change their minds based on comments. But ultimately its their decision what they want to do. That’s kinda what I was going for with the signed letter thing in FF’s comment above. The more feedback the park gets, the better it is for all of us.

    3. Comments… ACGA can do only so much, place the caches, plan the event, suggest to the park what route they should take with the reward item etc.. etc.. but the park pays attention when there are comments from visitors, lots of the same comments – it’s the only way to validate our suggestions. I heard some were more vocal this year and that’s good because that’s already created change in a good way for next year.

    4. off-trail. I wasn’t there this year to do the speech, but I’ve always been clear “STAY ON TRAIL”. I didn’t put in the trail description at the top of the listing this year, but the listings had a parking and trailhead where appropriate. Some of the parking coords were 20ft at the trail head. I do like the red letter on the listings and I’ll add that. However, after 4 years you think it would be clear that people wouldn’t need to be reminded.

    5. time – the time estimates are not really estimates, it’s the actual time I took to place all the caches, drive to trailheads, waypoint stuff, record video, staying on trail and pad on 30 min at the end. Dunno what else to do since we published the caches early, passports were available online for a week to download. The key here is to take 10 min and PLAN the route.

    Good news is that there will probably be a change up in the format for next year. This is already due to the comments voiced here & on the facebook groups already. But that needs to continue. I think the park doesn’t fully recognize the event and participation levels over the last 4 years. And that’s why I’ll say again, the more comments that the park gets about the program and add some helpful suggestions – the better for us to keep building the event.

    Like the end of each year, I post asking for suggestions on what we can do better for next year. Looking for additional feedback.

    What about the reward item? do we need one? does it need to be a coin/nickel…how about a patch/pin combo…or just a pin? how about a certificate? How about none at all?

    What about the caches? traditional, 1 stage multi? chirp? longer hikes? back country? paddle?

    • Jim, would it be possible to add the trail listing for those caches which currently do not have one (such as Wings over Fundy)? It would be much appreciated. I plan to go for some (or all) of the caches this summer. The parking coordinates are a bit help, but I also like to plan my route in advance, and I like to know which trails I have to take using the trail maps provided by FNP.

      • Wings Over Fundy – Moose Horn or Laverty Falls
        Hug a Tree – Hastings Auto Trail
        Fog Forest – Kinnie Brook
        Logging Legacy – Shiphaven
        Caught on Camera – Old Chalets/Golf Course

  • This actually reminded me of a cache/event I did last year where I actually posted a “stick to the trail” question on another forum.

    I had actually asked the locals if it was easier to cut through the woods to get to a particular cache, versus taking the trail. The trail actually had you hiking an extra kilometer whereas a straight bushwhack was less distance.

    The same sort of things came up about sticking to the trail and then by going straight through, you might damage something and the park officials might get a little upset. Not knowing the area, I took the suggestion and I was happy I did. Turns out the shortcut would have had my ascending a considerable distance and would have actually made the hike longer because of the altitude difference.

    Point being, it’s always best to stick to the trails 🙂

  • Yeah. Dont be in a hurry. Enjoy the hike. And if you have a choice between motorized or exercise, why not take a nice walk or bike ride. And dont drive your vehicle or ATV on trails that are assigned for bikes and foot travel

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