The Curse of the Geotrail
So I had just pulled off into a small rest stop on the side of the highway, parked my car, got out and followed my GPSr towards the treeline. I arrived at the wall of trees, ground zero was about 75 feet ahead. Now I look for the best point of entry, I’m scanning the treeline, I see a nice little opening just through some bushes, I push aside the branches and push forward and what do I find? A nice little path, now I wonder where this could go, so I follow this trail along with the arrow on my GPSr 60 feet, 50 feet, 40 feet, 30 feet, 20 feet, now its time to start looking. I notice the trail goes on for another 15 feet so I take it right to the end. I’m standing at the end of this trail, I look down and there it was the random pile of sticks against a tree!
I had just fallen victim to the ever more common “Geotrail”, now some maybe thinking well you just found the cache, how could it be that bad? Well that trail just cut out my favorite part of caching, the hunt. If there any avid podcast listeners out there who listen to geocaching oriented podcasts you will notice the whole geotrail phenomena becoming an issue talked about more and more. I recall one podcast, the Podcacher they where talking about the Project A.P.E. cache located in Washington State. The A.P.E. cache was visited almost a thousand times in a run of 4 to 5 days, this created a huge indent on mother nature, that many people walking in the same place constantly, it was commented on the Podcast that at one point in time there was a line up to sign this cache.
Could you imagine coming to a trail-head to find a bunch of people all standing in line, for what, just to sign a piece of paper. I know that’s the point of geocaching, locating the cache then signing the log, but you totally loose out on the hunt. I travelled quite a bit in the last year, from Jamaica to Newfoundland and all sorts of places in between and I continue to run into Geotrails, there is no avoiding them! For the first few people to locate the cache I am sure they had a grand time getting to the cache, but eventually it just becomes find the trail and you will find the cache!
How do we ease up on these geotrails, well first of all if you come across one DO NOT walk on it, you will just keep on killing any chance mother nature has to reclaim that little bit of land. If you locate one walk around, WAY around it, do not walk next to it thinking you are fixing the problem because all you are doing is widening the trail and at that point you should have just walked on the trail. If you are placing the cache some things you could do is give multiple trail-head coordinates on the cache page, if you go back to do maintenance and you notice a geotrail move your cache, I’m not talking about moving it 2000 feet, but far enough it will effect the flow of traffic. If GC.com comes up with the “Are you sure you are moving your cache this far, please contact your local reviewer” well contact them and tell them why your moving it, I do not see why it would be an issue as long as it remained with in the GC guidelines.
Although I denounce Geotrails because it ruins the hunt aspect of the game, if you enjoy using the added convenience, continue doing so, as I say “Geocaching is a game with boundless opportunities, in players, playing-fields, and ways of playing” so play the game as you want and make sure you have fun. I just wanted to let people know who maybe are not fans of geotrails how to ease up a little on mother nature.
What are your views on geotrails, and the effects they have on the game?
I see a big problem there. I will have to go and fix that. The geotrail was supposed to go on to the next cache.
Actually geotrails were one of the reasons that caches were banned from National parks. Geotrails were sometimes being created in sensitive areas, such as off the Kinney Brook trail in Fundy.
Geotrails are helpful in winter so that you dont have to bring snowshoes. They are also hepful after a rainstorm when you have to wlk across a field of high grass to get a cache.
And along the Catamount trail, cachers are putting many many caches. They figure that the geocachers trampling the ground will remove the need for trail maintenance.
I haven’t found that much of an issue with geotrails here in Fredericton, but when I vacationed in PEI last summer, you could just follow the path through the tall grass to the geocache.
But, to argue a different point, sometimes a single geotrail is actually better on the ecosystem than multiple trails. You end up concentrating the foot traffic to one location, which yes, makes it more difficult for mother nature to reclaim it, but it also reduces the impact occuring in other areas. When I worked as a biologist doing salt marsh butterfly surveys, it was important that we stayed on the same trail through the marsh-minimizing our impact to the rest of that sensitive habitat.
I am a Leave No Trace Trainer so I pay attention to geo-trails. I removed a cache because one was forming at a cache of mine off the Dobson trail. Most caches will get enough traffic to create a path to it but not enough to kill everything on it, nature is pretty tough but if a cache is in an area where geo-trails would hurt the area then maybe it isn’t a good place for a cache. Like Pa said sometimes a power trail of caches could help revitalize a trail by getting people out on it. I don’t like to see caches in bogs or wetland areas because they are delicate and very important to the ecosystem as opposed to a cache 30 meters off of a trail in a wooded area, the ground is harder and more resistant to damage there. Sometimes you can actually see geo-rings around some caches as people are searching all around it. I try to stay within 10-20 meters of trails to limit damage and make the find easier, I see no need to send people 75 meters in to find a cache in the woods unless it is going to a specific place.
This is a good topic, we should be thinking about this when hiding and searching for caches.
I thought that this story would go well with the thread title. As you will see, geotrail can really be a curse. Saturday morning 8am, I left to go out geocaching. I returned home a week after. Here is the story…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpW1y3JaUHs
Très bien fait… merci beaucoup!
😆