on 3/22/01 3:39 PM, Randy Hall at randy@mapsurfer.com wrote:

>
> Apparently the National Park Service is discussing with
> the geocaching community the possibility (likelyhood) that
> geocaching is illegal in national parks. The reasons for the
> NPS's position probably also make letterboxing illegal in
> national parks.

I think they over-reacting a bit. I'd be interested to see if I get a
response. the illegality of letterboxing is pretty danged trivial. I would
think that the NPS has bigger fish to fry.

TC

>From: Randy Hall
>Subject: Letterboxing in national parks
>
>Apparently the National Park Service is discussing with
>the geocaching community the possibility (likelyhood) that
>geocaching is illegal in national parks. The reasons for the
>NPS's position probably also make letterboxing illegal in
>national parks.

Below are two of the posts from the geocaching email list which address
this issue. (Apologies for the duplication to those who subscribe to that
list already.) As geocaching grows it seems that letterboxing will be
lumped in with it for many land managers (not only NPS ones, either). It's
likely that the days of our obscurity are vanishing rapidly. Apparently the
NPS is now actively monitoring the LbNA website and removing what they
consider to be "abandoned property". The first post below states that "The
web site showed the location of at least two letterboxes in parks. The
parks have been notified...."
The tone of the report does not sound promising either as it states that
"geocaching has and can cause [damage] to historic, archeological and
natural sites." Not "might have" or "may", but "has".

--------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:10:18 -0700
From: James Glave
To:
Subject: Geocaching in NPS Morning Report

Greetings,

I am the editor at Outside magazine that assigned our January story about
Geocaching. I have been following the NPS discussion and thought you might
all be interested in this. It comes from the "Morning Report" that is
emailed to all regional offices and headquarters of National Parks
nationwide.

-James Glave

Geocaching - There is a new web-based activity called geocaching that has
affected several National Park Service areas. The Ranger Activities Division
asked Olympic NP SA Mike Butler to investigate. Here's his report:
Geocaching is an activity in which participants hide a cache and take a
position at the location using a GPS receiver. The position is then
published on the group's web site with an invitation to search for the
"treasure." Caches often contain a notebook or log book and something the
finder may take. The finder is asked to put another item in the cache for
others to discover and will often report the find on the web site. Several
caches have been found in National Park Service areas. The webmaster for the
site (www.geocaching.com) has been contacted. He was very surprised that
geocaching is illegal in NPS areas, and understood NPS concerns about the
damage geocaching has and can cause to historic, archeological and natural
sites. He agreed to work with the Service to discourage further geocaching
activities in parks.



Two related activities were also discovered.
Letterboxing (www.letterboxing.org) is a phenomenon similar to geocaching in
that a player takes directions from a web site and uses those directions to
find a hidden object. In letterboxing, the directions come in the form of a
riddle and the hidden object is a stamp which the finder can use to stamp a
piece of paper to prove that he has visited the site. The web site showed
the location of at least two letterboxes in parks. The parks have been
notified, but the Service has not yet contacted the webmaster or game
managers. The Degree Confluence Project (www.confluence.org) is another
web-based activity where people try to visit various latitude and longitude
integer degree intersections and report their findings on the web site. In
this case, however, no objects are placed in the ground, and there are no
apparent regulatory violations in areas where cross-country travel is
allowed or where the confluence is not on a protected site. There has been
no attempt to contact the project organizers.



Additional comments referring to sections of the Code of Federal
Regulations: The depositing of the cache, be it a bucket or other type of
container, could be in violation of a few regulations like digging up plants
if it was being buried. Additionally, it is against regulations to leave
property unattended for more than 24 hours without it being subject to
impoundment. If people are "hunting" for something, it could certainly take
more than 24 hours to find. Lastly, some areas are closed to off-trail
hiking which could prohibit someone from going off trail to place or
retrieve a cache.

------------------------------

From:
Subject: NPS cache removal

Jeremy, et al,

Unsure if you've seen this cache log post, but it appears the NPS rangers
are monitoring the site for caches placed within their jurisdictions and
removing them when found. To their credit, they are at least notifying the
cache owners and site admins (Jeremy) so that appropriate action can be
taken to remove the listing and retrieve the cache to be replaced somewhere
more appropriate.

Matt O.

March 15 by joda ranger
Glider's March 17th comments are correct. It is not legal to leave
geocaches inside units of the National Park System. As such, the Fossil
Beds Cache was located and removed by park staff on 03/15/01. So don't go
look for it as you'd be wasting your time. But please do come to the park
and enjoy it as Congress intended. Greg (Chilcog), please call 541-987-2333
and ask for the Chief Ranger's office to arrange to come out and pick up
your cache materials. No citations at this point, just a friendly warning
with a short explanation. Geocaching webmaster, please remove the Fossil
Beds Cache from your website as it no longer exists. Thanks, JODA Ranger

------------------------------

I checked the source for the posts I forwarded, and the report does come
from the NPS.

>Subject: NPS Morning Report - Wednesday, March 21, 2001
>http://www.nps.gov/morningreport/msg00806.html

Hmm, I wonder.... is Dartmoor gov't controlled over in the UK as well? It
kinda sounds like it since it has been closed due to hoof-in-mouth. Maybe
our already fund-starved NPS could follow their example.

Eric in ready-to-lobby Connecticut

-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Hall
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, March 22, 2001 6:37 PM
Subject: [LbNA] Letterboxing in national parks


>
>Apparently the National Park Service is discussing with
>the geocaching community the possibility (likelyhood) that
>geocaching is illegal in national parks. The reasons for the
>NPS's position probably also make letterboxing illegal in
>national parks.
>
>So, make sure your letterboxes comply with all local rules
>laws, customs, respect the environment, etc. If you have any
>doubts, check with the landowners or managers. The webmasters do
>not vet clues for suitability; it is not possible to do so.
>
>BTW, this is all hearsay. No one from the NPS has personally
>contacted me about this (or the webmaster comment addy AFAIK),
>and possibly never will. I have removed my boxes from Valley
>Forge NHP, however, and I encourage you, if you have placed a
>box in a national park (or anywhere else questionable), to
>consider doing so yourself or asking the NPS or park about it.
>
>I am considering making my Valley Forge boxes virtual -- solve the
>clues -- e-mail me their location (either marked on a map, gps, or
>photos) -- and if you are right, I'll send you the scan of the stamp
>image. I sure hope its not illegal to walk to these locations :-)
>
>Cheers
>Randy
>
>
>To unsubscribe: mailto:letterbox-usa-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>List info, archives, etc: http://www.letterboxing.org/list.html
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>


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At 01:29 PM 3/23/01 -0500, Eric wrote:
>Hmm, I wonder.... is Dartmoor gov't controlled over in the UK as well? It
>kinda sounds like it since it has been closed due to hoof-in-mouth. Maybe
>our already fund-starved NPS could follow their example.
>
>Eric in ready-to-lobby Connecticut

I'm going to stretch a little beyond what I'm sure is truth here, so maybe someone listening in in the UK can help. My impression is that the concept of a National Park in the UK is not the same as in the US. I think I read somewhere, for example, that grazing is allowed on Dartmoor. You would never find cattle or sheep grazing (legally) in the US National Parks, unless as part of an interpretive demonstration at one of the smaller, less-wild parks. Of course you do often find packstock (horses, mules, llamas) grazing, but not roaming at will.

One of the most fundamental concepts of National Parks in the US is that they be kept as natural as possible. EVERYthing is protected in US National Parks. If you run off with a pine cone or a pebble as a souvenir, you're breaking the law. I think there's an exception for berries, and maybe edible mushrooms. Otherwise, visitors are supposed to leave the park as undisturbed as possible.

Because UK National Parks are (if I'm right about this) much less stringently protected, it's not inconsistent or anomalous that letterboxing would be accepted there but prohibited here in the US.

Mark in Montana

on 3/23/01 10:54 AM, Mark Sheehan at sheehan@alumni.indiana.edu wrote:


> One of the most fundamental concepts of National Parks in the US is that they
> be kept as natural as possible. EVERYthing is protected in US National Parks.
> If you run off with a pine cone or a pebble as a souvenir, you're breaking the
> law. I think there's an exception for berries, and maybe edible mushrooms.
> Otherwise, visitors are supposed to leave the park as undisturbed as possible.

I think we can all agree that as conscientious letterboxers we adhere to the
"spirit" of this concept. Beyond protecting the land, the other half of the
National Park Service mission is "to provide for the enjoyment of the same
in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations." I'm straining hard to understand how
letterboxing strays very far from falling within the goals of the NPS.
The overall impact of even a few HUNDRED rubbermaid sandwich keepers
carefully hidden over the 80.7 million acres of NPS controlled land is at
best negligible.

We could entertain an interesting debate on the merits of allowing souvenir
villages on National Park property, yet disallowing a harmless activity like
letterboxing.

Off soapbox... back to work,

TC

The government "closed" Dartmoor to pedestrians, but effectively they
instituted a quarantine over an area possibly infected with a very
serious communicable disease. Governments can do that to public,
private or any other property if in the "best interests" of the
people. Of course farmers are very concerned over losing their
livelihood and consumers concerned over the impact rampant disease
may have on the availability and cost of meat products.

That just can't be compared to littering (which is what NPS thinks
we're doing).

~ Aili
who'll be singing "Alice's Restaurant" in the CT woods this weekend

--- In letterbox-usa@y..., "Eric J. Eurto" wrote:
> Hmm, I wonder.... is Dartmoor gov't controlled over in the UK as
well? It
> kinda sounds like it since it has been closed due to hoof-in-mouth.
Maybe
> our already fund-starved NPS could follow their example.
>
> Eric in ready-to-lobby Connecticut

This is a potential problem which has been discussed way back in the
very first days of letterboxing in the US. The end result was (by
lack of doing anything else) that people hid boxes and waited to see
if it was going to be a problem. It took a long time, but it appears
the problem has come to roost. I don't know what the answer is. I
expect that it will only become a bigger issue.

Unless the NPS is persuaded that there is a better good in
letterboxing, I expect that other government lands will eventually
follow (e.g. state parks). I can't see that private lands will be an
option in most cases. Either letterboxing will have to adapt in some
way that I cannot currently imagine being popular (such as the
virtual box Randy mentioned) or it will have to go underground and
accept the illegitimacy of it's existence.

I am not optimistic we could change the government view on this
subject but I suppose it is worth a try. Anybody out there contribute
a lot on money to George W. and have some favors to call in? ;-)
--
Regards,

Eric Mings Ph.D.

Dr. Mings writes:

> Unless the NPS is persuaded that there is a better good in
> letterboxing, I expect that other government lands will eventually
> follow (e.g. state parks). I can't see that private lands will be an
> option in most cases.

Just a reminder that I was successful last year in getting permission from
the US Forest Service to place letterboxes on National Forest land. I say
that not as self-congratulation, but to give credit to an enlightened local
Forest Supervisor, and to encourage others to try asking, explaining, and
being patient with bureaucracy!

-Mark

>Just a reminder that I was successful last year in getting permission from
>the US Forest Service to place letterboxes on National Forest land. I say
>that not as self-congratulation, but to give credit to an enlightened local
>Forest Supervisor, and to encourage others to try asking, explaining, and
>being patient with bureaucracy!

Mark,

That is good news. I suppose that they are less strict with land
where they allow much more destructive practices such as logging and
hunting. I wonder if ultimately the issue will be decided on local
forest supervisor basis or there will be some higher level decision.
I fear the latter. Down here in Florida the Ocala National Forest is
very large and presents some good opportunity for letterboxing. Next
time I am up there I will attempt to find out who would be the
appropriate person to contact about the issue.

--
Regards,

Eric Mings Ph.D.

I'm saddened that the National Park Service will not allow letterboxing.
I guess if you give people an inch, they'll take a mile, and maybe that
is what the park service is worried about.

Maybe someone ought to do some PR work and talk to someone who works on
policy for the NPS and see if we can get this ruling changed. (It
sounds like they may contact one of the webmasters). Geocaching seems
like a more major thing and letterboxing is less intrusive, as far as I
can tell. Still, you aren't leaving without a trace and that must be
what their beef is. Also, they may think we're burying things or
destroying habitat or something to place these, which we aren't doing.
Perhaps we need to set them straight.

Best regards,

Amanda Briles
aka The Paisley Orca

At 08:08 AM 3/24/01 -0800, Amanda wrote:

>Also, they may think we're burying things or
>destroying habitat or something to place these,
>which we aren't doing.

The Gallatin National Forest folks I worked with were easily reassured that I wasn't going to bury anything. It had in fact been a major concern of theirs in reviewing my request.

At least as significant a worry for them, though, was that the boxes would be placed in such a way that seekers would cut unwanted new trails through fragile soils and/or vegetation. For that reason all the boxes I planted are accessible without departing from the trail, or, if a departure is required, the path is over bare rock. That was acceptable to the USFS people.

Out west here, at least -- and I think this is true for the Smokies and Mammoth Cave -- the National Parks are ringed by National Forest land. If letterboxing is excluded from the Parks, and if we maintain good relations with the Forest Service, letterboxers should be able to take advantage of the popularity and amenities of the Parks by placing boxes on the nearby National Forest properties. The secondary benefit of this is introducing people to the much-less-crowded, but often equally beautiful lands peripheral to the Parks. For example, I had a great hike to gorgeous little Grizzly Lake last summer in the Shoshone National Forest just up the road from Grand Teton National Park's crowded Gros Ventre campground. (No letterbox there -- yet!)

-Montana Mark