MnGCA

EskoClimber · Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:30 pm Post subject:

Nope. No "near impossibe" puzzles. Nice try. Ain't happening. Thanks for thinking evil, though. I does make a nice thought.

andrewmcc · Past MnGCA Board Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 979

I was by "my" park last weekend and stopped in to say Hi and introduce myself. They are excited about the project and are really glad for the "expertise". The park naturalist will be the goto person at this park. They kind of have an idea of the area they want there cache in.
They are planning on featuring a part of the park with ruins on a old township and may put the cache there.
It really was just a quick meet and greet and we will talk in a few months. This should be fun!
_________________
Dinnae fash yersel (don't worry yourself)

lizs · Geocacher Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 63 Location: SE MN

I ran into my park manager at a meeting Thursday night. He said the state had had a meeting this past week and parks are getting more details. So yesterday I called up and interviewed him on it for a "tease" news story this coming week (and Esko, I may e-mail you to get a couple quotes; be looking for that).

Sounds like the demonstration parks and featured parks for a region have been set. Wondering if it might be good to let the geocachers know that info (if the board has been notified of it), so they know which caches will require a bit more work?

(Hey Archer, neither your park nor mine is a demonstration park or the "final" park for southern MN. Staff at Forestville is too involved with the new horse pass program to take on anything new... and at Whitewater, it's obvious... the rebuilding after the flood.)

I was reading through stuff on here... was it ever decided that geocachers do need to help more at the demo parks?

Whether or not a person is hooked up with a demo park (which shound have GPS units available for public use), the geocache owners for a park might somehow want to help their park with a program to kick this thing off... and/or at other times. My manager stressed he would welcome that kind of involvement. As he said, talking about the sport, types of caches a person could find, neat things found through geocaching, neat travel bugs, etc. So that's an idea that could be kicked around, whether you, as the MnGCA, want to think of a set outline on here as a basis for such a program, or let a geocacher kick around the idea with his or her park people, to see if they would want that.

My manager ran down four or five ideas they had in mind for spots for caches. Some are definitely off the beaten path, so that's cool. Although that leads to a question: I take it these caches can be moved to another location if there starts to be a path beaten down to them? One of the possible locations he mentioned involved wading across the river (yes, the river and not just the creek we waded across to the earthcache, LOL) and up a somewhat steep hillside, all offtrail. So, if that started to get worn down, could the cache be moved to another of their location suggestions? Or a location that's nearby, although once a trail starts to form, people would use it, me thinks... Or do we need to just be very careful with placement from the start?

Thanks again for setting this all up, Esko. I think us geocachers are excited. The park staff is excited! Good all around. Very Happy

msrubble · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:55 pm Post subject:

I take it we don't have to go through the normal permit process because the parks are already involved in planning these caches?

What happens in the state parks where a MnGCA member hasn't volunteered?

EskoClimber · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:35 am Post subject:

The normal permit process is still in place for these history caches.

The reason is that some of the parks have new managers and may not have all the sensitive areas memorized.

speedysk1 · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject:

Pear Head · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:25 pm Post subject:

speedysk1 · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject:

geomatrix · Geocacher Joined: 29 Jun 2006 Posts: 19

EskoClimber · Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:12 pm Post subject:

The final coordinates for the challenges will also be available at the front desk of the State Park where the fake coordinates are posted.

Please note that the park office is open during specific ours. Typically 8am to 9pm.

herrwald · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:50 pm Post subject:

bflentje · Geocacher Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3652

KBayNPapaBear and I have met with both of my park managers so far. I'll tell you what, both were very nice people and very excited to be participating in this program. Although, I am somewhat disappointed in the lack of involvement we're going to be allowed.

- DNR will own the caches
- DNR will list the caches
- DNR will name the caches
- DNR will maintain the caches
- Our park managers already had spots picked out that they wanted us to check out

There was nothing left for us to do with the exception of taking a couple of averages and burn fuel. Don't get me wrong... I want to be a part of this. But it seems as if there is no room.

Now, one thing KBayNPapaBear and I discussed while doing our visits this weekend is, it seems to make a LOT of sense to be the responsible cacher to get OTHER caches permitted and placed into these parks so there is MORE than just ONE cache. That's the approach we're going to take to make up for the lack of particpation in the state program.

We have copies of permits and some perspective hidey holes... now if we can just get them approved without interfering with the other events happening.

herrwald · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 5:26 pm Post subject:

bflentje · Geocacher Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3652

Red_Devil35 · Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:20 pm Post subject: