MnGCA

chokecherry · Geocacher Joined: 24 Mar 2011 Posts: 8

Anyone know if the OHV Park state park cache is in the OHV park or near the entrance? Typically speaking one needs to enter the park in/on an OHV and it's not the kind of place you can safely hike around if they allow hiking at all. Lots of people worked hard to get that OHV park to come to fruition and honestly I'd hate to see it screwed up or people injured if the cache wasn't placed in an ok area to be hiking (which from the first log on it seems to be the case).

jicknarson · Geocacher Joined: 26 Dec 2008 Posts: 24

To add to the list, final at McCarthy Beach was a good 40 ft off.

On the positive side, I was happy to find that both Bear Head Lake and McCarthy Beach involved a fair amount of walking, unlike the Wildlife Safari hides. Bear Head Lake was nicely done, with good coords and an actual hiding place for the final. Laughing

Re: the OHV hide. I have my reservations also. Not sure how this will work. I plan on checking it out sometime this week. Hope I don't have to buy a Jeep to fit in!

dornole · Geocacher Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 353

Am I the only one who thinks 40 feet off is in no way unusual for a hide on any given day? Maybe I'm just used to the bad old pre WAAS days?

Red_Devil35 · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:02 am Post subject:

CharleneMae · Geocacher Joined: 23 Apr 2009 Posts: 44

essap · Geocacher Joined: 08 Feb 2011 Posts: 8

The Upper Sioux Agency was off by 65 feet on a gravel parking area. Not in the woods, at all. These were laminated coordinates on a sign.

northtrekker · Geocacher Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posts: 115

Geesh it seems like a lot of these placements were done sloppily. That's too bad. When I found the final at Hill Annex, I knew the coords were way off. It took me quite awhile to find it before I just turned off the gps and started to look on the other side of the bike trail. Obviously, whoever is placing many of these caches doesn't know what a "good hide" would be, and doesn't take accurate coords. It's one thing to make the hide an "easy" one. I can see doing that to promote family fun, to let the little ones find it first, but geesh, pretty tough for that to happen if the coords are non existent or way off. It's discouraging. I'd like to see a list of the caches that seem to be in order with accurate coords and a good placement! Very Happy

15Tango · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:50 am Post subject:

4nhand · Geocacher Joined: 28 Oct 2009 Posts: 19

I visited Upper Sioux, Camden and Fort Ridgely last weekend.

Upper Sioux - we got there mid afternoon and the first stage still went to the hollow tree. I expanded the search and found the bottle with coords from the Wildlife Safari still in play. I told the rangers and they supposedly removed that bottle, as well as added a note to the tree directing people back to the entrance where the first stage was.

Camden - overall it was well done. Not too much hiking and all stages were at the coords. Stage 3 was under a rock and 2 little kids couldn't get to the container. I replaced the rock so you don't need to move it to get the container, but who knows. Doesn't seem quite the best design. A couple stages are in very high muggle areas. Muggles told us where to find stage 2.

Fort Ridgely - coords seemed okay, but stage 2 probably wont last very long before it is damaged or stolen. Too obvious for a seasoned cacher and too intriguing for a nosy muggle. And somewhat breakable.

I've heard stories from others, including how most of the SW parks are all park and grabs because some ranger was concerned about the impact on the environment. Hopefully the DNR will get things figured out and get updated coordinates posted soon.

4nhand · Geocacher Joined: 28 Oct 2009 Posts: 19

Gat R Done · Minnesota Reviewer Joined: 29 Dec 2011 Posts: 20

I have been keeping an eye on this posting and have a few comments:

Overall, the new State Park Avian Adventure has started off quite well. There are a few glitch's and it's good that people care enough to mention those here.

This was a big project and many people across the state with varying knowledge of geocaching were involved. Due to the number of people involved, mistakes could have been make. Hopefully everyone in the MnGCA is willing to help out in getting any errors corrected so the new cachers who are introduced to the activity do not get frustrated.

If you are personally aware of anything that needs correcting, please email me complete details and I will forward your message to the person who can make the updates or they will contact park staff to make corrections on-site. Send your information directly to me at gatrdoneMN at gmail dot com. Please include specific information like actual coordinates, stage numbers, etc. Just saying a stage is 40 feet off is certainly helpful, but not actionable. Also, please do not include secondhand information you have read in logs. I think it's best if the information we forward comes directly from someone who has been to that particular location. There are a couple issues recently discussed that I have already begun working on. Greenleaf for one, is currently being addressed.

The volume of email to the MN State Park is most likely very large and they may miss important information via that route.

I know there have been some comments about locations used. That was a decision by the DNR to reduce the impact to the area due to the high traffic these geocaches typically generate.

Again, Thank You for all your support. Seeing postings here tells me that you care about geocaching and the success of the State Park Avian Program.

Gat R Done

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

MNMizzou · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:35 pm Post subject:

I'm guessing by the photos I've seen the Jay Cooke cache may be off a little bit, like say, maybe Green Bay by now! Do not envy folks up north right now!

loneeagle_24 · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 6:55 pm Post subject:

I'm not sure if there is something that can be done or not on this, but I was uo to Itasca on July 5th. The previous night they had a storm go through with straight line winds. After going to the headwaters to get the coordinates to start the Lasalle search no one mentioned that the rec area was closed, so I made the drive up there only to find that it was closed due to the storm. It would have been nice if the staff would have mentionde that it was closed. Anyway I go back to Itasca to see if I could get a card for the rec area (they have done this type of thing in the past when there has been storm damage), anyway all I get get told is that the rec area is closed and I would have to come back later. I am a long way from home and am not happy about having to go get this card at another time, being I have to get this one before being able to get the regional biome card.

This is about the only thing that agravates me with the whole avian challenge. Thats a lot of driving to grab these cards and then the staff won't help out when an issue like this comes up!!!!
_________________
King of the Jeff Gordon TB's!
They put that cache WHERE?