Here is a LINK to a list of phone numbers for the ranger districts in the Ouachita national forest.
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Here is a LINK to a list of phone numbers for the ranger districts in the Ouachita national forest.
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Congrats on the accomplishment. I need to get in touch with my local office and get the process started.
It just so happens, that I was coming from my local USFS office, when I ran into Dentful1 at one of my caches. I talked to the lady who will be in charge of this for my district, and she was pretty skeptical. So I'll just say that I am sure glad that OEN got this one approved. Did it take long? Did you permit all of your "illegal" caches? That is what I am supposed to be doing first. I am looking forward to getting this process standardized, and in place.
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I talked to someone at the HQ in Hot Springs today and this is a brief summary of what I was told.
The (ONF) will not be issuing permits like the Ozark NF, but they will be giving letters for permission on the placement of caches. They are not wanting to allow long term caches to be place in the forest (Over a year).
Any caches to be placed in the eastern part of the ONF will most likely have to be approved from the Jessieville office, that includes Perryville and Danville. I am unsure of how far west and south they will go.
This is all tentative information and the person I need to talk to is out of the office for the rest of the week. I will leave a voicemail this week and see if I get a reply. If not I will be making a trip to Jessieville for a in personal visit ( I have some vacation time I need to use).
I have a place I would like to put a cache as a test run for the policy. The only thing that I know is that we will have to keep on trying to do this until they figure out that we are not going away anytime soon.
If anyone wants to stop by Jessieville and discuss it with them I would like to encourage it. I will be posting more info when I have it.
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O.K., that is what I did on Friday. I spoke to Robin Vaughn, and the first thing she said when I asked about these, was do you want to tell me about an illegal cache already in place, or do you want to place a new one? I said maybe a little of both. :wink: She laughed and told me to follow her to her office. She told me that Elaine Sharp (I think) was the one in HS that would be approving these, and that she (Robin) is just a middle man. She told me several times that she was surprised that Elaine had relented on this. She said that Elaine had been after her to go after these things and get them, but that she (Robin) didn't have time to do that. She also told me that they had found one up by the towers on Blue Oauchita Mountain, and wondered if it were mine. I said maybe. :wink: Apparently they left it there, though it will have to be moved due to trail reconfiguration.Quote:
If anyone wants to stop by Jessieville and discuss it with them I would like to encourage it. I will be posting more info when I have it.
I got the forms, and told her that I will get them back to her to get my existing ones "legal", and that I had several that I wanted to place. She said that I was the first, and that I would be her guinea pig. So, while she is out this week, I will get these done and keep everyone posted.
I didn't leave there feeling as good as I had hoped to after this meeting, due to her skeptisism. In fact, I left with a real bad feeling, that this isn't as over as we had previously thought.
I drive right by the Jessieville office every day at least twice, but usualy before or after they are there. Due to my proximity to the office, I will be happy to take the point here in future discussions with them. I feel like I have started a good relationship with this person.