I would also like to add that I too have had success getting three new cache locations approved via the Ouachita NFS. We talked it out several times before she finally understood enough of what I was talking about. I have two that she is a little iffy about mainly because one is very close to a river, and the other is close to a drainage basin. I think she told me she does not get out and scope the sites out, instead she relies on topos of the area. One of the roads my caches was on was very close to a creek or drainage basin, and I had to assure her I was on the main path and within walking distance from the highway and should not hurt the basin area at all.

I used some of the traffic the Ozark caches see in a typical year and told her that caches in the NFS usually have a high traffic rate (usually less than 20) the first month and after that there is usually a trickle every month. I also told her that the find rates usually go with the season as once ticks,snakes, bugs, and heat are out in full force, geocaching will usually slack off in the forest areas. I think she really expected a lot more traffic for these areas, and I told her that we have had one cache in place about 100 feet off a FS road and 30 feet from Richland Creek and have only had about 30 people total find it in about 3 years. I think it will take some time to see how this plays out, but for now she is willing to see how it works.

My three caches are going to be ammo cans on highway 27/28 mainly between Mount Ida and Plainview. One has a dump as you go in so I am urging everyone to bring a good trashbag with them and help pick up. I would love to see pictures of everyones trash (even if its just what they can carry in there hands) so we can use it as a positive spin on geocaching. I will let you all know when the three caches go live. I was hoping to get them put up last month but it took over a month for her to check them out and approve them. So now you'll all have to find them with critters out and about

Ms. Vaughn (rvaughn@fs.fed.us) or call 501-984-5313 and just ask for her.