Ouachita National Forest Caching

[oenavigator]

[jclaudii]

Does anyone have the number of geocaches in the Ouachita NFS? On top of that, does anyone have the number of people who has found each cache to get an idea of traffic?

[jclaudii]

I got my response back from Senator Pryor's office today. It was not just an automated response, as the note stated he is aware of the issue and is looking into it and to check back in a few weeks to see what progress has been made.

From my initial look in Google Earth with Cache view, it seems there are around 140-160 geocaches in and around the Ouachita NFS.

You know, if we get some of our facts completely straight and written down, it seems that one of the news stations like todaysthv channel 11 would do a news story on this topic. I think this would be something for our media liaisons for AGA to tackle. It would also be a great way for people to be aware of the petition and get their name on it.

[Gaddiel]

Petition form has been added to the "Forms" area of the Downloads section.

[AR-HICK]

Suggestion to all Cachers. Print off a few copies of the petition and take them to work. With a litte bit of encouragement you can get it filled up quickly.
I did it and you can too.

[AR-HICK]

Dear Mr. Beavers:



Thank you for contacting my office regarding geocaching in the Ouachita National Forest. I appreciate hearing from you.



The fee that is associated with the special use permit was established by the Ouachita National Forest. Should you have specific concerns regarding this matter, feel free to share your comments with the Ouachita National Forest at R8_ouachita_info@fs.fed.us or 501-321-5202.



I look forward to hearing from you in the future.





Sincerely

Vic Snyder
Member of Congress

I'm not impressed. I will be contacting someone in the near future.

[jclaudii]

Just got off a call from Zach, a Congressional Legislative Assistant, about the caching policies in the Ouachita NFS. He likes getting outside when he can and hits the George Washington NFS up in Virgina for hiking and such. He was not familiar with geocaching, but he has started doing research on it. He says he'll dig around some more for us and give the guys at the Ouachita NFS a call to see if they can explain why they are charging us a fee.

I also let him know that there have been several of us who have e-mailed the office of Boozman and even wrote letters in on the same subject. He says he'll try and put them all together and find time to read through them. I also informed him of our action of gathering signatures against the fee.

I have his number in DC, send me a PM for it if you would like to give him a call. I told him if he does not get what he is looking for from the Ouachita NFS to give me a call again and I will send him some of the policies we have found that they are referring too.

Slow moving, but at least my e-mail got read!

[oenavigator]

[flannelman]

I talked to the lady at Ouachita State Park about placing some caches there and we got on this subject. She said that she talked to some of the local ONF gus about this and pretty much told them how stupid this all is and they agreed with her but they say they have to follow the region policy. This is all due to some bureaucrat that has no clue what geocaching is. Hopefully we can get something done.

Hey Hick, that response from Synder doesn't supprise me. I don't have much use for him, never have.

[jclaudii]

Any progress?

I e-mailed channel 11 'Todays THV' about the Ouachita NFS fee for geocaching, but they have not picked up on it. Perhaps if more people e-mailed THV and we could get the media interested in it, it would at least put some more light on it.