by Wes Skinner (NorthWes)
As August ends, we geocachers are about to see the onset of fall. This means access to geocaches placed in the wild areas of parks and forests will begin to become more challenging, with snow easily possible at higher elevations by the end of September. Strong efforts by individual geocachers have produced positive results regarding our efforts to bring all geocaches placed on Alaska State Parks into compliance with the new 2026 permit allowing geocaching to occur on state park lands. As of August 21, 40% of all geocaches on all state park lands are deemed compliant with the permit. More than 300 geocaches have been archived, helping us reach towards the permit cap of 500 geocaches total in Alaska State Parks.
The update article contains language we’d like to see used in logging an owner inspection under terms of the permit. Photograph your physical log and include that in the online log! This language allows us to more easily verify owner maintenance efforts as we’re using GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) to track status of geocaches on state park lands. Note that we have included a format to document when an owner maintenance visit is performed by proxy (meaning someone whom the cache owner has given permission to for performing the owner maintenance visit). The proxy log helps us keep accountability for how maintenance actions are occurring. Here are those suggested log versions (as also seen in the update article):
- “Annual Owner Maintenance for Alaska State Parks permit number LAS-35694. Cache container inspected and log signed, as required.
- “Annual Owner Maintenance for Alaska State Parks permit number LAS-35694 performed by pre-arranged proxy with CacherX. Cache container inspected and log signed by CacherX on behalf of the Cache Owner.”
As president, I’m striving to keep a positive mental attitude as I work through my personal emotions generated while working through the issues related to complying with the new permit. There’s been a broad spectrum of negative feelings, and I’m sure you’ve experienced many of them as well. I want to thank our volunteer community reviewer (Greatland Reviewer – Mike Malvick) and our Advocacy Committee member Roy Pace for their suggestions, input, and many many hours of hard work in helping work out the details of implementing the new terms of this permit. Without their work and and feedback, the positive progress we’re tracking would not have been possible.
Again – winter is coming. Please strive to get out and perform cache maintenance visits (and log them online!) so that your geocaches keep their place in Alaska State Parks. And, if necessary, enlist the help of others to reach out and take care of geocaches you’re not able to access right now. We have a suggested proxy log for those visits, and there are quite a few local geocachers eager to help out in achieving successful cache maintenance visits. Don’t hesitate to archive geocaches as necessary, and keep a positive attitude as we strive to become compliant with the permit.