By Wes Skinner (NorthWes)
This is an update on compliance with terms of the 2026 Geocaching Permit issued by Alaska State Parks.
- August 31, 2026 was the target date established by GeocacheAlaska! Inc. for geocachers to work towards in bringing their cache placements within Alaska State Parks into compliance with terms of the new 2026 permit requirements. Here are notes on progress in meeting compliance goals:
As of August 21, we’ve reached approximately 40% compliant status across all state parks. We’re expecting a dramatic increase in this compliance rate after the August 30th event set in Eklutna valley, with the purpose of removing geocaches associated with the HELP power trail along Eklutna Lake. Please continue your efforts to get ‘owner maintenance’ logs completed on geocaches you own (or where you’ve agreed to act as a proxy for owners who are unable to reach the geocache themselves). See point #2 below for preferred best language to use in logging your owner maintenance visit. Note that compliance with this requirement is being monitored by GeocacheAlaska! Inc.’sAdvocacy Committee using the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) application. After August 31, caches without owner maintenance logs may be disabled by Greatland Reviewer, generally giving one more month to attain compliance with permit conditions. If you receive a “Temporary Disable” note from the local reviewer on your geocache, read the log and the prior reviewer note carefully to see how you can bring your cache into compliance. - Recommended owner maintenance log templates (both physical and online):
Tip: add a photo of the cache logsheet to the online owner maintenance log showing this language to help with confirming compliance! If you act as a proxy, make sure you obtain cache owner agreement ahead of time.- 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.”
- Alaska State Parks states it is unable to supply GeocacheAlaska! Inc. with shape files for the more than one hundred state park campgrounds where geocaches are not allowed.
Alaska State Parks replied to our request for state park campground shape files with this statement: “We believe the location of a developed/designated campground should generally be readily identifiable to someone placing or maintaining a cache. A cache owner should not need a GIS layer to determine whether they are placing a cache within an established campground—for example, an area with designated campsites, campground facilities, access roads, signage, etc.” Thus, individual geocachers are responsible for ensuring their geocache placements meet the terms of this statement, and we further recommend that geocachers keep their caches at least 0.1 mile outside of the areas described by Alaska State Parks as ‘readily identifiable’ as an established campground. As always, individual geocachers are responsible for meeting the conditions of use set by land managers. - GeocacheAlaska! Inc. will not be reporting virtual caches or earthcaches as part of the 500-cache limit count to Alaska State Parks. The type of ‘noncompliant use’ of state park lands allowed by permit involves physical geocache containers owned by private individuals which are left on public lands. The no-container aspect of both virtual caches and earthcaches removes them from the count.
- Additional known land use policies for Alaska may be found at the following links: Wiki: https://gcwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/GEO/pages/526814/Alaska. The link may also be found at the bottom of https://gcak.org/advocacy/