The Lancaster County Conservancy Geocaching Policy

Approved by the Board Of Directors December 4th, 2001.

The Lancaster County Conservancy does not permit the general public to hide geocaches on lands it protects.

Rationale.
The mission of The Lancaster County Conservancy (LCC) is to preserve and protect, in perpetuity, natural land and open space in Lancaster County, PA. In so doing since 1969 LCC has acquired approximately 3,000 acres. Most of this land is open to the public from dawn to dusk, year-round and free of charge. Typically The Conservancy allows passive recreational uses of its lands, such as hiking and nature study. Geocaching has now added a new passive use. Just as we do not allow anyone who wants to blaze a new hiking trail to do so, we can not permit members of the public to hide geocaches on its Nature Preserves.

In order to protect the Nature Preserves, we need to have control over the placement and rotation of geocaches to prevent them from being placed in dangerous locations or environmentally sensitive and fragile areas. Many of the Nature Preserves contain fragile areas that are hard to identify without a thorough knowledge of the site; for example, ground nesting bird sites may not be recognizable to non-birders during certain times of the year.

Further, if the general public is permitted to hide caches on the Nature Preserves, caches would be placed indiscriminately. Too many caches could be placed on one Preserve and caches that are left in one location too long will create unwanted side trails. Those unwanted side trails will remain long after the cache has been moved.

So please, respect the Nature Preserves and DO NOT hide geocaches on them.