Raskol and I left the GGA Meeting on 5/3/03 and headed over to Aragon to hunt the Portland Caves cache. We missed the suggested parking spot and ended up at the end of the raod in someone's driveway. He motioned us to come over and he asked us what we were doing, as apparently some other folks had ended up on his property that day.
We told him about the cache, and he said that he knew about it and had found it and reminded us that the cache was on private property, and the person that owns the mountain the caves are in was getting peeved and would prosecute anyone he caught on the mountain. Not wanting to spend the night in local jail or get shot, we opted out on looking for the cache. I emailed the owner to ask him about permissions. Now looking back over the logs for the cache, it appears that sometimes there is a veritable swarm of hikers, cachers, hunters, mountain climbers, etc. out there at any given time. Those of you that have done the cache, did you get the feeling that you were trespassing while you were out there? We were bummed about driving 70+ miles out there from Gwinnett to be turned away

When we were there we saw no indications that we shouldn't be there. If the owner is actually getting peeved, I would hope that he would invest in a few "No Trespassing" signs, instead of relying on either being there or one of his neighbors telling people he is peeved.

Note I suspect the actual cache is on railroad property, but I don't know. However if it is, it isn't hurting anything.

When I did the Portland Caves, I was a little uneasy parking where I did along side the road. I drove up and down the road several times trying to figure out the best place to park. There was a local that seemed to be keeping an eye on me as I got out and started hiking down the tracks, but no one approached me. I didn't see any No Trespassing signs near the cache. However, I do recall seeing some signs near the houses I passed while hiking the tracks. It would be a real shame if this cache had to be archived. I hope it doesn't come to that.

I followed the cache owner's directions and walked down the tracks. Ran into a couple local resident kids on four wheelers buzzing along the roadbed. The cache is too far away from the railroad to be on railroad right-of-way, but the property next to it could be theirs. The geocaching guidelines say don't put a cache on an active railroad right-of-way, so I wonder about one that says to walk down the track to the cache that is not on a right-of-way....

The cache is not hidden so well that casual visitors won't find it. And based on how beaten down the area is and the roads in and out that 4-wheelers seem to keep alive, there are many visitors and anyone could take the cache. Shame. The Caves are a "must see." Even without a cache.

Good question about who owns the property and about permission. With or without permission, anyone could take the cache. Hoboes?

My understanding is that in Georgia, you are trespassing if on private land without permission of the landowner, even if not posted.
I know this makes it hard for hunters, fisherman, and geocachers, but unless someone else lets me know otherwise, that is what I follow.

The way I see it, landowners are not helping by not posting their property even if the law protects them....but on the other hand, people who don't research where they are going and just track onto any property are asking for trouble too.

I will say that geocaching does make me nervous sometimes about whether people have gotten permission for caches that are not in parks and such.

I have come to the conclusion that if I am unsure, then move on to the next...there are alot more to be found.

I have had a few past experiences such as tracking a shot deer onto an adjacent landowners property and fishing a river that moved in and out of parks areas. For the deer one, I decided after getting about what I believed was about 100 yards into the adjacent property, that I would work around to the house and notify the owner. He understood and even walked around helping find the deer. Luckily it had not suffered as it ran about 100 yards more and died right away.
The fishing experience was not as pleasant.
It was not the owner, but a tenant who said he had permission to prosecute. I apologized as I had entered the stream from an area that I had not seen posting, but he was already pissed (maybe I wasn't the first that day?).
I let him say his peace and was about to leave when he was in the process of deciding he wanted to call the police. I just said I was truly sorry, I had apologized nicely, and promised to not come back, I turned up the stream and walked off as he kept talking to himself and raising his voice louder as he saw me leaving.
After that incident, I did a little research and learned that even the water through private property (even if it passes through parks to private and back to parks) is the property of the owner. So wading the stream or in a canoe/kayak is still trespassing. Who knew?

Either way, I learned to really get permission or get in trouble.

Kenneth

--- He's so skinny, he has to run around in the shower to get wet.

I Trezpass all the time
Sorry just could not help myself