Leopold Legacy: June Traditional Geocache
shanty: In 2004 my son Aaron (shanty) and I deployed the Leopold Legacy series. Aaron was active in Scouting and this was one of three projects that he completed for the Hornaday award with the BSA. Shanty, i.e. a little shack, was a parody on the famous Leopold retreat on the Wisconsin River.
The project was designed to combine the sport of geocaching and environmental education. Since the series was deployed, we have distributed about 1000 packets of the threatened pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallidia) seed with propagating instructions and about 1000 dreamcatchers. There were over 4,500 visits to the series in its 15-year run. Many people were drawn to the Dane County parks because of the caches and discovered what a valuable resource they are to our community.
Aaron now lives away with his own home and career. Dad has developed health issues from his exposure to agent orange in Viet Nam. It’s time to wrap this project up and move on to new ventures.
Thank you all for the wonderful comments and photos over the years. It has been our pleasure.
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(regular)
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This cache is a part of the “Leopold Legacy” set. The Leopold Legacy set is a series of twelve caches all placed in Dane County Parks. Each one of these caches has a quote representing one month of Aldo Leopold’s The Sand County Almanac. At each of the sites you will find something relating to the quote at or near the geocache. Aldo Leopold was a famous Ecologist from Wisconsin, and The Sand County Almanac is his most famous book. It is a collection of short stories related to each month of the year. I decided to make this series to bring geocachers to some of the Dane County parks, and to give them a sample of some of Aldo Leopold’s writing.
The cache has been authorized and the proper permit was issued by Dick Black, Dane County Parks on July 16, 2004. I would like to acknowledge Wayne Pauly, the naturalist at Dane County Parks, for his assistance in my project.
“But all conservation of wilderness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.”
One of the issues with conservation is that if you don’t allow the public to go to the reservations, they may not want to support it. How can people learn like Aldo Leopold learned, without ever being outside the city. The problem is that if you let people have public access to parks and sensetive areas, some individuals may damage property.
Parking is at coordinates N 43º 01.588’ W 089º 23.611’. This site is a small spring. It is on the edge of the Nine Springs E-Way. It is just across the street from an industrial park, but it is still something to see. It is just a short walk through the grass. When you reach the site you may notice that there is a little area that a homeless person made his home for a while. Walk 30 feet to the other side of the water.
The cache is a brown ammo box. Inside I have placed a few carabineers, some small dream-catchers made by me, and some small packets of seeds for pale purple coneflower, a threatened species in Wisconsin.
Additional Hints
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