Great Lakes Seaway Trail GeoTrail Among Success Stories at Nov. 5 Geocaching Conf.

Emporium, PA — Although only three months old, the Great Lakes Seaway Trail has already become a huge hit with the geocaching community. The 75-cache GPS travel adventure extends the 518 miles of the byway that is one of America’s Byways and a National Recreation Trail.

On Friday, November 5, tourism and business leaders attending the Cashing in on Geocaching Conference in Emporium, PA, will hear how the new Great Lakes Seaway Trail GeoTrail developed into a hot new reason to travel along the freshwater shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie in New York and Pennsylvania.

The conference focused on how to utilize the sport of geocaching to increase travel-related business opportunities is organized and presented by the Pennsylvania Wilds Planning Team, which includes Penn Soil Resource Conservation and Development Council Project Coordinator Wes Ramsey. Ramsey said, “We are pleased to showcase the Great Lakes Seaway Trail in our panel on successful GeoTrail projects and positive experiences for utilizing geocaching to promote tourism and travel-related business opportunities.”

Great Lakes Seaway Trail Director of Business Relations Kurt Schumacher will join Betty Squire, Vice President of Marketing for the Allegheny GeoTrail in Northwestern and North-Central Pennsylvania; and Lyn Pilch of the West Bend Cache Ba$h Weekend in West Bend, Wisconsin (45 mins. north of Milwaukee) for a panel presentation at 1pm.

Schumacher, a business/marketing graduate of Grove City College in Grove City, PA, says “We were attracted to the Allegheny GeoTrail as a model for developing the Great Lakes Seaway Trail GeoTrail because both trails cover a fair bit of geography. The Allegheny Trail covers 10 counties in a cluster; while the Great Lakes Seaway Trail GeoTrail with its 11 shoreline counties may be the longest linear such trail in the Northeastern U.S.”

Schumacher, a native of Webster, NY, a community on the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, says there is a natural opportunity to share geocachers based on the proximity of the two Trails. Pennsylvania’s Crawford and Warren counties abut Erie County, PA, which is part of the Great Lakes Seaway Trail 11-county region. Warren County will host the 9th GeoWoodstock event July 2, 2011.

Schumacher manages the Rochester, NY, satellite office of the not-for-profit Seaway Trail, Inc. organization that is headquartered in Sackets Harbor, NY. Learn more online at www.seawaytrail.com.

For details on the one-day conference see the website at www.lumberheritage.org or contact Val Shelley, Lumber Heritage Region Office, 814-486-0215, vshelley@lumberheritage.org.