Another guest post from The Realist, who writes:
I spent part of my Labor Day weekend watching YouTube videos after YouTube suggested some cache recovery videos to me. There are many videos on burying a cache, but precious few videos about recovering a cache. I am particularly interested in what caching techniques actually worked and which techniques didn't work.The purpose of a cache is to have important supplies being available when you need them later. Caches are not always buried, but most of the discussions I see about caching involve burying them. Besides the challenge of finding a previously buried cache, the contents of the cache must still be preserved in usable condition when the cache is opened.
Videos
In these videos, the caches were all buried in fairly shallow holes, not deeply buried as most of the caching discussions I have seen have suggested. (One video did not discuss where or how deeply it was buried.)
Youtuber Survival Theory has several videos about caching, including three cache recoveries. He mostly uses what looks like plastic one-gallon food jars - thin-walled and inherently fragile - as caching containers. In two cases, the caches are recovered and the contents are in fairly good condition. In the third case, the cache was disturbed by what he believes was a bulldozer clearing the land where his cache was buried - the three containers he buried were all slightly crushed and most of the contents compromised by water that subsequently entered the containers.
Apocalypse Cache 30 Months Old
Recovering a Lost Cache Buried Two Years Ago
Cache Crushed By Bulldozer
The YouTube channel The Survival Outpost shows the recovery of a cache he had buried ten months before. Again, the cache was buried fairly shallow. The contents were in good condition when recovered.
digging up my SURVIVAL Supply Cache from 2022 | Survival Kit
YouTuber Coyote Works has videos of a couple different cache recoveries. These were experimental caches that had been buried about a year. In both cases, the caches were buried in a fairly dry environment and fairly shallow, and the contents were in good condition, other than some short-shelf-life foods being a little rancid, when recovered.
Digging Up a Rifle Buried in a Bug Out SHTF Survival Cache Over a Year Ago
Digging up a Survival - Bug Out - SHTF Cache after 1 year - Coyote Works Desert Bugout Cache
YouTuber PilotPatriot recovers his cache after one year. He used a large pet food "Vittles Vault" with a Gamma Seal lid. The Gamma Vittles Vault is a fairly large capacity plastic container, and significantly cheaper than typical purpose-built cache containers. The contents of his cache remained in good condition.
Digging Up A Survival Cache After 1 YEAR!!
YouTube channel Hudson Valley Prepping and Survival shows the unpacking of a survival cache that had been in the ground for 15 to 20 years. Unfortunately, there is no information about the conditions under which it had been buried, and how difficult its recovery had been.
Observations and Comments
In the above videos, with the exception of the one cache where the containers were damaged, the contents recovered were in good condition. Three of the caches had firearms that remained in good condition, but had the cache containers been breached, there may have been a badly damaged firearm.
Many of the caches contained various snack foods, including candy bars, granola bars, and other items. Some of those shack foods had become rancid over the course of the year. One apparently soft granola bar had disintegrated, but the hard Nature Valley granola bars appeared to store well at least for the year.
I noticed that in most cases, when the cache included water, that water was in thin-walled PET plastic bottles. In my experience, those thin walled PET plastic water bottles will loose water over time via a process of diffusion (https://blog.stuffedcow.net/2018/04/hygroscopic-pet-bottles/). Since most of
the caches with water were buried for only a year, there had not been a sufficient amount of water diffused through the water bottle walls to cause problems.
Because of diffusion, if the bottled water is stored inside a sealed cache container, the water will diffuse into the atmosphere of the cache over time. If descants are present, they will absorb some of the water until they become saturated. So, if you are going to store water in a cache container with other items, either store water packaged in Mylar pouches or non-plastic containers. I would not store water in a glass bottle or metal container unless you are absolutely sure the cache will never freeze. Or, store the water in a separate cache container.
When burying a cache, OPSEC (Operations Security) is vitally important. You don't want to be observed while burying your cache. Avoiding observation includes not bringing your cell phone with you, and not driving to the cache site using a vehicle with a cellular modem (any vehicle that has built-in roadside assistance service features), since cellular geolocation data can be used to track your movements, and some of that data is retained by some cellular providers for up to five years (https://www.pcmag.com/news/heres-how-long-your-wireless-carrier-holds-on-to-your-location-data).
I hope you will find these videos as informative as I have.
My thanks to The Realist for another great post. I will add that from what I have seen from similar caching videos a few additional points:
- Make sure your cache is buried below the frost line, particularly if including canned or bottled food items. I saw several videos where cans were bulged or food items otherwise spoiled because the contents had frozen over a winter.
- One common difficulty was actually getting the cached container out of the ground. In several of the videos I've seen on the topic, the people seemed to think that if you exposed the top of the container and perhaps a bit of the sides, you could simply pull it up out of the ground; they had not planned on having to take the time and effort to dig free the walls of the containers from the soil. One way to remedy this is to use a double container system: bury a larger tube or box into which the cache container is inserted or placed. That way, you just need to expose the lid of the larger tube or box, open it, and then you should be able to pull out the container with the actual cached items. This can greatly speed the recovery time; particularly important because I would assume that if you need the cached items, you will probably be in a hurry. If you can't do a double container system, you are better off laying the box or container on its long side--it is easier to dig a hole that is larger in area but shallower than having to dig a deeper hole to free a container.
- Be very careful with mapping the location of your cache. Based on the difficulties I observed in various videos, I would avoid using trees as landmarks as trees grow and can change appearance, be burned, or cut or blown down. In any event, even a few feet of uncertainty can greatly increase the difficulty and speed of recovering a buried cache.
why not put one of those 'tag' thingys in the cache so one can trace it.
ReplyDeleteI received the draft of the article late yesterday so I haven't even yet had time to watch them, either, but The Realist always has good stuff.
ReplyDelete