Spend any time in survivalism and you eventually get to the topic of caches. And, before I get too far down this particular rabbit hole, I just want to say that “cache” is pronounced “cash” as in “Johnny Cash”. If you pronounce it “Cash-ay” you come off sounding like an illiterate redneck. Moving on now.
Everyone at some point talks about hidden or buried caches. The notion being that someday, when your life has taken a profound and undeniable turn sideways, you will be on the run, find your hidden cache, and increase your odds of survival by replenishing and re-equipping yourself with what you prudently packed away those many years earlier.
What people decide to cache away is highly subjective. Some people might pack away everything but the kitchen sink. Some people might just tuck away some fake ID, a pistol, and a whole bunch of cash. And some people might go a bit further. What’s important, though, is that whatever you store for a later date has to be protected in such a way that the cache is impervious and invisible to the world around it. A good way to do that is to bury it. What do you bury it in? There’s a lot of chatter on that topic but many people like genuine military ammo cans. Get one big enough, with good seals, perhaps paint it with some sealant like roofing tar or somesuch, and pop it into a hole in the ground. Which brings us to this video from the, unfortunately, soon-to-be-departed Paul Harrell:
An excellent video showing what to expect. Those tall mortar cans can sometimes be had at gun shows, and can definitely be found online. Also Craigslist if you’re lucky.
One thing that is not touched on, and that I’m sure you’ll figure out on your own, is that while GPS is awesome for getting you back to “X marks the spot”, you have to plan on it not being available. Could be a buncha things….gov turns it off, degrades its accuracy (which used to be policy), satellites get knocked out by China, etc, etc. So, by all means, take GPS coords and save ’em, but also hide your stuff in such a manner that a simple hand drawn map and compass will work too. The guideline I personally would use is to do it in such a manner that I cold tell someone where it is, hand them a hand drawn map and a compass, and they’d have little trouble finding it.
Anyway, a good video on a topic that is something we’ve all thought about (and probably done) from time to time.
A few thoughts:
1) Pick your site. Have a way to landmark it day or night, in all seasons.
Bear well in mind what floods, brushfires, or just a heavy snow do to finding a spot out somewhere, in the middle of nowhere.
2) Place 4 markers.
They should be something that blends, but would also stick out if you know what to look for.
Think Andy Defresne’s words to Red “a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. A piece of black volcanic glass…”
3) Put the four far enough apart they’re not obvious, but close enough together you could run a string from one to the other both ways, and mark your “X”.
They needn’t make a perfect circle; all that’s important is that two strings form an “X” at the correct point.
4) From that point, have an offset that only you know. (i.e. “Fifty paces SW” or “90′ due north, and 57′ east”…whatever you’ll remember). Measure or pace it off.
5) That second spot is where your cache goes.
6) If you want to bury something small but worthless at the actual “X” for some misdirection, go ahead on.
Anybody who doesn’t know your offset isn’t going to find your actual cache.
7) Ammo cans are nice. Super sturdy. But they also show up on metal detectors rather handily. You might want to go with sealed PVC pipes or a plastic bucket.
Or else scatter and pound in about a case of large metal hex nuts and bits of steel scrap all over for yards in every direction, to wear out all but the most persistent metal detector freaks long before they hit the jackpot.
8) You might also want to consider not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Maybe from your X, you bury a geometric shape (circle, triangle, square) or line of small bucket-sized caches starting a given offset distance from the “X”. Points of the compass, hands of a clock, distance along a straight line, whatever works for you.
Maybe the 12 o’clock bucket has actual water, in a canteen or bladder, plus water purification tabs, and a spare filter.
1 o’clock has some retort food pouches and a cookpot.
2 o’clock has a knife, a multitool, a hand axe, a saw. And some work gloves.
3 o’clock has spare boots, socks, and a set of sturdy non-descript clothes.
4 o’clock has meds and first aid items.
5 o’clock has matches, lighters, fuel, flint/steel, magnesium bar, spark maker, magnifying glass, and some dry tinder.
And so on. Tarp/tent, cash and bullion, spare or alternate ID, weapons & ammo, maps & compass, traps/snares/fishing gear, tools, whatever you can spare an extra of, or think up.
Maybe one of them is a well-oiled and sealed-up e-tool, so you can dig any/all the others up easier.
You only dig up the item(s) you want/need, or all of it.
Or you put the essentials in each one (knife, cordage, fire, water, mirror, whistle, shelter, medical, etc.) and just multiply the odds one or more of them stays undisturbed.
Somebody finds one, they probably aren’t going to twig to all the others.
Trappers don’t have one trap, they have a trap line.
Fisherman run a trot line.
Cachers should consider the same thing, IMHO.
YMMV
“2) Place 4 markers.” Any four markers you place can be moved, or removed by someone else. Maybe those four rocks (markers) you placed were used to build a fire pit by some hunters, forever losing the location of your cache.
I said “markers”.
I didn’t say they had to be rocks.
I only used the description of a rock from a movie as an example for using markers that blend, but don’t necessarily belong there.
Whatever you choose to use, don’t you think you might want to pick things that aren’t easy nor likely for anyone or anything to randomly move?
And if you’ve picked the exact spot where hunters would want to build a fire as your IP, you’ve probably already screwed up.
Rocks are just an example of something that is commonly placed. Anything that you can ‘place’ without a backhoe or excavator can easily be removed by someone else, or Mother Nature.
Or not.
Pigs might fly too, if you use enough tannerite under them.
If we’re going to start out by positing random Murphy Fairies carpeting the land from coast to coast and screwing with any markers like the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys 24/7/365, just skip a cache and carry everything you own on your back, right?
Nobody’s going to roll, for but one example, a 40-80# rock to a new location, just for random shits and giggles. And I can tell you from personal experience, it only takes about 30 minutes and less than half a canteen of water to put one in a new spot and ensure it isn’t moving this century for anything less that an 8.0 earthquake, or the near impact of the Meteor Of Death. They’re also unlikely to find, let alone move, any number of smaller things you might place.
If your marker was a 6″ brass pin (or even an old shotgun shell hull on the end of a suitable piece of dowel) pounded down into the ground, covered with a thin layer of soil, and centered amidst a small seemingly random constellation of rocks a different shade or color than most others nearby – so you’d know where to dig – it wouldn’t draw anyone’s notice but yours, and dollars to donuts it’d still be there 20 or 90 years later.
Anyone can keep wishcasting gremlins out of their back pocket until the cows come home.
Or, they could just go mark a cache in the way that seems best to them, see how it works out over time, and share the results.
For reference, I’ve placed markers like I’ve described in nearby suburban county parks visited by literally thousands of people a week, and twenty years in, they’re undisturbed, despite brush-hogging, domestic and wild animals, and a million kids walking over them seven days a week, which is about 2M more people annually than are ever likely to visit any spot I’d pick for an actual SHTF cache.
I’ve put my own film can-sized geocaches in certain spots within Disneyland, FFS, and they’re still there nearly a decade later. (No, I’m not giving you hints where, but if you find one, you can keep the prize you find.) I’ll bet I could even hide something in the New York Main Library if I had to, and still retrieve it a year or three later.
But if anyone’s got a better plan that doesn’t involve GPS, and works in featureless deserts, thick woods, swamps, or heavy brush, at night, and in all seasons, despite the march of time, I’m all ears.
Excellent suggestions.
+1 on WBK comment above. Thank you Aesop – an excellent post on how – where – why your cache requires some thought on locating correctly. Just for grins, maybe a self contained kit with a sympathetic friend / neighbor / relative who have a secure location that is easier to access (i.e. no digging required) backup would be helpful as well.
Don’t forget the broken in but still lots of useful life left boots and a few pair of good socks to help you on your way. A ‘gray man’ carrying system would also be have on hand.
Interesting, thanks for sharing
I’ve got a cache with $500 (in small denominations) buried and it was very difficult initially walking away from its hiding spot. The cache was an emergency sustainment pack easily carried in a small bag and or windbreaker (both enclosed in cache). No long arms whatsoever – this was Get the Hell Out as Quickly as Possible set up back in 2008.
A do over – increase the $$$ amount with at least another $1000. Inflation be kicking my a$$ now.
90%silver coins will be a long term inflation hedge,easily exchangeable at any coin store but easily overlooked by ignorant thieves.
I’m not in any way suggesting that you break any State or local laws or that I’m personally doing it, but here in Italy we have a distateful law that limits the quantity of ammo you can keep in your home, an amount that any American survivalist worth his salt wouldn’t find adequate enough to keep even in his daughter’s dollhouse.
Add to this the fact that in my country ammo is sold only in a few authorized gun stores (tipically not more then one or two in any medium sized city), and that this stores could be wiped out pretty fast in an SHTF situation.
In this particular scenario, having a cache of extra ammo hidden away in a discreet location does actually make a lot of sense. You cold buy a few extra ammo any time you go to the range (ammo purchases are tracked!) and tuck it away until you can fill an ammo can and squirrel it away somewhere…
Thanks from Italy,
Daniele
I have heard tell of some amazing stuff buried out in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, lol.
Paul’s video was an excellent one on How Not To Cache your valuables. He showed no secondary containment wrapping, no preservation packaging and no thought about mixing fuel next to your food. There are many good sources from the military and other experts in book and PDF form that detail the proper methods of caching.
Having watched the video last night, personally I would have reduced the MREs by 1 and used that volume to increase the ammo supply. What was included felt light. Plus a better knife and a sharpener.
Basically, what is your intention with the cache included time frame of sustainment.
That said, a limited cache is better than no cache…
Steelheart
I must be a literate redneck. I already knew the proper pronunciation.
1- Concept of use is super important. Consider a cache as a logistical transporter. What stuff do you want for the concept of use of the cache. An escape and evasion cache doesn’t need a cast iron pan and a splitting maul. A parka doesn’t make sense in the Mojave. You get the idea.
2- Don’t put distances in paces. Use meters or yards.
3- Dead reconning is hard and distance greatly compounds tiny errors. I would want to start the final approach to the cache from a known point. The middle of a trail/ road intersection or something. From there I would want the distance to be in tens of meters not hundreds.
4- Burying shit is cliche but maybe leaving a duffel bag at a relative/ buddy’s house makes more sense. Offer to do the same for them. Or a storage unit.
All good points.
Some of us know our pace count.
Some of us don’t.
Class for another time.
It’s also why I like multiple subtle markers near the bullseye. It’s hard to hit a pinpoint “X” using anything but GPS. Not impossible, but hard. Figured that out doing land nav courses in Kentucky, Virgina, and NC, and long-range hikes in Yosemite and the Mojave.
But you give me a 50′ wide target, and I can find a marker (or more) delineating that 50′ area, and from that one then find the other markers, and then zero in on the cache(s), a lot easier.
That’s how our guides cached 5-gallon water jugs in the Mojave a couple of weeks ahead of our trip. All we got was two bearing points, a Silva compass, and a map.
They also buried a 10′ piece of neon yellow nylon rope, about 6″-8″deep, in open desert, with the middle tied to the handle on the center jug. So once we found any part of it, we could zero in on the cache.
And not for nothing, you should go back to blogging, even if only occasionally.
1- The distance instead of pace is about the reality that it might not be you retrieving the cache. My pace count of 70 to 100m doesn’t help my brother in law or buddy. However 50 meters does.
2- I like the cord idea. That would help for sure.
I second that about TOR. My “go to” list got reduced by one when he hung it up.
I like different lengths of PVC pipe because it is relatively inexpensive and if it is glued correctly it is totally impervious to moisture and most other things that damage other types of containers when placed underground.
It is really handy to be able to dig the hole relatively quickly and easily with post hole diggers. Of course, if you can’t easily dig a vertical hole 8-10″ in diameter to a depth of 3-4′ because of ground conditions, then it might have to be horizontal.
I tend to make caches of two different types, replenishment and E&E, and the contents are vastly different between the two.
Replenishment is exactly what it sounds like, mostly food and ammo resupply plus fuel for my alcohol stove, etc. Consumables for field operations assuming I possess gear already. These lend themselves well to the PVC pipe type of container. The E&E containers are more varied as they contain basically emergency gear and not so many consumables. These don’t fit in PVC except for the 8″ size which is relatively expensive and a bit of a pain.
I look a history, and the history of humans burying caches almost always results in them in never coming back for the stuff for a host of reasons.
But if burying your stuff with little to no chance of ever retrieving it or using it gives you joy, who am I to argue?
Thats misleading. Historians who find buried caches can reasonably say that cache was never returned to because, well, there it is. But if a cache was returned to and dug up, thered be no history of it. Its only the caches that dont get used that are found.
It like saying we see the wrecks of boats on the bottom of the ocean, therefore crossing the ocean almost always results in the boat sinking. But youre not seeing the ones that didnt sink.
Same logic….historians don’t find the caches that were dug up and recovered.
Agreed, and I thought it as I typed it. But given the amount of stuff found in unrecovered caches from a given period, what percentage of that represented all caches for that time?
And speaking of recovered caches, what percentage were recovered by parties who *didn’t* bury them in the first place?
If you want to be fair, it could be seen as a 50/50 proposition, so maybe just cache stuff you won’t mind losing.