[pct-l] Burying food, digging holes

[Bob Bankhead]

Let me play devil's advocate here. 

Any ranger will remind you - as they did me at both Thousand Island Lake and Tuolumne Mdws last year - that odor proof sacks are NOT a legal, approved method of food protection. We had our lunches and dinners for the day in them in our packs; the rest of our food was in an approved canister, so we were legal and got only the lecture.

Let's ignore for the moment whether caches are legal or not. Think instead of what it takes to prepare, relocate, and recover one properly and the consequences to you if you are not the first creature to uncover your hoard.

Preparation: 
You're trying to contain any odors your cache might naturally emit. You invest in a supply of large odor-proof sacks, even though you know they tear fairly easily, but you are very careful so they don't. You even double-bag high-odor items like sausage. 

Caching:
Having assembled your supplies, you now transport them to the area where you hope to establish your cache. This involves extra miles driven and walked, plus the needed tools. This is only economically feasible if you - or some friend - lives nearby. Arriving at the spot, you must locate someplace off-trail where you can dig a hole large and deep enough to accommodate the supplies. You fill in the hole and carefully camouflage it so it is not obvious to anyone. Since that includes you, you carefully mark its location with your GPS, or the number of steps on some compass bearing from some readily identifiable geographical feature. Return to your vehicle and go home to prepare for your hike.

Re-locating:
Hiking up to the general area of your cache, you are now faced with two issues. First - you have to find it again (hopefully you took good notes which you still have with you, and ideally at least one other person in your group was with you when you established the cache, just in case your memory is faulty that day). Secondly, you have to dig it up again, but you don't have the same tools. Your fingernails take a beating.

Re-supplying:
Having recovered your supplies, you still have to pack out not only those supplies, but also whatever you cached them in, and you still have all your trash from the past X trail days. No opportunity to rid yourself of it. NO - IT DOES NOT GO INTO THE SAME HOLE THE CACHE CAME OUT OF. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Oops:
Something else found your cache before you did, and all that's left is crumbs and shreds of packaging. Go to plan B (hope you have one). Make mental note never to trust OP sacks again.

Oops #2:
You can't find the @#$% thing, despite your notes. You learn that all trees look pretty much alike in the woods. You established the cache solo and no one else has any clue where it might be. Go to plan B while enduring the glare, ill comments, and possible physical retaliation of your partners who are now faced with the ominous prospect of unexpected and unbudgeted time, mileage, and expense to go out for new supplies (be prepared to cover those costs on your credit card). Make mental note to self not to expect to be partnering with any of these guys anytime in the future.


Disclosure: My partner dug in a large cache (he used a large cooler) for us in the picnic grounds at Sonora Pass one year. Nothing and no one bothered it, although we played hell finding it again because of memory failure and the only other person in our group who set the cache with him had dropped out before we got here.

YMMV


and then there's always the ranger.......who may or may not react the way you hope.

Wandering Bob


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jereen Anderson 
  To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
  Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 4:20 PM
  Subject: [pct-l] Burying food, digging holes


  I can't believe that digging a small hole to bury food would be illegal. Gosh, we all dig catholes! The challenge is to locate soils that you can dig into deep enough. Deep enough is 8". Sometimes I have had to look pretty hard for a place where there is decaying organic material. Tell me how digging a cathole is different from the hole that Brad would dig. His food would be in an odor-proof bag and could also be in pre-sealed factory packaging - think energy bars, etc. I would add one of my "bear charms" on top of the food prior to filling the hole. Brad, after recovering your food refill the hole and camuoflage just as you should with your cathole. I can't imagine any Ranger giving you a ticket for properly digging a cathole - - -but, you should get one if you don't!