Triangle Tactical Podcast and Blog on Guns, Gear, and Competition Shooting
Yesterday I introduced Geocaching, and talked about what it is. Today I want to be a little more specific, and talk about the containers that you may come across when hunting a cache.
If you are going to head out into the woods looking for something, it might be a good idea to at least have some clue what you are looking for. When it comes to Geocaches, you could be looking for something bigger than a house, or something smaller than your finger nail, although most caches are somewhere in-between.
The most important aspect of a geocache container, is its ability to resist water. Caches don’t have to be waterproof per-se, but they need to be able to keep the contents dry in all sorts of weather. Nobody likes opening a cache to find a soaking wet log book.
The holy grail of caches, the thing that we all want to find when we set out into the woods is the ammo can. Ammo cans make great caches, because they are waterproof, durable, inexpensive, and they are already green (Although many of us like to paint them other colors.)
Another popular container for a geocache is the Lock-n-lock box. These containers are generally found at the grocery store, and have 4 latches and a good seal that keeps them dry inside for a long time. They come in many different sizes and shapes. I have a handful of these that have been hidden for over 3 years, and they are still dry. One of the downsides of these boxes is that they are a shiny, clear plastic so if you want to paint them, they require a little more prep work than an ammo can, even with plastic friendly paint. As you can see below, I didn’t prep this one all that well, and the paint is starting to flake off of the top a little.
On the small end of caches, you have the micro, and nano caches. Micro’s can be anything from a small bottle, to a keychain pill holder. Nano caches are awful, and I hate them. Nano’s are about the size of the orange pill containers lid in the picture below. They generally have a magnet attached, and can be hidden just about anywhere.
Keychain pill containers are popular for micro caches. They are available at most drug stores, and they tend to remain waterproof nicely.
There are obviously many other types of containers that can be used for a cache. As long as it will remain watertight, and it doesn’t look like a bomb, you should be good to go. Most of what you will find will be some variation of what I have pictured above, but there are some very creative cache hiders out there who enjoy coming up with confusing caches.
If you haven’t already, make sure you head over to Geocaching.com and sign up for a free account. I’ve got some Triangle Tactical swag that I’m going to be hiding in a cache later this week, so you will want to be ready!
