This is the fifth of a series of articles about caching, the third
most important tool a survivalist has. The first being knowledge of how
to survive under any circumstance, the second is being in good enough physical
condition to survive under any circumstance.

OK, now we know the basics of how to build and bury a cache. Now, where do we 
put it and how do we find it again. If we are good at concealing our caches they 
COULD be placed almost anywhere. However, other than the front yard cache I 
discussed in a previous post the need for seclusion is important. They need first of all 
to be placed away from traffic and residences so that you can bury and “refresh” 
your supplies as needed without being detected. The need to space them has already 
been discussed. 

There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not your caches can be detected 
by the government. I don’t care how good you are at hiding your cache, “big 
brother’ can find it if they really want to. However, they will have to suspect that 
you have something hidden that they want really bad. Then they will have to have a 
general idea where you have hidden it before they can find it. The advances made in 
“underground radar” and satellite imaging make finding almost anything possible. If 
you do nothing out of the ordinary to make them think you are someone that has 
something of great importance hidden somewhere then you don’t have too much to 
worry about.

Another point to bring up is that if you are in an emergency situation and using your 
caches on the bugout trail care should be taken to take your trash along with you. 
Don’t leave a trail of garbage for someone to follow. Cary your garbage with you 
and place it in the cache that you take your next supplies out of. You really do not 
need to be as particular about hiding the evidence of your cache if you are taking the 
supplies out and putting trash in. Go ahead and bury it but don’t worry about 
complete concealment. The caches will be far enough apart that no one will likely be 
able to trace your route by finding them. Besides, if you take the added precaution of 
placing your cache 100 or so feet off the side of the trail it would be very hard to 
find. If the cache is full of garbage what have you lost!

The system I intend to use for locating my caches will be as follows. First of all I will 
have my complete bugout route mapped out on my laptop and hard copies for all in 
my group. On the map I will have coded <in case they fall into anyone else’s hands> 
annotations for locations of overnight camp sights and caches. (The laptop has just 
been added to my bugout plans.) Also, soon to be added to my plan is a GPS. This 
will be used to place my caches within a few yards and then triangulation of local 
topographical features to locate the cache in a more refined way. And finally, since 
most of my caches will have metal <cans, equipment, whatever> in the cache I plan 
on using a metal detector to pinpoint the cache. If you are concerned about others 
finding your cache with a metal detector (why on earth would anyone be using a 
metal detector way out there in the middle of nowhere) you can bury junk (pistons, 
ring gears, old crankshafts, etc.) in the area around your cache to mislead them into 
thinking they have happened on an old junk yard or an area used to strip a car.

The cheapest and simplest method <and probably most time consuming>would be a 
form of dead reckoning. On your map make note of landmarks near the cache. This 
will put you within range. Then make notes of triangulation on specific landmarks 
for the actual cache site. One word of caution here, do not use “volatile” objects for 
triangulation. In a years time a forest fire or hurricane, tornado, or other natural or 
manmade can remove or alter your “landmarks”. Use hill tops, mountain peaks, 
railroad tracks, the base of power line towers, etc. as landmarks. These will more 
than likely still be in the same place. To triangulate you need a good “scout” compass 
or “surveyors” compass. These usually come with instructions on taking “bearings” 
on landmarks. If not many books are available on the subject of navigation or map 
reading that will give you this information. For the location of a cache it is important 
to have at least two recognizable landmarks to take bearings on in order to 
triangulate properly. I prefer at least 3 myself. After you are close a metal rod with 
a not too sharp point can be used to probe the ground till you “hit” your cache.

If at all possible use the same compass to locate the cash that you use to place the 
cache. If their is any inaccuracy in the compass at least it will be the same as it was 
when used to place the cache. If you are using a metal detector to pinpoint the 
location of your cache then any minor inaccuracy in the compass will not cause 
enough discrepancy to cause you to not be able to locate it.

I have seen a new device that is a compass built into a pair of binoculars that allows 
you to read the bearing of an object as you view it through the binoculars. IF these 
prove to be accurate then this would be an ideal device for triangulating on a cache. 
However, consider the problems you would have taking the same bearing readings 
with a scout compass. Never rely totally on technical assistance because you never 
know for sure if you will have it with you to help. After taking your readings with a 
device like this (or a GPS)  it wouldn’t hurt to take (backup) readings to verify with 
your trusty pocket (scout) compass to assure that you would be able to locate it 
without the added technology. 

When using multiple tubes in a tube cache I like to bury them in a pattern. 
Something like a star. A center tube (that is actually what I take my bearings on) 
and then the other tubes buried a given distance, 12 to 18 inches, away from the 
center tube. That way I can locate the others once I locate one. A spot of different 
colors of paint on the caps would tell me which “point” of the star it is and therefore 
what direction to go in to find “center”. This also (because of the distance between 
them) makes it less noticeable that there is more than one tube in the cache if 
accidentally discovered.

I have found a 2 liter plastic soda bottle that is just the right size to fit inside one of 
my standard caching tubes so I always make the center tube of the cache (the one 
that I hopefully find first) my drinking water cache. If you shop around you will find 
that you can locate cans just the right size to fit your caching tubes. This of course 
assumes that you want to cache over the counter foods in cans and plan on rotating 
your stores on a regular basis. There is a lot to be said for emergency rations being  
the same foods you are use to eating in a non-emergency situation. There is no 
“shock” to your digestive track (nobody needs a case of diarrhea or constipation at a 
time like this ) by eating all freeze dried trail food (or other emergency rations) all of 
a sudden instead of your normal diet. You can also cache items that are not your 
ordinary emergency foods in caches, such as canned meats, chicken, fish, ham, etc. if 
using and rotating standard canned foods. This will help you plan and keep a 
balanced diet.

In your daypack, first cache, at intervals along the trail, and, of course, the end 
retreat cache you need a supply of personal toiletry items. Things like your favorite 
antacid, aspirin (or substitute), diarrhea medication, laxative, razor (shaving 
equipment) toilet paper, and dental hygiene supplies. If you have long hair and are 
not removing it for the bugout then you need a brush and ties to tie it back into a 
pony tail to keep it out of your way. Hair, however, is a good handle for anyone that 
might be doing personal combat with you in a hand to hand situation. This is one of 
the reasons why the military practically shave recruits heads.

Weapons are a different story entirely. Great care must be put into storing weapons 
and ammo. I may ask an expert in this area to post an article later for those caching 
these items. I am not including this information in these articles.

I hope this has given you a place to start. You can of course develop your own 
methods and style of caching as long as you keep these basics in mind.

Dave