Don't Get GLAD, Get MAD!

WINTER in Illinois means many things: furnaces better be working, air conditioners need to be covered, and be ready for the weather to change every 5 minutes. Just looking ahead to this week's forecast I see temperatures in the twenties and fifties, rain, snow, and maybe half a day of partly sunny. All those weather changes mean you're as likely to need an umbrella as a snow shovel. Of course, you can forget about the bug spray and sunscreen, but you can always dream.

The extreme weather changes of this season make for some good tests of cache containers. All those plastic baggies and Gladware containers that seemed like a good idea in July suddenly come back to haunt you in January. This is a time when proper cache maintenance is not only essential but very educational.

When it comes to placing a cache you really have to take into consideration that this is a four-season sport. That means you have to consider what the location is going to look like in winter as well as summer and how accessible it is going to be during the spring rains. It also means that the container you choose

The first finder found this hard plastic container (with no seal) overflowing with water.

Let's just be honest here: Gladware is a BAD idea. Sure it's cheap and easily accessible but it barely holds up in your fridge, let alone in the woods. Within weeks of placement, you find Gladware containers with busted lids, full of water and rusted toys. I suppose it's cheap enough to just replace it with another Gladware container, but as the old home improvement mantra goes, "If you don't have time to do it right, will you have time to do it again?"

So, what are we looking for when we're picking out a cache container? It's best to begin with a few questions about the cache itself. First of all, what kind of weather conditions is it going to be exposed to? Keep in mind; moisture doesn't just come in the form of rain. Even if the box is out of the elements moisture will creep in through dew, fog, or plain ol' humidity. You need to chose a box that is going to stand up against the worst of conditions.

In a perfect world, the best container would be an ammo box. Unfortunately, here in Illinois, the State Parks have outlawed the use of ammo boxes in favor of clear containers that allow people to see the contents of the cache. This means you're either going to be hosting a Tupperware party or making a trip down the Rubbermaid aisle at Wal-mart.

There's really no substitute for a good seal on your container. Skimp here, and you're asking for trouble. Try to think long-term. You want to make sure that the fortieth finder's experience as enjoyable as the first finder.

Good seal, everything nice and dry.

Another important question to ask is: what size container will the environment support? Obviously if the cache is going in a small city park or an urban setting you're probably looking at some kind of micro container. 35mm film canisters can be sealed quite well (some of them). Decon containers work great, too. Altoid tins, while popular, are probably going to end up wet and rusty within a few weeks.

In fact, here's a little experiment to try. Whatever container you're planning on using, get two of them. Put one of them in a setting similar to your eventual cache location, but in your back yard (in a bush, in a tree, under a rock, whatever). Leave it there for a few weeks. Go outside and open it up every few days—simulate the caching experience. What does it look like at the end of the experiment? That's probably what it will look like after it's been visited by geocachers a few times.

Finally ask yourself this question: how is the average cacher going to look back on the experience of finding this container? Certainly not every cache can be that one incredible find, but by investing a little time and some cash in your cache (ugh, sorry about that) and you can leave your visitors with a great caching experience—one they will want to tell others about and maybe even one that will influence them when they place their first cache.