Survival Caching

Caching is the process of hiding equipment or materials in a secure storage place with the view to future recovery for operational use. Caching considerations that are vital to the success of the caching operation may be done in a variety of operational situations. For example, cached supplies can meet the emergency needs of personnel who may be barred from their normal supply sources by sudden developments or who may need travel documents and extra funds for quick escape. Caching can help solve the supply problems of long-term operations conducted far from a secure base. Survival caching is used to support movement through an area, escape and evasion in an area, or to extend the amount of time one can remain at a bug-out camp without the need for resupply or outside contact.

A survival cache to support escape and evasion contains basic survival kit items and assumes that you have been forced to flee with minimal or no personal survival gear with you. Survival Lilly, in her video "Planting A Survival Cache - Bug Out Survival", demonstrates this type of cache. If you were forced to flee into a wilderness area with nothing, having a cache like this could save your life.

Survival caches to support movement through an area are based on the assumption that you have personal survival gear with you. The movement cache allows you to replenish items (like food and water) that you use up while moving through an area.  Movement caches are hidden along a planned route, and spaced at intervals to replace items as they are depleted.  

Long-term caches are intended to support living and working in an area over an extended period of time.  A long-term cache might be two to three weeks of food cached near your bug-out camp, thus allowing you to remain in your camp longer than would be possible with just the food carried in your pack when you arrive.  Long-term caches can also be used to protect items against theft or seizure by an oppressive government (such as hiding firearms and ammunition, or communications equipment).

Regardless of the type or purpose of your cache, there are important considerations to ensure that your items will be available when you need them. First is to ensure that items are packed in a way to protect them from moisture, temperature, insects, rodents, and foraging animals. Make sure that things in your cache are wrapped and packaged in such a way so that if one thing breaks or leaks it does not ruin everything else in the cache. Remember that heat and humidity can cause some types of food in your cache to quickly spoil. Freezing temperatures can cause liquids to expand as they freeze and burst their containers. If animals can smell the food in your cache they may dig it up, and insects and rodents my burrow into your cache is the outer container is not properly sealed.

I have found that the MTM Survivor Ammo Can is an excellent choice for containing small survival caches. For larger caches, waterproof containers like those made by Pelican and Plano are good choices.  

Next you must be sure that other people are unlike to discover your cache. If you place a cache at the edge of a roadway, and later that road is widened your cache will either be discovered or destroyed. A cache placed along a popular hiking trail may be accidentally discovered by others hiking along the trail. Even in fairly remote areas, such as in your bug-out location, it is best not to put your cache in your camp itself. If you arrive at your bug-out camp and find that it has been occupied by others you lose both your cache and camp, if they are in the same place. Put your cache a kilometer of so away from your bug-out camp, and once you have occupied your camp you can recover your cache and bring the supplies to camp.

Finally, you must be able to locate your cache and gain access to it when needed. Your cache must be hidden in a place that you can be guaranteed of finding again. If you have a GPS you can record the coordinates of your cache, but don’t rely solely on the GPS to find it again. You might not have your GPS when you need your cache. When you record your cache location, mark the location as an azimuth and distance from a fixed permanent object, such as a large boulder. Since you are emplacing your own survival caches, you will likely remember their location once you are back in the area, but remember that things may look somewhat different six months to a year later. Make sure that your cache is placed near an easily identifiable permanent item.

Be sure that you will be able to recover your cache when you need it. A cache buried in the ground on a warm summer afternoon will not be so easy to dig up during the winter when the ground has frozen and lies under a meter or two of snow. Even if you don’t have to worry about deep snow and frozen ground, will you be able to dig up your cache if you don’t have a shovel with you when recovering your cache? 

Once you have recovered your cache, you will need a way to transport the gear you have stored in it. This is particularly important in a survival cache where you may not have any survival items with you upon reaching your cache. I like to include a small inexpensive rucksack in my survival caches. This allows me to recover the cache, place the items into the rucksack and move quickly out of the area. The old Soviet canvas rucksacks that can be picked up for just a couple hundred rubles is an excellent choice for including in your survival cache.      

Which cache method to use depends on the situation. It is therefore unsound to lay down any general rules, with one exception. Planners should always think in terms of suitability, for example, the method most suitable for each cache, considering its specific purpose; the actual situation in the particular locality; and the changes that may occur if someone else gains control of the area where your cache is located.

A more detailed discussion of caching can be found in the American Army publication Special Forces Caching Techniques.