Mom-n-Andy

Metal ammo box. It's about 2 feet down inside a hollow tree. Not much room around it. My foot wouldn't fit in there and I couldn't apply enough force with my hand. I think what's happened is that water ran in and froze a couple of sides of the box to the wood. It's not actually encased in ice. Depends. Ammo box or Tupperware? Ammo boxes are virtually indestructable. Give a swift kick, or try to free it with a limb. Tupperware? Look around for a limb. I'm guessing I have about a 90%+ success rate with these methods. I've never broken anyone's Tupperware, but be mentally prepared to buy a replacement if it should not work out as planned. Oh, and I like the pocket knife idea, never thought of that. Are you talking encased in ice? Just some ice around the edges, or what?

I stuck 4 handwarmers (that I had intended as cache swag) in there but they were not up to the task of warmng a 15-degree F ammo box. Good thought though.

You think salt isn't a chemical? Salt is much more harmful to plants than commercial de-icer products. And every deer in the park would use the cache for a salt lick!

My husband suggested using a propane powered torch such as those used for sweating (soldering) copper pipes. Unfortunately the cache is pretty far down in a hollow log and I doubt I could get the torch down there without burning myself. And it's a couple miles out into the woods so the hair dryer/drop light thing won't work. Waiting till spring is not an option. This is a cache that I absolutely positively MUST get. SOON. That's all I will say about that. Best idea I've heard so far is to pack some Nalgene bottles full of very hot water to the cache site and stick them down in the hollow to hopefully thaw things out. With any luck that will work while being environment-neutral. Now, any ideas for keeping a cache like this from getting frozen in the first place? Would wrapping the container (a metal box) in plastic help? Or would it just lead to a plastic-wrapped cache frozen in a hollow tree?

Does anyone have any good ideas about freeing a geocache that is solidly frozen in the hollow of a tree?

This is my case study about geocaching with a Mac. I've only been doing geocaching a few weeks, so I'm certainly not an expert yet, but here's at least one way to make it work. First, my hardware is as follows: Titanium PowerBook running OS X 10.3 (Panther), Garmin ETrex Legend, and Palm Tungsten T3 handheld. I use a Keyspan Serial-USB adapter to connect the Garmin's serial cable to the Mac. The Palm connects via USB. For software, I just got MacGPSPro, which I use to transfer waypoints, routes, track logs, etc. between the Mac and the Garmin. MacGPSPro can use any map you can get onto your Mac clipboard, which means I can download and use PDF-format maps for local county parks. Once the map is calibrated for use with MacGPSPro, the program displays waypoints from geocaching.com loc files on the map. I had considered other Mac-GPS software but after reading the testimonials on the MacGPSPro website ("I got down on my knees and thanked god for this software!) I was sold. I use the Palm to store loc files so I don't have to carry printed cache pages. I use two pieces of software: CacheMate runs on the Palm and is essentially a palm database application. I can search for a cache by name or by proximity to a set of coordinates. CacheMate also allows me to enter logs, so I don't have to try to remember what we took/left, etc. when we get home. I use a Mac application called MacCMConvert to convert loc files to pdb (palm) files that can be downloaded to the handheld. Like all things Macintosh, all this stuff was a piece of cake to get working. I'm sure there are other options for software out there, but I'm very pleased with how these applications work. I haven't yet become a premium member, but I plan to do so as having the full cache listings on the Palm will be very helpful (CacheMate will download gpx files too.)

We found a cache today that had a whole stack of business cards left by a Navy recruiter. No doubt hoping that someone would find them and think "Wow! I think I'll join the Navy!"