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Resusitator cache


jez130

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9 minutes ago, jez130 said:

the idea is you've got to find a cache that not been found for over a year to log this one.

That sounds like a challenge cache.

As I recall, the challenge cache guideline prohibiting "Competition rather than achievement" has been interpreted as prohibiting new challenge caches based on finding "lonely" caches, because finding a "lonely" cache depends on finding it before someone else finds it (and it is thus no longer "lonely").

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28 minutes ago, arisoft said:

I don't think that this idea falls to "Competition rather than achievement" class,

The guideline specifically lists FTF challenges as an example of a prohibited "competition" challenge.

Lonely cache challenges are essentially the same thing, except that the opportunity to qualify by finding the cache first resets after the cache has been unfound for a specified length of time.

28 minutes ago, arisoft said:

but this is not even important because challenge checker does not know how many days ago the cache was found. It is not possible to create a challenge checker for this criteria.

Yes, that's a basic requirement for new challenge caches now. The original reference to a "geo checker" was probably a reference to the need for new challenge caches to have an automated challenge checker to verify whether someone has completed the challenge requirements.

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OK,so in the UK ( well, our bit of it anyway, as I see where the OP is based !) , what the USA apparently call Lonely Cache Challenges we call Resuscitator Challenges, and I believe that that is what you are  after. Only a challenge cache can have the sort of extra rule you are wanting to  make (ALR, additional logging requirement, to use the jargon).

Challenge caches HAVE to be '?' type, and must have the word 'challenge' included in the name. However, they also have to be at the given co-ords, you used to be able to make a puzzle as an additional hurdle to cross, but Groundspeak changed the rules, so now you  can't. And if you tell the reviewer you've seen one that does have a puzzle, you will be told that existing caches are no precedent, and current rules will be applied.

What you do have to have is a checker at  project gc, and if your challenge can't be automatically confirmed/denied by that specially made checker, you are not allowed to set it ar all. So, it looks like you are stuck, sorry. 

I very much like resusc. challenges, they do a useful job of giving cachers a little extra motivation to head for difficult puzzles , long multis and out of the way trad.s., and that struck me as being a rather good thing.

 

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8 minutes ago, niraD said:

 

34 minutes ago, arisoft said:

I don't think that this idea falls to "Competition rather than achievement" class,

The guideline specifically lists FTF challenges as an example of a prohibited "competition" challenge.

Lonely cache challenges are essentially the same thing, except that the opportunity to qualify by finding the cache first resets after the cache has been unfound for a specified length of time.

 

I am pretty sure that this is not a FTF-hunt.

Every player looking for this achievement can log the cache at the same day, there is no "first" finder - just one or more finders who achieved this goal at the same day.

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1 hour ago, arisoft said:

Every player looking for this achievement can log the cache at the same day, there is no "first" finder - just one or more finders who achieved this goal at the same day.

Yes, but if the challenge says "you have to find a cache not found for 1 year", then the second and third finder on this day haven't found a cache "not found for a year", they have found a cache which was found a couple of hrs ago.

 

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1 hour ago, hal-an-tow said:

I very much like resusc. challenges, they do a useful job of giving cachers a little extra motivation to head for difficult puzzles , long multis and out of the way trad.s., and that struck me as being a rather good thing.

I agree completely. Not only is it good for the caches, it's good for the seeker and good for geocaching. But apparently it's bad for unspecified administrative reasons.

1 hour ago, arisoft said:

I am pretty sure that this is not a FTF-hunt.

Every player looking for this achievement can log the cache at the same day, there is no "first" finder - just one or more finders who achieved this goal at the same day.

niraD was talking about FTF challenges being similarly competitive: in either case, you have to find the cache before someone else. For FTFs, you have to get there before anyone else after publication, while for resuscitation (a.k.a., lonely cache) challenges,  you have to get there before someone else notices it's been a long time idle. niraD wasn't saying anything about FTF on this specific challenge cache.

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10 minutes ago, Mausebiber said:

Yes, but if the challenge says "you have to find a cache not found for 1 year", then the second and third finder on this day haven't found a cache "not found for a year", they have found a cache which was found a couple of hrs ago.

There is no way to say who was the first finder without checking the logbook and challenge caches does not base on logbooks. Challenges are based on on-line logs and there is only date without time of the day. I can not see any competiton here because there is no winners or losers.

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18 minutes ago, arisoft said:

There is no way to say who was the first finder without checking the logbook and challenge caches does not base on logbooks. Challenges are based on on-line logs and there is only date without time of the day. I can not see any competiton here because there is no winners or losers.

If someone else posts a log dated the day before yours, then your claim to have found a "lonely cache" is invalidated. They get credit for having found a "lonely cache" instead.

It isn't an FTF race, but that does look like a form of competition to me.

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19 minutes ago, Mausebiber said:

If I log the "not found for a year" cache today and you log the same cache tomorrow, you lost I won.

In this case I just missed my opportunity to advance in the challenge. Same happens if you forget to find a cache for your daily streak challenge.

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39 minutes ago, niraD said:

If someone else posts a log dated the day before yours, then your claim to have found a "lonely cache" is invalidated.

It is not "invalidated" because, when signing the logbook I can see that I can not claim this find for the challenge. You can compare this to cache you need for your streak and it is missing. Did the last finder win and you lose?

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15 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Same happens if you forget to find a cache for your daily streak challenge.

I don't do "daily streak" because I don't set myself under pressure to go out every day.  I go caching when I feel like it, I do power trails when I feel like it, I do night cache when I feel like it, I don't rush to get an FTF, I like to hike in sunshine, but I don't stay at home just because it's raining, I do challenges when the checker says I qualify, I don't cache to qualify for a challenge.

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39 minutes ago, Mausebiber said:

If I log the "not found for a year" cache today and you log the same cache tomorrow, you lost I won.

I qualify!  I've found 67 caches that have not been found in a year!  Two of them had not been found in four years!  I enjoy hunting lonely caches.  The caches that require a hike are not found very often anymore.  Most of them have not been found since.  Though I did get a laugh at the ones where someone found them a-year-and-a-half later, and called them lonely caches.

My suggestion would be to have the checker invalidate a lonely cache when there are more than one find for that day.  Go find another.  

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15 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

My suggestion would be to have the checker invalidate a lonely cache when there are more than one find for that day.  Go find another. 

If I recall this correct, Project GC is updating the records on a weekly basis for non paying members. How would such a checker determine if the cache was found today or not.

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35 minutes ago, Keystone said:

Challenge checkers only look at your finds.  They cannot look at your finds relative to everyone else's.  That is a general statement, not limited to the edge case of multiple finds on a lonely cache during the same calendar day.

That's actually a good litmus test for whether a challenge is based on "Competition rather than achievement". If the challenge would require access to anyone else's logs to verify, then there is some element of competition involved. The challenge should be based on only your own logs.

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49 minutes ago, Mausebiber said:
54 minutes ago, Keystone said:

Challenge checkers only look at your finds.  They cannot look at your finds relative to everyone else's.  That is a general statement, not limited to the edge case of multiple finds on a lonely cache during the same calendar day.

Understand, but will the checker give me (no member to Project GC) an OK today for a cache I found today?

The point is that there's no way for the checker to know if the cache has been unfound for a year. To do so, it would need to access other cachers' logs, which Keystone says they can't do. The checker could tell you if you've found the cache in the last year, but that isn't very useful. :laughing:

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8 hours ago, The A-Team said:

The checker could tell you if you've found the cache in the last year,

I guess I didn't make my question clear.

Lets assume, there is a challenge and I'm missing one cache to qualify for the log-conditions.  Now, today I log this one missing cache.

Will the challenge checker give me an OK for the challenge today, or do I have to wait a week until my data at Project GC will be refreshed?

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12 hours ago, The A-Team said:

The point is that there's no way for the checker to know if the cache has been unfound for a year. To do so, it would need to access other cachers' logs, which Keystone says they can't do. The checker could tell you if you've found the cache in the last year, but that isn't very useful. :laughing:

It wouldn't have to look a other geocachers logs from their profile.  It would only have to iterate over the logs for the cacher running the checker, then look at the logs for each cache and compare the log date of the geocacher running the checker with the previous log on that cache.  It would be a very time consuming checker but it would not need to access any other players profiles.  

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3 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

It wouldn't have to look a other geocachers logs from their profile.  It would only have to iterate over the logs for the cacher running the checker, then look at the logs for each cache and compare the log date of the geocacher running the checker with the previous log on that cache.  It would be a very time consuming checker but it would not need to access any other players profiles.  

Actually this is not time consuming because checker script have access only to your own log entries and some general statistics as how many finds the found cache have totally. This way a lonely cache checker may calculate average logging frequency but it can not verify any time span between finds.

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8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

It wouldn't have to look a other geocachers logs from their profile.  It would only have to iterate over the logs for the cacher running the checker, then look at the logs for each cache and compare the log date of the geocacher running the checker with the previous log on that cache.  It would be a very time consuming checker but it would not need to access any other players profiles.  

The checkers can't see that "previous log", because it would be from a different cacher. As per Keystone:

21 hours ago, Keystone said:

Challenge checkers only look at your finds.  They cannot look at your finds relative to everyone else's.  That is a general statement, not limited to the edge case of multiple finds on a lonely cache during the same calendar day.

In effect, checkers have the same visibility of logs as if you fed it a MyFinds PQ. With only your logs, there's no way to determine things like loneliness/resuscitativity.

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On 12/5/2017 at 4:06 PM, The A-Team said:
On 12/5/2017 at 7:18 AM, NYPaddleCacher said:

It wouldn't have to look a other geocachers logs from their profile.  It would only have to iterate over the logs for the cacher running the checker, then look at the logs for each cache and compare the log date of the geocacher running the checker with the previous log on that cache.  It would be a very time consuming checker but it would not need to access any other players profiles.  

The checkers can't see that "previous log", because it would be from a different cacher. As per Keystone:

I would have assumed that, through the use of the API, that one could get information about a specific cache which included all of the logs (or a foreign key to a table which contained every log).  It wouldn't make sense for the page that display information about the cache, including all of the logs, that it would only find that log information in users profiles.  Data from a user profile would contain all logs made by that user (or perhaps a foreign key to a :"logs" table).  

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1 hour ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I would have assumed that, through the use of the API, that one could get information about a specific cache which included all of the logs (or a foreign key to a table which contained every log).  It wouldn't make sense for the page that display information about the cache, including all of the logs, that it would only find that log information in users profiles.  Data from a user profile would contain all logs made by that user (or perhaps a foreign key to a :"logs" table).

Guideline is somehow ambiguous when detemining the allowed criteria.

Quote

Challenge cache criteria must be based upon caches with the seeker’s logs: Found it!, Attended, Webcam Photo Taken.

It defines the log type but not the "seeker". Anyway, there is no method to access logs so the checker is impossible to construct even though it would be allowed.

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3 hours ago, justintim1999 said:

I think resurrection caching is a good idea.   I've been looking for something to get me out and finding more caches.   This may just be the ticket.    I wonder how many cache owners are still active considering their cache hasn't been found in over a year?

Quite a few geocachers enjoy going after lonely caches, and would do so even if there wasn't a challenge cache based upon lonely/resusitator cache available.

Caches that haven't been found in over a year are not that uncommon and I suspect that most of them have active owners.  

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6 hours ago, justintim1999 said:

I think resurrection caching is a good idea.   I've been looking for something to get me out and finding more caches.   This may just be the ticket.    I wonder how many cache owners are still active considering their cache hasn't been found in over a year?

It's interesting you should wonder whether the CO is active since, to my mind, that makes absolutely no difference and I can't even imagine the relevance. Sleeping caches have been out there for a year or more without anyone visiting them, so there'd be no reason for the CO to visit them whether they're active or not.

I never really gave it a thought, but if I had to guess, I'd say about half the lonely caches I resurrect have active owners. Most of the ones without an active owner are old enough that it's no surprise the CO's moved on. I'm not sure why, but it's very rare for a lonely cache to need maintenance in my experience.

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2 hours ago, dprovan said:

It's interesting you should wonder whether the CO is active since, to my mind, that makes absolutely no difference and I can't even imagine the relevance. Sleeping caches have been out there for a year or more without anyone visiting them, so there'd be no reason for the CO to visit them whether they're active or not.

I never really gave it a thought, but if I had to guess, I'd say about half the lonely caches I resurrect have active owners. Most of the ones without an active owner are old enough that it's no surprise the CO's moved on. I'm not sure why, but it's very rare for a lonely cache to need maintenance in my experience.

I'm sure that it's very regional but I would also guess that at least half of the lonely have active owners (I suppose, those it depends on how one defines "active").

Many years ago there was a cache about 25 miles from me that hadn't been found in 4 years or so (it only had a handful of finds since it was published).  One of the reasons that it was rarely visited was that it was along the shore of a lake and only accessible by boat.  The lake is over a mile wide and can get pretty rough in the middle at the spot where the cache was located.  I was doing some caching a bit north of the area and stopped to investigate a possible area where I could launch my kayak to determine how long it would take to get to GZ and return.  My GPS told me that it would be about a 3.5 mile r/t paddle.  I was thinking of giving a shot for a milestone cache that I'd likely hit in a couple of weeks.  The following weekend someone in a power boat tried to find it, couldn't locate the container, and dropped a throwdown "in a better hiding spot" about 70' from the posted coordinates.  They included the coordinates in the log, but after the reviewer didn't get a response to a reviewer note asking the CO to use the "update coordinates" log the cache was archived.  That was about 10 years ago and nobody has place a cacher there since.  

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On 12/8/2017 at 0:00 PM, dprovan said:

It's interesting you should wonder whether the CO is active since, to my mind, that makes absolutely no difference and I can't even imagine the relevance. Sleeping caches have been out there for a year or more without anyone visiting them, so there'd be no reason for the CO to visit them whether they're active or not.

I never really gave it a thought, but if I had to guess, I'd say about half the lonely caches I resurrect have active owners. Most of the ones without an active owner are old enough that it's no surprise the CO's moved on. I'm not sure why, but it's very rare for a lonely cache to need maintenance in my experience.

Looking through the list of lonely caches that I have found, most of them have active owners.  They're just nice hikes.  A lot of cachers don't seem to do that anymore.  The two that had not been found in four years is a different story. Both cache owners long gone.  One was a multi.  I wasn't about to try climbing the stone arch, so I searched around for the clue.  And found it!  The contents were soaking wet and mushy.  I posted an NM.  Nothing has been done.  The cacher after me did climb the stone arch, and was unable to find the first stage.  

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On 12/7/2017 at 11:36 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

I would have assumed that, through the use of the API, that one could get information about a specific cache which included all of the logs (or a foreign key to a table which contained every log).  It wouldn't make sense for the page that display information about the cache, including all of the logs, that it would only find that log information in users profiles.  Data from a user profile would contain all logs made by that user (or perhaps a foreign key to a :"logs" table).  

The API can do it.  My son has 3 pre-moratorium challenges requiring 5, 15 and 50 years of cumulative unfound time, based on caches which had not previously been found for 6 months (183+ days).

I wrote some GSAK macros to list finds which met these criteria and accumulate the total unfound time.  The process is initially very time-consuming.

1.  Use the API to get all logs for all your finds.  This might easily take  more than a day continuous computer time, depending on the number of finds.  All logs are needed because later processing may need the publish log.

2.  Modify and run LogCleaner Macro to delete unnecessary logs.

3. Modify and run PreviousFind Macro to create custom fields showing the previous find date and the unfound time for each find.

4. Run LongLostCaches to produce the list of qualifying caches and the total time.

The PreviousFind macro needs a list of UserIDs for people with whom you frequently cache.  It then looks at all finds on the same date as your find and ignores any by those people.  Any other found log is assumed to be prior to yours that day and hence gives zero unfound time.  This can be manually overriden by editing the custom fields in the waypoint.

So, yes the API can do it, but even then it needs manual intervention to tell which found log for the same date was the earlier find in the log book.

There is the added complication that the web site defaults the log date to "Seattle Time", so a log dated on one date may actually be intended to be dated the following day - this is particularly noticeable in Australia, New Zealand and other places which are 12+ hours ahead of Seattle.

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On ‎12‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 0:00 PM, dprovan said:

It's interesting you should wonder whether the CO is active since, to my mind, that makes absolutely no difference and I can't even imagine the relevance. Sleeping caches have been out there for a year or more without anyone visiting them, so there'd be no reason for the CO to visit them whether they're active or not.

I never really gave it a thought, but if I had to guess, I'd say about half the lonely caches I resurrect have active owners. Most of the ones without an active owner are old enough that it's no surprise the CO's moved on. I'm not sure why, but it's very rare for a lonely cache to need maintenance in my experience.

I put myself in the cache owners shoes.  If I had a cache that had not been visited in over a year I know I'd be bummed.  I try to check up on my caches twice a year regardless of activity so it would feel like I'm doing this extra maintenance work for nothing.   I'm wondering how many cache owners would feel discouraged and just walk away?   I also wonder how many finders would look at the time in-between finds and decide to give a cache like this a pass.   I tend to think that if it was recently found more cachers may give it a shot.  

It's been my experience that over time caches simply degrade so I'm not quite convinced that it's rare for a cache that's not been found in a year to be in need of maintenance.  

I would think that going after caches like these would be challenging and the person who decided to do so would have to be persistent and not overly concerned with the numbers game.  

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1 hour ago, justintim1999 said:

It's been my experience that over time caches simply degrade so I'm not quite convinced that it's rare for a cache that's not been found in a year to be in need of maintenance.  

Most of the damage to a cache is caused by careless finders. When you add this fact to your maintenance equation you will find that no visitors means an ever-lasting cache if you use quality supplies to make one.

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40 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Most of the damage to a cache is caused by careless finders. When you add this fact to your maintenance equation you will find that no visitors means an ever-lasting cache if you use quality supplies to make one.

I disagree.   O-rings rot and crack.  The gasket on lock and locks do the same.   The weather here in New England can reek havoc on containers.   To be honest most of the damage to containers I see are from the elements not other cachers.   I realize that's hard to believe but It's what I see.  I guess it also depends on the container.  An amo can or storm box should be able to last and stay dry for years as long as it's sealed properly.   

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17 minutes ago, arisoft said:

They are not known to be quality supplies as you just testimonied.

For example: Have you ever seen a leaking ammobox which is not deformed by visitors?

If only all cache hides were amo boxes or something equally as good.   We both know that's not the case.  In fact I guess most are of the variety I indicated above.

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4 hours ago, justintim1999 said:

If I had a cache that had not been visited in over a year I know I'd be bummed.

In my experience, the COs of caches so out of the way that they sometimes aren't visited for a year are proud to have a cache that's not for everyone and isn't somewhere where people will pass by and find it regularly. My guess is that that they were expecting from the start that the cache wouldn't be visited very often, so there'd be no reason for them to be bummed. And as I already mentioned, lonely caches are normally in good shape no matter how active the CO is, and even when they do have problems, it doesn't strike me as a big deal because I'm that only person this year that's going to have to empty the water out of the container or whatever. That's a tiny price to pay for being able to find a cache no one else has gotten to for a year.

(By the way, when I say "out of the way", it doesn't always mean physically. My proudest resuscitations are puzzle caches with puzzles I finally managed to crack after years of trying only to discover I've walked past GZ several times without knowing it since I first saw the puzzle.)

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10 minutes ago, dprovan said:

(By the way, when I say "out of the way", it doesn't always mean physically. My proudest resuscitations are puzzle caches with puzzles I finally managed to crack after years of trying only to discover I've walked past GZ several times without knowing it since I first saw the puzzle.)

Yep. One of my Favorites is a D5 T1.5 cache that hasn't been found in more than 2 years.

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4 hours ago, justintim1999 said:

I disagree.   O-rings rot and crack.  The gasket on lock and locks do the same.   The weather here in New England can reek havoc on containers.   To be honest most of the damage to containers I see are from the elements not other cachers.   I realize that's hard to believe but It's what I see.  I guess it also depends on the container.  An amo can or storm box should be able to last and stay dry for years as long as it's sealed properly.   

I've got an ammo can cache I placed (in the Northeast) over 9 years ago.   I've only re-visted the cache a few times and have never had to do any maintenance on it.  It's only got 51 finds on it and the last log (a couple of months ago) indicated that it was in good shape.  It's also hidden off the ground so it doesn't spend much time covered in snow or frozen to the ground.  The combination of a good container, how it's hidden, and few finder visits is what make a difference in how ofter a cache will need maintenance.  

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17 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I've got an ammo can cache I placed (in the Northeast) over 9 years ago.   I've only re-visted the cache a few times and have never had to do any maintenance on it.  It's only got 51 finds on it and the last log (a couple of months ago) indicated that it was in good shape.  It's also hidden off the ground so it doesn't spend much time covered in snow or frozen to the ground.  The combination of a good container, how it's hidden, and few finder visits is what make a difference in how ofter a cache will need maintenance.  

Agree but unfortunately the majority of caches out there aren't ammo cans.   To be honest caching would't be as interesting if every container was an ammo can.

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I had an ammo can that lasted 3 years. The hinge pin rusted and snapped. I've found a couple of ammo cans where the hinge pins snapped and the lid just sat loosely on the can. I've found one ammo can that was rusted through in a few places. I've found an ammo can that was crushed on the sides, breaking the lid's seal. It happens, even ammo cans need to be checked once in a while to make sure they're still in good shape. 

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Ammo cans don't handle fire well, either.  But then, most caches don't.

I don't know that any container out there is necessarily impervious.  That said, I've found some that have weathered like champs.  When I found Laurel Forks 2 over five years after the last find, it was pristine inside, even though it was just some kind of PVC plastic jar.  It was pretty jammed in the tree fork, so I suspect it had been over-pressurized when the tree trunks grew and pushed into it, helping keep the water out.

65e9c248-49a5-4af7-839e-02e7628308c4_l.j

It's now an ammo can, as the tree grew too much and pushed the jar out of shape, making it hard to open or close.

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