Do Ammo Cans Float?

[+O Crew]

I finally got out to check on my cache that was placed along a Riverbed. St. George Utah was recently ravaged by flood waters. 20 or so homes were lost. My cache was a small ammo can along the river. I checked today and it is gone.

 

Does anyone have any experience on how far an ammo can might float? I looked around the immediate area and did not see it. If it didn't float away, it is certainly under a lot of mud. I doubt it is of any use to go out with a metal detector. It is probably half way to Lake Mead by now. It would be fun to have it turn up. Hopefully I will have a confused anthropologist some 300 years down the road.

[TahoeJoe]

Ammo cans are watertight and float, I imagine your cache is now a traveling cache.

[+Coach Steve]

Watching what happened to all the debris that went into the Virgin River this past two weeks and knowing the dynamics of water, I would say that it is now in little pieces. That river took 4 X 4 lumber and turned it into toothpicks. They dumped two-ton highway dividers into the river to try to turn it, and they were destroyed. I don't think the anthropologists will have much to look at.

 

Having been to Carl's Car Crach cache, (which I really enjoyed) I am sure it would have been one of the first to go, along with RangerDale's Night Owl. Nobody around here has been alive to see that much water. It was just incredible.

Edited January 22, 2005 by coachsteve

[+Jennifer&Dean]

We were lucky with one of ours- it floated about 50 feet away and got stuck in some debris. So I was able to find it with little searching. We now tether ours with some decent twine and hope for the best every spring. Good luck but I'd bet it's gone to a hiding spot far, far, away.

-J

[+BeachBuddies]

Yes they do... My Galadriel's Gift cache floated away, and was recovered FIVE months later by some nice park rangers.

 

I had already replaced it of course, so the original one is going to become a new cache called Boromir's Boat.

[+Joe Smith]

The power of rivers are amazing. When they are in flood stage they have the power to change riverbeads, and carry some VERY large objects with them.

 

An ammo can is small and very watertight. As long as it does not get trapped in some debris (very likely) I see no reason why it can't end up in the gulf of Mexico someday. Another option is that it could get crushed on something and swamp.

 

I'd say it's gone forever but don't be shocked if you get an email in a few months by someone that found it.

 

Joe Smith

[+Turtle3863]

The power of rivers are amazing. When they are in flood stage they have the power to change riverbeads, and carry some VERY large objects with them.

 

 

Joe Smith

We were caching in Indiana last weekend along the Ohio River and saw a dumpster floating by. Strange sight

Edited January 23, 2005 by Turtle3863

[ozarkray]

I have done a lot of whitewater canoeing and have carried my wallet and car keys in a ammo box in the boat. Ammo boxes do float as do ice chests and unopened cans of beer and soda. I don't know what kind of river you're writing about, but around here the box would most likely float down to the next bend or two of the river and get stuck in a brush pile next to the bank. Next likely it will get snagged by a branch at the high water mark two to five miles downstream and be left sitting on the bank. I doubt that it will get covered in mud or break apart, but depending on the steepness of the bank and the size of the river, it could be anywhere up to fifty miles downstream. Let us know if it every turns up.

Ray

[CoyoteRed]

This ilustrates the importance of a tether for caches near water.

[nobby.nobbs]

this is going to be one heck of a message in a bottle, asuming that it didn't get trashed. rivers in flood are one of the most destructive powerful forces of nature.

 

write it off but hold on to some hope that one day you'll get a message from some distant place. all you'll need to do then is find a local cahcer to place in that vicinity for you.

[+O Crew]

Thanks for the replies. CoachSteve is from the area and can attest that this cache was placed in an area that likely had not seen water in decades. In fact, another foot or two in the uphill direction would have saved it. The force of this flood took out several homes and permanently changed the course of the river. Given that every tree within a five foot radius of the cache was ripped out by the flood, I don't think a tether would have done much.

[+pdxmarathonman]

Given that every tree within a five foot radius of the cache was ripped out by the flood, I don't think a tether would have done much.

Yikes! The lost homes are much more of a concern than the ammo box. But, I bet everything in that box is bone-dry. I hope it is found someday and the condition of it is reported

[CoyoteRed]

Given that every tree within a five foot radius of the cache was ripped out by the flood, I don't think a tether would have done much.

No doubt.

 

We have a bunch of low-lying around here that flood on a semi-regular basis. We've started tethering the caches just in case.

 

In your case, I think it pretty much gone.

[+Night Stalker]

I was caching along a river in the Mesquite Texas area last year and found a cache in an Ammo can that was teathered by a very heavy rope. It was obvious that this river flooded often and this was the cachers way of keeping his cache somewhere close to its hiding spot.

 

[+Cal78]

Yes they float, All the way to the Bottom.

[+sbell111]

Two of my ammo can caches have been involved with flooding. The final location for Great Caesar's Ghost Cipher was initially a hollow tree. The cache was about three feet up the tree which was on the bank of a creek, about 4 feet above the waterline.

 

The spring floods came and flooded the area about 2 feet higher than my cache. Luckily, the opening of the tree was on the upstreem-side. The water destroyed the camo over the opening, but the cache was left securely in the tree.

 

Caesar's Library is a book cache in a huge ammo box. It is hidden in a well-treed area a hundred feet or so from the harpeth river. I went to check on it as the flood waters were rising. When I arrived at the scene, the cache was floating about six feet from the original location. I had to walk out on a downed tree and pull the box toward me with a branch to retrieve it.

 

I tied it to a tree and it has been fine ever since. When the flood waters come, it floats at the end of its tether.