"Salute to Stute" damaged by forest fire

[GrouseTales]

Yesterday, Tie and I took our motorcycles out to my Salute to Stute cache. The cache has been disabled since March and I needed to do some maintenance.

When nearing the cache, it was evident that the area has been affected by a forest fire or controlled burn. The undergrowth in the forest was heavily charred. I didn’t worry too much about it, but as we got closer to the cache, we were still in the burned area.

When arriving at the cache, we found the forest floor has all been heavily burned. The cache was missing from it’s original spot, but was found a few feet away. The ammobox was bulged out and rusted where the paint burned off.

Upon opening the box, we found the damaged logbook, and a bunch of melted blobs of plastic in the bottom. Luckily the logbook wasn’t damaged too bad. The plastic cover was melted, but the pages were still readable. The outside edges were burned, but the logs were not too damaged.

A poor stuffed animal travel bug got heavily damaged. I’ll need to see if the owner wants it returned or sent back on his journeys.

Attached are some photos of the cache container. Appologies to the bandwidth impaired.

It was quite interesting to see what the fire did to the contents. Some items looked untouched, yet others were completely melted. I’m sure a tupperware container would not have held up as good. The ammobox it’s too bad, it could be repainted, but the rubber gasket is toast.

Salute To Stute is actually a historic cache in several regards. It visits the historic Stute family homestead, plus, it’s one of the oldest caches in the state. It was hidden 7/18/01 and was the 2nd multi cache in the state. The first multi was “Lord of the caches – the trilogy”.

[Lostby7]

WOW! I think we should start hiding caches in fire safes.

[OuttaHand]

That’s a shame. We did that one in Aug. of ’03 and I remember it being a very nice cache.
Glad you could recover some of it, at least.

[jthorson]

Please bring the box and contents to the picnic.
It would be interesting to view the contents: up close and arson-all.

[TyeDyeSkyGuy]

If it were my TB, Id keep it going just how it is. Thats part of the fun in TB’s and coins, to see the milage take it’s toll on whatever the item is. One of the first geocoins I found was a canadian one that was tarnished gray/black on half, and the other half was mint, like someone had dipped it in Tarnex. It was really cool to find it that way.

[kbraband]

Too bad about your cache (Salute to Stute was/is one of my all-time favorites), but I had to chuckle over the photos. That poor little blob of a TB looks like he’s seen better days.

[Commander Bob]

This just reaffirms the reason I prefer an ammobox (or as the beast calls them, “cammobox”) over any other container. I’ve also seen the effects a controlled burn can have to a cache, only it was a tupperware type container. There was nothing left but a blob of melted and charred plastic. As bad as these contents look, I’m actually impressed by how much actually survived, especially the logbook. I remember what a great multi-cache Stute is, I hope you can replace it, Brian.
~CB

[wooden_nickel]

Anyone need any ammo boxes…? 😆

Thanks for providing the fire test. That is one that we hadn’t tried yet.

We’ve tested water, we’ve tested driving over them… heck what are your supposed to do when you have two pallets full…? well had two pallets that is…only a few left in the garage.

With all the great ammo cans picked up at the campout, there are plenty of good ol sturdy containers out there to find!

Thanks for sharing the charred pics!

Kevin

[Big Yonsson]

That is awsome! It should go in the hall of fame.
Any photos of the forest?

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