Water cache but how?

Rodents can chew through any kind of plastic if they are motivated, but I don’t think they usually go after water.    What they will do is chew plastic that has absorbed the smell of food.   I have had a rodent laboriously gnaw chunks out of the hard screw-on cap of a platypus when it could have got through the soft plastic body in a few seconds if it was after the water.   And I’m sure most of us have bite marks in the handles of our hiking poles.   So whatever you use, make sure it’s clean – maybe wipe down the outside with some dilute bleach and avoid handling it.

The Arizona Iced Tea gallon bottles are robust at reasonable weight.   Not easy to squash down after use, but you can just hook them on your pack when empty.

If you want something that’s completely secure that can be packed away into a small volume and reused, a 70oz platypus (1.5oz) fits neatly inside an Outsack UL (3.5oz).

Whatever you use, I think the biggest risk is that another human will steal your cache.  Hide it well.

I’ve done that loop at least four times — twice in June (I am clearly insane).  We’ve always cached in two places on the Esplanade.  One small (750ml or 1L) bottle near the Bill Hall Junction (for the way out — there used to be some small trees nearby with a downed tree and some rocks — we’d hide ours in the rocks).  A 2L soda bottle near the top of the Red Wall (LOTS of rock formations slightly off the trail where you can hide it!) for camping on the way back.  We’ve had problems with caching food, but never with water.  You could leave a small note (pre-type it) with each, saying that you will pick it up on X-date, and that you are depending on that water…anyone who steals that is a serious *sshole.

I like the 2L soda bottles because they’re really strong, yet so light.

Totally agree about hiding your caches well!  I’m not gonna lie — it’s gonna be plenty hot, especially in Surprise Valley and along the river route between Tapeats and Deer…but Thunder River is a magical oasis, and so are the two waterfalls of Deer Creek (I like the smaller one at the upper spring).  Bring some rehydration salts, just in case.

I prefer 2-liter soda bottle to gallon jugs because they are so much sturdier.  And more containers gives you a little more redundancy.    If you want it to be completely rodent proof, put one pint bottles inside of a flavored-popcorn or cookie tin.  Then rodents and ravens can’t do anything to it.

I never mark a cache itself (say, with flagging directly over the cache).  I have a standard offset (for a trip such as 15 feet to the north) of my flagging or of a trail junction.  I might leave something very subtle over it (two small rocks stacked on each other) but nothing more obvious than that.

I’ve had success burying my caches in the desert. Liter bottles, gallon jugs and six pack cans.

Be careful of the type of jug you choose if you’re burying it for any length of time in the heat — some Hayduke hikers have dug up their caches to find the jugs empty.  The “milk jug” types have been reported to leak HERE.

I have left both gallon milk jug types and two liter soda bottles without any problems for short periods of time.  I have read quite a bit about the gallon jugs leaking along the seams after a long time in the sun.

If you go to Big Bend, technically you are supposed to cache all food and water in bear canisters.

I just hide them well, bushes or rocks and always leave a note with name and date of removal and that the cache is of life and death importance to cross country hikers.

Let me know if I can help with any info on the Big Bend trip, I have spent a lot of time there doing long cross country routes.

Gallon juice jugs like this are much more sturdy than the archetypical “milk jug.”  I have taken to saving them.