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Here is how you can Fast Track the time capsule wilderness adventure. It’s the condensed step by step process for covering the bases. It’s also a great checklist for review before and after your journey.
1. You will find links to product manufacturers on the Retailers page.
2. Choose a few small personal and metallic items of memorabilia and family significance to secure inside the time capsule.
3. Prepare the capsule’s internal items.
4. Before leaving for the journey, identify a placement site in remote and legal, public, or private wilderness areas. (NOT National Wilderness Areas, National Parks, or other restricted areas.)
Most items for your time capsule should have been enclosed in non-sealed polyethylene sleeves inserted into the capsule. Take the following items:
1. Hollow Rock or Hollow Log
2. Your Stainless Time Capsule or Food Vacuum Jar depending on the term of outdoor placement.
3. 1 Copy of the Retrieval Folders and Data Sheet to fill in at the drop site
4. 1 Gel Pen for writing personal notes that will be placed in the time capsule
5. Acid-Free writing paper
6. Camera
7. Topographical map of your intended hiking area if known before the trek
8. Your GPS device (cell phone or GPS unit)
1. Walkie Talkies
2. Simple handheld compass
3. Gloves to help removal of existing boulder
4. A “selfie-stick” or small tripod to allow group photos with a shutter timer
Your final drop site should be an unremarkable ground space located hundreds of feet away from any remotely identifiable hiking or animal trail. Use the following criteria in selecting that final site:
1. Identify a flat ground space shielded from weather and foot traffic.
2. The site must confirm surrounding soil stability. Choose an area where surrounding rocks are well established in the subsoil. 
3. Locate next to a large, stable, permanent obstruction that will block direct sunlight. A north side is preferred.
4. Place the hollow rock or log-capsule between, inside, under, or next to a large rock outcropping.
5. If near a steep slope (not recommended), choose the downhill side of a permanent obstruction.
1. Situate in an area of similar appearing small boulders (or downed logs if using a hollow-log capsule. )
2. Not a potential viewpoint or potential stop for any hiking activity
3. Nowhere close to a stream, riverbank, swamp, campsite, etc.
4. Not in a potential mudflow, water flow, water chute, or avalanche path
5. Not in any insecure earthen cave
6. Not placed at the base of trees or relying on a tree structure as a long term shield
7. Never near any evidence of previous human activity (old cabins, archaeological sites, mine shafts, ruins, etc.)
8. Away from any sign of animal activity (footprints, animal droppings, burrows, etc.)
1. Do a final common sense appraisal of the site.
2. Confirm that you can obtain a clear GPS reading from the location with several walkovers.
3. Identify an existing small boulder and remove it from its depression.
4. Prepare the existing boulder depression for hollow rock or log placement.
5. Place the time capsule inside the hollow rock enclosure and situate the hollow rock within the depression left by the natural rock.
6. Firmly compact the soil around the hollow rock or log.
7. Clearly, accurately confirm and log the GPS coordinates and enter them immediately on the Data Sheet.
8. Camouflage the immediate area of the drop site.
9. Take medium and close up photographs of the final camouflaged site from every possible angle.
10. Make a mental note of this site’s compass settings (for labeling photos later) to aid in future retrieval.
1. Confirm that the correct GPS coordinates have been recorded.
2. Fill in all the remaining information on the Data Sheet.
3. Take photos of all people attending the occasion.
4. Review the drop site for any objects that may have been inadvertently left.
5. Leave no visible trace.
1. Duplicate the information from your Data Sheet onto the second set of Retrieval Folder forms.
2. Make dual photo print copies of your adventure.
3. Place photos and data sheets into your two Retrieval Folders.
4. Using the exact GPS coordinates of your drop site, you can now get a precise location of the drop site on a TerraServer Map. Enter your coordinates on the TerraServer web site, print copies of your drop site map, and insert the prints into the two Retrieval Folders.
5. If this is a long-term time capsule, keep a record of the GPS coordinates in your safe deposit box or attached with your own legal papers.
6. Keep one Retrieval Folder with your own private files (or give to another parent or friend of the future recipient) for safekeeping.
7. Give the second Retrieval Folder to another young Fail-Safe relative.
8. Fill out the International Time Capsule Society form and relay GPS coordinates of your drop site to them.
Congratulations! You have just planned and executed a wonderful event for a future generation. This page shows how you can Fast Track the time capsule wilderness adventure. But if you want to know more detail, then please follow the steps in detail.
The details for all these steps are included in previous pages with links for references.
References and Products