Beer Quiz: How many soldiers survived?

[GFP]

Lets say you and some friends booked a couple nights at a popular hut in the Vail area. Never having been to the hut before, you go on a pre-tour mission with a couple buddies a few weeks prior to the trip in order to learn the approach route and cache some beer for the big weekend. You make it almost all the way to the hut, but due to time/daylight constraints you decide to bury the beer about a mile from the hut and head back down to the car with a GPS waypoint of the beer cache.

THE QUESTION IS: Will your soldiers survive until the date of the hut trip? Or will you discover the grizzly, frozen, and exploded remains of your brave troopers?


Points to consider:

1) Beer is buried on Dec. 13, hut trip on Jan. 2nd. Daytime highs range anywhere between 10-40 degrees, nighttime lows anywhere between -20 and 20 degrees.

2) Beer is buried at approx. 10,800 feet on the ground and covered by a downed tree and shallow snowpack.

3) There are 30 beers total:

• 6 12oz Old Chub (8% alc/vol)
• 6 12oz Dale's Pale Ale (6.5% alc/vol)
• 18 16oz Coors Light (4.2% alc/vol)

So how many (and which) soldiers survived? The answer will be revealed after sufficient time for polling has elapsed.

[skerrane]

I'll go with the Old Chubb's and the Dales Pale surviving due to the higher alcohol levels.

[pechelman]

damn
i knew we should have gone back and borrowed your beer to save them from the cold

[hawkgt]

survivors:

6 Old Chub
6 Dales
13 Coors light

5 Coors light gave their life to protect their friends by exploding and covering them with icy goodness and insulating them until helped arrived. They will never be forgotten!

[Danno]

been waiting for this thread.

[Lawless]

I assume all beers are in cans?

[Danno]

I would think if buried deep enough, all would survive. But it has been fucking cold, and it's not clear how well they are buried. But I'm still going with 100%, because I'm an optimist at heart.

[GFP]

I assume all beers are in cans?

Yes, all beer in cans.

[BurnHard]

Yes, all beer in cans.

Then I'd think they all survived.
Bottle & cap = pressure build up from frozen beer pops the cap, beer is dead.
Can = pressure build up doesn't do shit, it'll freeze and thaw, might not be the tastiest beer but it survived.

[ANON-505]

how much snow insulates them from the air?

[MakersTeleMark]

My vote is all beer survives, until thawed out in hut, then upon opening, lays a new layer of shellack on every surface of the hut.

[GFP]

how much snow insulates them from the air?

Approximately 12 inches at the time of burial.

[uglymoney]

Great thread. I've always contemplated beer cache's and even wondered about this exact scenario. No idea on the survival rate.

[snowbeard]

so was hawk's post the answer, or still just his guess?

[lemon boy]

12" of packed down snow or 12" of ultrapoof?

[gretch6364]

Then I'd think they all survived.
Bottle & cap = pressure build up from frozen beer pops the cap, beer is dead.
Can = pressure build up doesn't do shit, it'll freeze and thaw, might not be the tastiest beer but it survived.

I have put cans of beer and bottles of beer outside and forgot about them till morning. The cans have exploded, while the bottles still look un frozen....as long as you don't open them up until they get warm enough, the beer won't freeze. The cans have turned solid...my guess is this is due to the bottles having a tighter seal and dealing with increased pressure better.

My guess is none of the beer will survive.

[waltonhockey05]

Then I'd think they all survived.
Bottle & cap = pressure build up from frozen beer pops the cap, beer is dead.
Can = pressure build up doesn't do shit, it'll freeze and thaw, might not be the tastiest beer but it survived.

It's the freezing that can cause the cans to explode. Happened in my friends freezer with some Coors light.

I'm going with 6 Old Chub, 5 Dale's Pale Ale, and 12 Coors light

[GFP]

12" of packed down snow or 12" of ultrapoof?

Somewhere in between. The 12" was thrown on top the cache with a shovel, but not packed/patted down beyond that. I should also mention that the cache was loosely wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in case the unthinkable occurred.

[lemon boy]

I should also mention that the cache was loosely wrapped in a plastic garbage bag in case the unthinkable occurred.

Smart, that way if the unthinkable occurs they'll all be entombed in a solid block of ice.

[GFP]

Smart, that way if the unthinkable occurs they'll all be entombed in a solid block of ice.

Better than getting a bunch of squirrels crunked on backcountry beersicles.

[gretch6364]

Smart, that way if the unthinkable occurs they'll all be entombed in a solid block of ice.

You can then melt said block of ice into a bucket or camel paks and still drink the beer!

It will all be mixed together and flat...but after each of you drink a pocket bottle of jack, it won't matter!

In the future...it may be best to bury liquor....nothing better than ice cold shots of vodka!

[TeleHoar]

I have left beer in snow in my yard for up to a week with sub-zero teperatures. The beer did indeed freeze but only a couple per case broke open. They don't taste so good after freezing

I predict you will lose exactly 17% of your beer.

[Capman]

I'm going with all surviving. I "hid" a case of bud light out on my deck for the past 4 weeks and found it this weekend. No casualties, thought I've had better BL.

[Tye 1on]

one of the best polls ever.

[Helldawg]

Oh, see you dicked up my calculations. You said tree and shallow snow. I think 12" qualifies as a bit more than shallow. The snow would insulate them and mitigate the effects of the extreme cold. Therefore, I recant my original prediction of 100% fail.

I now predict a few random casualties. Majority intact.