Sodium, Keep Dry Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Welcome to another Lake Lenore history cache (also check out Lake Lenore Anti-Aircraft, a few miles south of here), at least this time there is video evidence to back up the stories. This cache is for the history, the science, and the view.
In January 1947, the War Assets Administration needed to dispose of several tons of surplus metallic sodium because there were no public carriers that would accept it for transportation to a purchaser. They did so by dropping it over a cliff into Lake Lenore. They determined that Lake Lenore would be a good place because it was devoid of fish (the lahontan cutthroat trout that now inhabit the lake were introduced much later). A newsreel from January 13, 1947 caught the action on tape and can be seen at (visit link) . If you cannot get this video to load, go to Google and do a video search using the words sodium disposal, it should be the first one on the list.
Now, for those of you don’t remember chemistry class, sodium and water are not good friends. While a very small piece of metallic sodium dropped into water will skitter across the surface, being buoyed up by the hydrogen it is releasing, larger quantities produce explosive results. Larger pieces of sodium melt under the heat of the reaction, and the molten ball of metal is buoyed up by hydrogen and may appear at first to be stably reacting with water. The sodium breaks down into sodium hydroxide, commonly known as caustic soda or lye. As this reaction releases larger quantities of highly flammable hydrogen gas and heat, it ignites the hydrogen gas and melts more of the sodium, further fueling the reaction (thermal runaway), resulting in an explosion which scatters molten sodium, lye solution, and sometimes flame (as seen in the video).
For the placement of this cache, I went up to Lake Lenore to track down the location you can see in the film. It was much easier than I had anticipated. I will add in some “then and now” photos when I can get back there with my camera. This cache is placed within feet of where the trucks would have backed into position to drop their loads. The cache is not near the edge of the cliff, so there is no need to get too close (that is, unless you are like every other American boy and need to throw a rock over, Lightmann?, Nymm?). The cache is a small metal canister (roughly 2.5” in diameter and 6” tall) hidden in the rocks.
A few cautionary notes:
1. Keep pets and kids close, or leave them at home; there is a very high cliff not far from the cache.
2. Keep pets and kids close, this is snake country. I have seen more than a few snakes of the rattling persuasion through-out the length of the Lower Grand Coulee, keep an eye out.
3. Be careful where you park. There is not great parking at the cache location, but there is a very large pull-out about 200 yards north of the cache. Be smart, this is a very busy highway all times of the year, but especially summer.
There is an addition to this story that I heard from a local, who knows a gentleman that lives on the hill in Soap Lake. He says he lived there in 1947 as well, when they began disposing of the sodium. He said that the government did nothing to warn them in Soap Lake (the nearest city to Lake Lenore) of what they would be doing up in the canyon. He said that when the first heard the explosions that he thought Hanford was exploding. He also said that the disposal went on continuously for 3 weeks. I haven’t been able to verify this, but would love to hear any stories anybody out there remembers if they lived in the area in 1947.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Rirelguvat lbh arrq vf va gur grkg.
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