How Challenging Are Your Hides?

[+dingermcduff]

What are the average difficulty and terrain ratings of your active caches? How much to you put other cachers through?

 

Assuming my most recent cache is approved - submitted it on Saturday so there may be a problem - my 8 caches would look like this:

 

Range in difficulty from 1.5 to 4.5 for an average of 2.3. I am thinking about raising the difficulty of one of my 1.5 caches due to a few DNF logs and a couple of people logging that it was tough.

 

Range in terrain from 1.5 to 3 for an average of 2.1. I am getting the impression from logs that maybe I rate my terrain a little on the low side since 6 of my caches require a walk of over a mile. I have a cache in the works that will be at least a 4 terrain, if not higher.

[WH]

I have a good mix from the very easy to the very hard to the extremely annoying.

 

Something for everyone.

[+Deliveryguy428]

I have an easy walk in the park type micro for everyone then a really tough puzzle cache for those who want the challenge.

[+Salvelinus]

A friend of mine has been searching through all of Pennsylvania's 4100+ plus cache listings and is bookmarking the ones she wants to do. One of her criteria are caches with a 3 star or higher terrain rating. So far she has found about 100 that have met that criteria out of about 800 caches she has reviewed. From what she looked at so far...the average for PA seems to be below 3 stars for terrain.

 

My cache hides tend to reflect what type of cache I would llike to find. Most terrain ratings for my caches are 3 stars or better. My caches are easy to find once you get there because the adventure of getting there is what I focus on. You can bet there will be water nearby, a great vista, or some local history to explore. You won't find any of mine in a parking lot or anyplace else where you have to pretend your doing something else.

 

Salvelinus

[+Gecko1]

I think it is good to make a wide range of difficulties. Then, everybody is happy.

[+Salvelinus]

I think it is good to make a wide range of difficulties. Then, everybody is happy.

You obviously never worked in Public Service

 

Salvelinus

[Tahosa and Sons]

My Traditionals are from easy to 5 x 5. And some of my virtuals have a terrain of 4.

 

My Ammo Box Caches have a mean of 3.19 Difficulty & 3.66 Terrain.

Edited August 4, 2005 by Tahosa and Sons

[+briansnat]

I have caches ranging from 1-5 stars for terrain and between 1-3 stars for difficulty. The majority of my caches are either 2.5 or 3 stars for terrain and around 1.5 stars for difficulty. Some people have complained that I rate them low compared to many other geocachers, but I think I follow the Clayjar defs pretty well.

 

Of my 126 hides, the overwhelming majority involved walks of at least a mile. Many are over two miles and some are 4 or more. The terrain in northern NJ is fairly rugged thanks to the last glacier which decided to leave all these stinking rocks and boulders when it melted.

 

Averaging only my active caches, they average 1.6 for difficulty and 2.5 for terrain.

Edited August 3, 2005 by briansnat

[+Dan-oh]

Hopefully I'm not derailing the original topic here:

 

I don't think I've hidden or found a 4+ difficulty cache that wasn't a mystery or puzzle cache. I tried hiding a 4 star but it turned out to be a 3 1/2, not as hard as I origianlly hoped. Some of my camo hides from 2 years ago seem like child's play now. Once you raise the bar, the locals seem to step right up.

 

Then again, it depends on what your locals are used to.

[+Aodhán2irish]

I don't care how difficult the hides are, I just wish people would use the handy questionnaire on the site to catagorize their hides. I've been to some 1s (terrain) that you needed a bushhog to get to.

[+Salvelinus]

I don't care how difficult the hides are, I just wish people would use the handy questionnaire on the site to catagorize their hides.  I've been to some 1s (terrain) that you needed a bushhog to get to.

I agree that using the auto-rating thingy would help, but sometimes terrain ratings need to be kept in perspective based on the hiders experience. A gradual increase in elevation may seem like a steep hike for someone who rarly hikes, but hardly noticed by someone who hikes frequently. Same goes for bushwacking.

 

Salvelinus

[OuttaHand]

I have 4 current caches. Their difficulty ratings are:

1

1

1.5

1.5

 

I used to have another cache that had a 4-star difficulty.

It was a multi-cache, in the woods, in which two stages were micro size. And one of those was really micro.

 

I got real sick of having to go out to that woods every other weekend to check on things because someone posted a no-find. I mean, it's a 4 star difficulty. According to the rating system, you are supposed to expect a half-day search for something like that. But it seemed some of these searchers were giving it a good solid 15 minutes or so.

We would get a no-find notification, go out to the woods in the next day or two, and there it was! Right where I put it!

 

After a summer of that nonsense, I disabled the cache. It wasn't worth it.

[+Team Perks]

My average of current, non-archived caches is 1.857 difficulty, and 1.976 terrain.

 

My cumulative total, including all active AND archivec caches is 2.213 difficulty, and 1.688 terrain.

 

It's interesting to see that after I moved and did a mass-archive of a bunch of my old caches, they're now on average easier to find, but harder to get to.

[+Renegade Knight]

My hides are all over the board from easy to difficult.

[+Isonzo Karst]

A lot of 2/2 walks in the woods to a decon or ammo can. A couple easy micros. A couple Evil urban micros. One 3/4 multi - it would be a 5 terrain right now, not that anybody's going after it. A couple longer hikes to standard hides, some wading.

The shorter walks in the woods get the most play. People like that 1/2 mile or less walk to a pretty spot and a standard hide. Me too.

[+budd-rdc]

I only have a handful of hides, and terrain-wise, 3 is the highest. As for difficulty, I have a few puzzle caches with 4 being the highest.

 

I don't worry about the ratings until after I come up with a theme and/or the location. Since I don't rock climb or kayak, it's unlikely you'll see any 5 star terrain caches from me in the near future.

[R & B Cache]

I rated this cache at 3 3 what do you all think should this be rated at.

 

Captain Stubblefields Hidden Cache

 

Not many are up to this challenge.

Edited August 5, 2005 by r@bcache

[+Miragee]

Any cache that has a '?' in front of it is automatically a '5' for me . . . .

[+Team Perks]

Any cache that has a '?' in front of it is automatically a '5' for me . . . .

Betcha this cache wouldn't be...

[+Miragee]

Yeah . . . but it would have that "T" for Traditional in my GPSr. The "Y's" for the real '?' are all ignored.

[+Ed_S]

I only have 5 caches out so far, and they vary in difficulty. Two are in a fairly urban park that has a great kid's playground. I wanted to bring people in to the park, so there's two to get instead of only one, and they're easy (1.5 and 1.5) so folks with kids can find them before the kids get frustrated. I have one that's a bushwhack through a wooded area with no trails, but it's flat. Swampy, in fact. I rated the difficulty 1.5 and the terrain 2. One is in a fairly wild area where there is a horse trail that will eventually take you to near the cache, but we all know what horse trails are like! <G> Some folks have bushwhacked to this one, but they found that they had to pick their way around a lake, through briars and brambles. I think I rated this one 2 difficulty and 2.5 for terrain. My last one is a multi in a park that has cliffs and chasms and narrow passages and lousy reception. I rated it 3 and 3, but I rated it for the easy, but long, trails between the stages. The moderate trails will get you where you need to go, but there are much shorter ways, if you're up for it. I've been told this one is very good.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...4f-a4c3497e16cc if anyone is in NE Ohio.

[+sept1c_tank]

Averaging 10 caches I find 1.95 Difficulty and 3.4 Terrain.

[+KKTH3]

Ah, not true - some puzzle caches are intended to be easy. Finding the coordinates for my Disc Discovery is not a problem at all - some can solve it's area without even going to the location if they know anything about the park it is in. Our other puzzle cache is a tad bit harder - DON'T PANIC: #15 - Heart Of Gold - but its got no one that has even come close to solving the proper coordinates for. I don't expect that anyone could, but I feel guilty of rating it so high because I have seen much more difficult puzzles rated far lower than mine.

 

As a foot note - the difficulty rating of the first cache is more due to the hide - it is a popular and well groomed park so camo was important to the hide. I probably would rate it a 3 in difficulty if it were just a traditional, but the point of the cache is to get people interested in the disc golf course in the park. The second hide is in a great place, but not as popular and very wild so its just a ammo box in plain sight at the base of a tree. All of its difficulty is in solving the puzzle.

[+KKTH3]

I type slow - my response was supposed to be several posts above

 

Anyway, even including my 2 puzzle caches, my difficulty averages 2.1 and terrain averages 1.6. I try to make a wide variety but for several personal reasons I do not place caches with a terrain over 2.5

Also, take away our 2 puzzle caches and we only have 3 caches rated with a difficulty over 2 - so I guess we are just softies overall anyway

 

Anyway, I enjoy the logs I get on our caches and I am glad it does give others something entertaining to do - and that is what is really important.

[YemonYime]

Right about 2.5/2.5 for me.

 

The terrain in my part of PA can be hilly, but not mountainous. You can expect hills in just about all of my hides. The one exception is my first mystery cache which was designed to be a real "thinker" to offset the easy walk.

[+Ambrosia]

I've got too many to give a range, except to say maybe 1/1 - maybe a 4 in terrain. My caches tend to be fairly easy to find once you get there. (Fairly).

[+Miragee]

That is the way mine are. I don't want to frustrate cachers by having devious, difficult hides. But there are some steep hikes to some of my caches, and at this time of the year, they are HOT, steep hikes.

 

Maybe I should change the difficulty depending on the temperature . . .

[Clan Riffster]

I'm still pretty new at this game, and my first 3 hides reflect my (then) level of inexperience. They are very easy hikes, very easy finds. After I got a few more caches under my belt, I decided to experiment with different types of camoflauge, and the resulting 6 containers were used in a series. These typically require a hike of about 1/2 mile one way, for each stage. I'd call all 5 stages, individually a 2/2.

 

I just finished setting up this cache:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...4c-77e91e5cd89f

(The Etch-O-Sketch Night Cache)

which involves a 1.5 mile hike, at night, following a reflector "trail" before you get to address it's puzzle aspect. The GC rating computer called it a 3/5, but I'd rate it a 2/3.