High Difficulty Micros

September 12, 2006

I am working on putting together a level 5 difficulty plane site urban micro and am looking for good creative examples you may have found or put together. Also a small geocaching club I belong to has asked me to design a small book that we can pass out to members who are newer to caching. I am planning on including some basic cache designs and some cool creative ideas.

Thanks for the help.

Cheers!

September 12, 2006

Might find some good examples in these threads:

Creative CCC's

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=62421

Pictures of Containers

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=143604

Evil Caching

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=137516

2.4k · September 12, 2006

I am working on putting together a level 5 difficulty plane site urban micro

"plane site"? You mean like an airport? I don't think those are allowed :anibad:

Also a small geocaching club I belong to has asked me to design a small book that we can pass out to members who are newer to caching.

Thot's Beginner's Guide to Geocaching has a lot of good stuff in it.

20.7k · September 12, 2006

I think he means sites where planes took an alternative to standard landing practice. Many of these are on airport property, but not all.

15.3k · September 13, 2006

I am working on putting together a level 5 difficulty plane site urban micro and am looking for good creative examples you may have found or put together.

To me, this approach seems to be going about it backwards. It makes more sense to design a cache and then rate it, than to try to figure out how a cache can "earn" a certain rating.

With that said, a difficulty 5 hide should require "specialized knowledge, skills, or equipment to find [the] cache." One of the difficulty 5 hides I'm familiar with is a puzzle cache with a very difficult puzzle (specialized knowledge/skills definitely required). Another is in plain site, but is impossible to retrieve without special equipment; figuring out how to retrieve it and how to put it back is the interesting part of the cache. I doubt you could make a cache (of any size) a difficulty 5 hide with just camouflage.

September 13, 2006

With that said, a difficulty 5 hide should require "specialized knowledge, skills, or equipment to find [the] cache." One of the difficulty 5 hides I'm familiar with is a puzzle cache with a very difficult puzzle (specialized knowledge/skills definitely required). Another is in plain site, but is impossible to retrieve without special equipment; figuring out how to retrieve it and how to put it back is the interesting part of the cache. I doubt you could make a cache (of any size) a difficulty 5 hide with just camouflage.

Well, its not a 5 star, but it was rated a 4. I started with 2, by the way. Completely out in the open, wheelchair accessable even. And very few folks looking for it though I put it over a major freeway. Which is a bummer for me. But on the other hand, since its handled by so few cachers, its still as good as new.

GCQ9FZ

6.7k · September 13, 2006

I think he means sites where planes took an alternative to standard landing practice. Many of these are on airport property, but not all.

For what it's worth, my guess is that he meant in plain sight

While it is fairly easy to make a well-designed cache of almost any size a 5 Difficulty even in plain sight, making it also a 5 Terrain is something else.

I have seen some - Zaybex has one in Huntsville, Al. that lies on a bridge pylon in plain sight - but to get it you have to have a rope with a hook to lower down and snag it... so, it's in plain sight yet difficult to see, because you don't expect it there and look everywhere else first, and requires special equipment to retrieve.

Ed

20.7k · September 13, 2006

For what it's worth, my guess is that he meant in plain sight

I get you're right.

I have seen some - Zaybex has one in Huntsville, Al. that lies on a bridge pylon in plain sight - but to get it you have to have a rope with a hook to lower down and snag it... so, it's in plain sight yet difficult to see, because you don't expect it there and look everywhere else first, and requires special equipment to retrieve.

I really enjoyed Zaybex's caches. It's too bad that they're all archived.

September 13, 2006

I have a series of caches in Wisconsin called "NEMESIS". There are 10 caches in this series with verying degrees of difficulty from 3 stars to 5 stars. If you would like to e-mail me, I'd be glad to give you some examples. I can't post them here because I don't want to give them away to local cachers who frequent this board.

NEMESIS #1 Building Problems

NEMESIS #2 Not this Park Again!

NEMESIS #3 Are You Nuts?

NEMESIS #4 Not Again!

NEMESIS #5 The Cone of Silence

NEMESIS #6 Thor's Distant Relatives Burial Site

NEMESIS #7 Deja Vu... Almost

NEMESIS #8 Uhm Yeah!

NEMESIS #9 Playing Games (with your mind)

NEMESIS #10 Happy Trails

And another of my 5 stars:

Match Head