Adventure Lab Bonus caches with high Terrain ratings

[+Ms Maddy]

Hoping a lackey can answer my query.
 

I’ve encountered two AL ‘Bonus Caches’ that require the player to log the lab cache to obtain the coords for the bonus cache - BUT the bonus cache has turned out to be high terrain and/or require specialised equipment - and was not accessible to everyone who completed the lab cache. Certainly not to me.
 

Now, my definition of a ‘bonus’ is a reward. In this case for completing the lab cache. So, why are COs permitted to publish mystery caches, flagged as a Bonus Cache, that many players would not be able to claim a find on? 
 

The two caches in question should be Mystery caches not attached to a lab cache, or listed as a bonus/reward. That’s my take on it. 
 

What are your thoughts?
 

[+Max and 99]

30 minutes ago, Ms Maddy said:

I’ve encountered two AL ‘Bonus Caches’ that require the player to log the lab cache to obtain the coords for the bonus cache

Not allowed (I'm a regular person, though). 

 

31 minutes ago, Ms Maddy said:

BUT the bonus cache has turned out to be high terrain and/or require specialised equipment - and was not accessible to everyone who completed the lab cache. Certainly not to me.

I think that's a crappy thing to do, but I can't think of any guideline it violates. However, HQ does not encourage bonus geocaches for Adventure Labs, something to keep in mind. 

[+barefootjeff]

2 hours ago, Ms Maddy said:

So, why are COs permitted to publish mystery caches, flagged as a Bonus Cache, that many players would not be able to claim a find on? 

 

I have the opposite situation with one of my ALs. The AL itself is a pretty tough hike and if ALs had terrain ratings it would be a 4, but the bonus cache is close to the parking area and is rated terrain 2. I didn't really have much choice in the matter, as the AL is about a shipwreck on the water's edge but the only road runs along the top of the ridge, so to get to the wreck from the road you have to do the tough hike down and back up. All that is in a national park and I didn't want to go through the hassles of getting the bonus cache approved in the park so it's in a public reserve between the park and the road.

 

There's also a multi I have where getting to the three virtual waypoints would be terrain 1 but the hike to the final is terrain 4, and conversely some mulits where reaching the waypoints is tough but the final is easy to access. It's how the lay of the land worked out in setting the elements for those caches. There's not much difference between a virtual-waypoint multi and an AL-plus-bonus, except you also get smileys for the AL stages, so the same arguments should apply to both.

 

I've never really much liked the concept of AL bonus caches as they're really two very different experiences. Ultimately it's up to the CO how they set the various tasks for each component, so I guess if you don't like it, don't do it.

[Keystone]

I split the above posts into a separate thread because the question was off-topic to the thread where the posts were made originally.

[+The A-Team]

8 hours ago, Ms Maddy said:

I’ve encountered two AL ‘Bonus Caches’ that require the player to log the lab cache to obtain the coords for the bonus cache - BUT the bonus cache has turned out to be high terrain and/or require specialised equipment - and was not accessible to everyone who completed the lab cache. Certainly not to me.

 

Even if it was a T1.5, it wouldn't be accessible to someone in a wheelchair. Do all bonus caches need to be forced to T1 like events in order to be fully-inclusive of everyone?

 

What if the bonus is missing? Is the Adventure-completer still entitled to log the find anyway because they "deserve" the extra find after doing the Adventure?

 

These caches are just like any other puzzle or multi where something needs to be done to get the final coordinates. There's no requirement that caches be available to every possible cacher, and nobody needs to find every cache. If it's beyond your comfort or abilities, just don't go for it.

 

Your post implies that the terrain rating on the bonus listing is misleading and the difficulty of access isn't clear until after completion of the Adventure. I would say that the bonus listing should be accurate about the experience, possibly even clearly stating the challenge that will be required, so potential Adventure-seekers can decide beforehand if they want to participate. It would be pretty lame if they're listing it as T2 and it turns out to be down the side of a cliff.

[+arisoft]

12 hours ago, Ms Maddy said:

Now, my definition of a ‘bonus’ is a reward.

 

You already got 4 "found rewards" when completed all 5 lab stages.

 

Bonus generally means a cache that requires information from other caches. Coordinates to the bonus are the "reward" but you must still find the cache to get reward from the find. The terrain ratings and attributes should inform you whether the cache is for you or not.

[+JL_HSTRE]

Since ALs have no D/T rating it's not easy to compare the AL and the Bonus. But if you were to place 4 Traditionals and 1 Bonus that gets the coordinates from those Traditionals there's no requirement there that all caches have similar ratings.

 

The bigger question, one of philosophy rather than Guidelines, is why someone would place an easy access AL but difficult Bonus? What is the CO motivation?

 

I can imagine places it could make sense. For example, at a nature preserve, the 5 AL stops are on the ADA nature trail, but the bonus cache is located on another trail.

[+arisoft]

1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

The bigger question, one of philosophy rather than Guidelines, is why someone would place an easy access AL but difficult Bonus? What is the CO motivation?

 

High T makes maintenance easier because there are less finders. Lab caches are generally maintenance free. A "maintenance free" bonus is a good addition.

[+barefootjeff]

4 hours ago, arisoft said:

Lab caches are generally maintenance free.

 

That's not been my experience. Amongst the four I created, I've had signs go missing multiple times (enough for me to archive two of them), another sign that faded into being unreadable, a small tree that fell across and covered a plaque and a landslip that blocked access to a location. My ALs have been more of a maintenance headache than most of my physical caches.

[+GeoElmo6000]

On 6/16/2025 at 3:35 AM, Ms Maddy said:

BUT the bonus cache has turned out to be high terrain and/or require specialised equipment

 

The terrain and difficulty of the bonus cache should have been immediately obvious to you because the bonus cache would be a mystery cache with terrain and difficulty ratings.  I'm unclear why you were surprised about these ratings.

[+Goldenwattle]

8 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

 

The terrain and difficulty of the bonus cache should have been immediately obvious to you because the bonus cache would be a mystery cache with terrain and difficulty ratings.  I'm unclear why you were surprised about these ratings.

If the rating was correct yes, but often the ratings aren't. Some people set their caches at 1.5D/T regardless of difficulty or specialised equipment, such as fishing pole. I get annoyed turning up to a 1.5D/T cache to find a pole is needed.

[+Calypso62]

27 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

If the rating was correct yes, but often the ratings aren't. Some people set their caches at 1.5D/T regardless of difficulty or specialised equipment, such as fishing pole. I get annoyed turning up to a 1.5D/T cache to find a pole is needed.

 

FYI - From the NSW Reviewer Wiki page......

Pole "Fishing" caches

GCHQ has advised that a fishing "pole"  is not considered to be specialised equipment and, as the finder is standing on the ground beneath the cache, the terrain rating is that of the land traversed to get to the finders standing position. The difficulty is the challenge of locating, retrieving and then replacing the container

[+Goldenwattle]

58 minutes ago, Calypso62 said:

The difficulty is the challenge of locating, retrieving and then replacing the container

VERY difficult without that pole. In fact I have seen people make a climb instead.

[+arisoft]

4 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

VERY difficult without that pole. In fact I have seen people make a climb instead.

 

I know that some FTF finds are made by climbing a straight branchless tree because the finder has no pole.

For me, terrain 5 means a cache that is impossible for majority of cachers to reach using only two legs and two hands.

[+Goldenwattle]

4 hours ago, arisoft said:

 

I know that some FTF finds are made by climbing a straight branchless tree because the finder has no pole.

For me, terrain 5 means a cache that is impossible for majority of cachers to reach using only two legs and two hands.

Exactly! Good description of fishing caches. 'impossible for majority of cachers to reach using only two legs and two hands.' Needs a tool.

[+GeoElmo6000]

9 hours ago, Calypso62 said:

 

FYI - From the NSW Reviewer Wiki page......

Pole "Fishing" caches

GCHQ has advised that a fishing "pole"  is not considered to be specialised equipment and, as the finder is standing on the ground beneath the cache, the terrain rating is that of the land traversed to get to the finders standing position. The difficulty is the challenge of locating, retrieving and then replacing the container

 

That's what I was trying to tell my reviewer when I published this cache but he made me make it a T5 cache.

 

 

[+baer2006]

12 hours ago, Calypso62 said:

The difficulty is the challenge of locating, retrieving and then replacing the container

... and because of that, the D rating should be high. In fact, many fishing caches are D5 around here, many more are D4 or D4.5, and only very few have neither a high D nor T rating (which I think is a bad idea - I still assume that low (<= 3) D/T should be doable alone, without any bulk equipment).

[+barefootjeff]

7 hours ago, baer2006 said:

... and because of that, the D rating should be high. In fact, many fishing caches are D5 around here, many more are D4 or D4.5, and only very few have neither a high D nor T rating (which I think is a bad idea - I still assume that low (<= 3) D/T should be doable alone, without any bulk equipment).

 

I recently placed a tree-fishing cache, GCB5Y4Z, which is only 5 metres up (the highest secure hanging point I could find in the vicinity where I wanted to place it) so I rated it D3. It has the special tool required and no tree climbing required attributes set, the standard way of indicating tree-fishing here, and is called Mt Ettalong Treefish so there should be no doubt that it's a tree-fishing cache. There's plenty of fallen deadwood in the vicinity, so at that height it probably wouldn't be too hard to find something lying around that could be used to hook it down and put it back if someone didn't have a pole.

 

Looking at my tree-fishing finds, I see one 2.5/1.5 that was probably 6 or so metres up and a 3/2 also at about 6 metres. Quite a few I've done at intermediate heights (6 to 8 metres) have been rated difficulty 3.5, with one at 10 metres rated difficulty 4.5.