Cache Difficulty Rating

[Guest Giorgio]

I just placed an offset cache and am not sure about the difficulty rating. The difficulty is not so much about how to find the place but how to get the coordinates of it.

 

The seeker first has to sample the coordinates of three waypoints which I describe in words. The stash coordinates are obtained by finding the one place which is equidistant to all three waypoints. Knowing some trigonometry, this is easily calculated, but I am not sure how everybody thinks about this. Would be interested in your recommendations.

[Guest logscaler]

myself, I post the coordinates to the cache in the encryption log just in case something happens to a leg.

[Guest martinp13]

I just placed an offset cache that requires you to go into an amusement park to get the numbers needed to figure out the coordinates. I have no idea if people will really do this, but if no one does in a month, I'll just edit it and either add data or make it a regular cache.

 

I like "regular" caches, but I LOVE tricky ones that take time or require research.

[Guest Scout]

quote:

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Originally posted by martinp13:

I just placed an offset cache that requires you to go into an amusement park to get the numbers needed to figure out the coordinates

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I had toyed with the idea of placing a microcache on top of the observation tower at Six Flags.

[Guest Scout]

From another thread:

My personal system for terrain rating:

1 = handicapped accessible

2 = suitable for small children; generally on trail

3 = off trail; requires some risk of getting scratched, wet, or winded

4 = off trail; likelihood of getting scratched, wet and winded; probably requires special equipment (boat, 4WD, etc.)

5 = requires specialized equipment and knowledge/experience (rock climbing, SCUBA, etc.)

 

Markwell's difficulty rating is a good one:

1 - My five year old would stumble across it in his path

2 - A ten year old could probably figure it out without too much difficulty

3 - An average adult would be able to find this in about 30 minutes of hunting

4 - You might have to have some indepth knowledge or experience of the area or history

5 - Mensa or equivalent

[Guest Giorgio]

Okay. Taking Scout's list, my offset cache requiring some trigonometrical knowledge would maybe have a difficulty between 2 and 4.

 

The 10-year-old might just have learned that algebra lesson in school, while the adult has already forgotton all about it :-)

 

quote:

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Originally posted by Scout:

From another thread:

My personal system for terrain rating:

1 = handicapped accessible

2 = suitable for small children; generally on trail

3 = off trail; requires some risk of getting scratched, wet, or winded

4 = off trail; likelihood of getting scratched, wet and winded; probably requires special equipment (boat, 4WD, etc.)

5 = requires specialized equipment and knowledge/experience (rock climbing, SCUBA, etc.)

 

 

Markwell's difficulty rating is a good one:

1 - My five year old would stumble across it in his path

2 - A ten year old could probably figure it out without too much difficulty

3 - An average adult would be able to find this in about 30 minutes of hunting

4 - You might have to have some indepth knowledge or experience of the area or history

5 - Mensa or equivalent

 

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[Guest chipper]

quote:

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Originally posted by Scout:

I had toyed with the idea of placing a microcache on top of the observation tower at Six Flags.

 

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Sounds cool, but considering this private property you might run into some problems.

[Guest Markwell]

Actually...

 

What Scout didn't post was my ammendment.

 

quote:

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From Markwell

Cool - somebody read my rating system!!! But after seeing some of the caches in this area and searching a bit more, I think I might ammend level 3 difficulty to searching for 60 minutes. But I'm nitpicking.

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...and I think I'd like to ammend it further. I'm still troubled by the level 2. Any suggestions?

[Guest Moun10Bike]

quote:

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Originally posted by Markwell:

I'm still troubled by the level 2. Any suggestions?

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Maybe something along the lines of, "Hidden from view, but easily located in an obvious hiding spot (e.g. a hollow stump in a field, etc.)." Obviously, this needs some wordsmithing....

[Guest Markwell]

quote:

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Originally posted by Moun10Bike:

Maybe something along the lines of, "Hidden from view, but easily located in an obvious hiding spot (e.g. a hollow stump in a field, etc.)." Obviously, this needs some wordsmithing....

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I like it...

 

But then, with my rating for difficulty, I have never visited a difficulty 1 cache. Even the easiest are 2. I think that's what I don't like.

 

OK - Markwell's Revised difficulty rating

1 - Easy to find for the novice cacher or child, but not necessarily in plain sight

2 - Well hidden, but not so difficult as to be discouraging. May require some study of the area.

3 - An average adult would be able to find this in about 60-90 minutes of hunting (after parking the car)

4 - You might have to have some indepth knowledge or experience of the area or history, or the cache is particularly tricky (e.g. cache is hidden inside a fake stump - but that information is not given out on the web page or in the encrypted hints).

5 - Mensa or equivalent (examples: center of natural or man-made mazes; 12 part multi-stage cache in which you have to figure the great circle distance and bearing while hopping on one foot).

 

[This message has been edited by Markwell (edited 06 June 2001).]

[Guest Moun10Bike]

I like it! Something about 3 doesn't quite work for me, though. I think its because I don't know how I would go about explaining to someone the quantitative difference between a 2 rating and a 3 rating.

 

I know what you mean about there not actually being difficulty 1 caches (at least not going by your original definitions). The closest for me was one that I found at the base of a tree covered by some big slabs of bark. You could see it immediately when you walked around to that side of the tree.

 

One thing that you may want to incorporate into determining difficulty is signal quality in the area. For example, a cache at the base of a tall cliff under heavy tree cover will make the search harder. Of course, this could make the ratings too complex, and they could change depending on time of year and tree cover, etc. Just throwing out ideas.

[Guest Scout]

quote:

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Originally posted by Markwell:

OK - Markwell's Revised difficulty rating

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I think I liked your original difficulty rating better.

 

It was primarily based on age level or intelligence level, which is fairly easy to understand.

 

Your revised system uses a mixture of age, how well the cache is hidden, how long it takes to find, subjective measures like "particularly tricky" or "not discouraging", whether there are hints, etc. It just appears harder to apply than the original system did.

 

[This message has been edited by Scout (edited 06 June 2001).]

[Guest Markwell]

quote:

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Originally posted by Scout:

I think I liked your original difficulty rating better. It was primarily based on age level or intelligence level, which is fairly easy to understand. Your revised system uses a mixture of age, how well the cache is hidden, how long it takes to find, subjective measures like ?particularly tricky? or ?not discouraging?, whether there are hints, etc. It just appears harder to apply than the original system did.

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OK - I?m pretty easy to get along with. I?ll go back to my earlier version, but with some changes...

 

As I said in my revision post, most level ?1? caches that I?ve visited would actually fit in ?2? on my scale. In my old description, level ?1? caches would be right on the trail. I would therefore like to change my original difficulty 2 to the new difficulty of 1.

 

I?m not happy with the level 3 definition (which would now be 2?). I?ll compromise and change the number 2 (which used to be 3) back to 30 minutes instead of the revised 60-90 minutes.

 

For the description of Level 3, I recall the best one I?ve done: the Saw Wee Kee cache - http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=1912 The main path through the preserve dead-ended into a marsh about 500 feet from the cache, leaving me frustrated. Had I not kept an eye on my GPS on the return trip and stumbled upon an obscure side path, I never would have found the cache. My new level 3 difficulty: An experienced Geocacher will find this challenging, and it will take up a good portion of an afternoon.

 

The original difficulty 4 bothers me also. I think back to the example of a corn maze (farmers do that in Illinois to supplement their income in bad years). A hunter may have ?in-depth knowledge or experience of the area or history? ? but it wouldn?t help him in a maze. But s/he would also not need to equivalent of a Mensa card to solve the cache. I still want to include the fact that knowing the area or history might be necessary. So - new level 4 difficulty: An extreme challenge for the experienced Geocacher ? may require in-depth preparation or cartography/navigational skills.

 

I?ll leave 5 alone - the added texts in 4 and 5 were just my examples anyway. Better to leave it up to interpretation (?Constitution? vs. ?Laws?, see PoliSci 101)

 

Since I?m recalling the beta version of Markwell?s Difficulty Guidelines 2.0, this will be Markwell?s Difficulty Guidelines ver. 1.1

 

1 - A ten year old could probably figure it out without too much difficulty

2 - An average adult would be able to find this in about 30 minutes of hunting

3 - An experienced Geocacher will find this challenging, and it will take up a good portion of an afternoon.

4 - An extreme challenge for the experienced Geocacher ? may require in-depth preparation or cartography/navigational skills.

5 - Mensa or equivalent

 

Open to comments - please rip away!

Markwell

[Guest Scout]

enced Geocacher ? may require in-depth preparation or cartography/navigational skills.

5 - Mensa or equivalent

 

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Good job. Any kind of guideline here can only be helpful. As it is now, I pretty much disregard the difficulty rating because it varies all over the place. Terrain, on the other hand, is more predictable. Maybe with your lead, difficulty will be, too.

[Guest Moun10Bike]

quote:

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Originally posted by Markwell:

 

1 - A ten year old could probably figure it out without too much difficulty

2 - An average adult would be able to find this in about 30 minutes of hunting

3 - An experienced Geocacher will find this challenging, and it will take up a good portion of an afternoon.

4 - An extreme challenge for the experienced Geocacher ? may require in-depth preparation or cartography/navigational skills.

5 - Mensa or equivalent

 

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Great guidelines, Markwell! I think that they deserve to be the "standard" rating guide.

[Guest Markwell]

From your fingers to Jeremy's eyes (kinda like your mouth to God's ear - but no parallels between Jeremy and God).

 

I'd actually like to see something like this and Scout's Terrain Guidelines posted on the "Guide to Hiding a Cache" page, with the distinct caveat that these are guidelines that were discussed by Geocachers as suggestions.

 

Maybe put it up for debate so everyone else can shoot it down, nitpick it to death, and it will be something else for everyone to put in their two cents. OR maybe this is just the type of thing for the Geocaching Governing Body to decide...

 

Anyway, I hope this helps all.