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What makes a 5 difficultly geocache


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So I've been looking all over for a 5/5 geocache in my area (Premium members if there are any 5/5 or just 5 difficulty caches in a 30 miles radius of Wilkes-Barre, PA please tell me :) ) and that got me thinking, what makes a cache so difficult in your opinion. Whether its a puzzle or just a good hiding spot, what makes it a 5 and not a 4 or a 3 in your opinion? Remember terrain the same for everyone but difficulty it is different for everyone.

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So I've been looking all over for a 5/5 geocache in my area (Premium members if there are any 5/5 or just 5 difficulty caches in a 30 miles radius of Wilkes-Barre, PA please tell me :) ) and that got me thinking, what makes a cache so difficult in your opinion. Whether its a puzzle or just a good hiding spot, what makes it a 5 and not a 4 or a 3 in your opinion? Remember terrain the same for everyone but difficulty it is different for everyone.

 

I disagree that terrain is the same for everybody. There are somethings I could do when I was in my 20's that my 60+ year old body can't.

 

There are some 5D difficulty caches that are just hidden so well that they are very hard to find. I solved the puzzle for a 5D cache. It took me over 3 months to finally solve it and from some of the other logs I read that was about typical. One way to tell if a traditional cache is legitimately a 5D cache is to look at the logs. Most of them should be DNFs. If not, it's probably overrated.

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So I've been looking all over for a 5/5 geocache in my area (Premium members if there are any 5/5 or just 5 difficulty caches in a 30 miles radius of Wilkes-Barre, PA please tell me :) ) and that got me thinking, what makes a cache so difficult in your opinion. Whether its a puzzle or just a good hiding spot, what makes it a 5 and not a 4 or a 3 in your opinion? Remember terrain the same for everyone but difficulty it is different for everyone.

I like to manage opinions by using the recommendedrating tool from Groundspeak (ClayJar tool).

 

If you rate via the tool, you'll be much more in line with other caches across the borders of this game. Then, to help in the decision (to form my "opinion"), I will look at the Help Center article about Difficulty and Terrain Ratings.

 

The green box in the Help Center article is an output guide from the inputs of the rating tool.

 

If a cache is "5* Difficult", I'd expect a tough puzzle, or a very very sneaky hide. This would mean much research and tinkering, or having to return to the cache site after many DNFs (which I log each visit).

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Remember terrain the same for everyone but difficulty it is different for everyone.

I disagree that terrain is the same for everybody. There are somethings I could do when I was in my 20's that my 60+ year old body can't.

I would say that terrain is the same for everybody, but how difficult it is for any particular person to negotiate that terrain varies. The terrain ratings for cache listings are based on criteria that generally aren't affected by physical fitness. For example, the criteria for a T4 cache...

Terrain is probably off-trail. Will have one or more of the following: very heavy overgrowth, very steep elevation (requiring use of hands), or more than a 10 mile hike. May require an overnight stay.

...are all objective characteristics that are independent of a cacher's physical fitness. Whether you're a frail 90-year-old or a super-fit 20-something, the cache still has "very heavy overgrowth, very steep elevation (requiring use of hands), etc.". A cache with a 10+ mile hike hidden by a marathon runner is still a T4, no matter how easy it is for that person to do such a cache.

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The definition of 5-star difficulty is "A serious mental or physical challenge. May require specialized knowledge or skills to find or open the geocache."

 

Most of the D5 caches that I've found have been extremely difficult puzzle caches. Most of those have been related to Venona's ACTIVITIES, which are intended for multiple people to solve collaboratively.

 

Others have required special equipment to find/retrieve the cache (unrelated to the terrain, which was generally quite easy), or have been challenge caches or series bonus caches, where the difficulty was based on the number of caches needed to complete the challenge/series.

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5 Difficulty, not 5 Terrain...

I've found a few. I've hidden a few. My hides have been described as: "Read the Dolphin's mind." Evil puzzles.

The finds can be described as 'evil' or 'nasty'. Evil puzzles. Read the CO's mind. Nasty? Nano glued to the bottom of a rock near a train station, with thirty feet of landscaping rocks. That's just nasty! Slightly less nasty: nano glued to the bottom of a rock in a non-muggle area, without a lot of rocks.

Ten stage multi. Frustrating. Evil, but not nasty.

Evil puzzles. (Okay. I've got a few of them...)

Evil puzzle. Easily Googled. Not sure what to think on that. I'd never have solved the puzzle, until I Googled it.

Ten-mile hike on a trail to various waypoints. Old cache. I Googled it. Easy cache and dash...

A moving cache that did not list the new coords. Happenstance.

And the most difficult I found: And the best! Fifteen stages. But what am I looking for at each stage?!? A suggestion from my brother was wrong, but lead me to the proper solution. That was evil, and great!!!!! Though I would not have rated it 5* for terrain, unless you walked between all the waypoints. We drove. That took us about six months to find. Truly evil! And great!

Then there was the event held on a workday. Rated 5* difficulty for having to take the day off from work. Severely over-rated.

What defines a true 5* difficulty? The difficulty in solving the puzzle or finding the cache. Working months to solve the puzzle. Many visits to the location to find the cleverly hidden cache.

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I've shied away from rating any of my caches as D5, mostly because I personally don't think my puzzles are THAT difficult and, to date, they have all been solved at least once via the proper method. I do have a few that languish unsolved for months on end...but I can't seem to bring myself to give them the maximum difficulty rating. The highest I'll go is 4.5.

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Most 5/5 caches aren't even 5/5 more like 3/5 or 5/3

I'm idly curious as to how you arrive at that conclusion.

 

Presumably you've found them all?

I see no need to nitpick the wording of their post. I can understand what they're saying just fine, and I suspect you do too.

 

I do agree that most 5/5s (at least the ones that I know of) are overrated on one or both of the ratings. They're usually either easier to find or easier to access then a 5 rating. For example, a 5/5 cache up a tree in my area is completely visible from the ground, so it should really be rated a 1/5, or maybe even a 1/4 or 1/4.5.

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Most 5/5 caches aren't even 5/5 more like 3/5 or 5/3

I'm idly curious as to how you arrive at that conclusion.

 

Presumably you've found them all?

I see no need to nitpick the wording of their post. I can understand what they're saying just fine, and I suspect you do too.

 

I do agree that most 5/5s (at least the ones that I know of) are overrated on one or both of the ratings. They're usually either easier to find or easier to access then a 5 rating. For example, a 5/5 cache up a tree in my area is completely visible from the ground, so it should really be rated a 1/5, or maybe even a 1/4 or 1/4.5.

 

Well you'll be pleased to know that I'm not nitpicking the wording of their post - and I'm sure they can answer for themselves :)

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Two were micros way up a tree. Two required multiple days to find.

 

And some were overrated, in my opinion. Add to that, sometimes the cache owners get the difficulty and terrain mixed up.

Most 5/5 caches aren't even 5/5 more like 3/5 or 5/3

 

A while ago noticed a few 5/5s among my finds. They were so unremarkable that I had to go back and look at the logs to see why they were 5/5. They weren't close to being a 5/5. A true 5/5 I think would be one of the most memorable caches I ever found.

 

I think there are probably about 20 true 5/5s in the world.

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Agreeing with those others that some/many rated D5 caches are not D 5. Most of the 20+ D5 I've found are D3 or lower.

 

Difficulty ratings expressed as time to find once at GZ, per Clayjar (who originated this system):

 

1 Easy. In plain sight or can be found in a few minutes of searching.

 

2 Average. The average cache hunter would be able to find this in less than 30 minutes of hunt.

 

3 Challenging. An experienced cache hunter will find this challenging, and it could take up a good portion of an afternoon. (several hours)

 

4 Difficult. A real challenge for the experienced cache hunter - may require special skills or knowledge, or in-depth preparation to find. May require multiple days / trips to complete.

 

5 Extreme. A serious mental or physical challenge. Requires specialized knowledge, skills, or equipment to find cache.

(T 5 references specialized equipment ~ the specialized equipment for a T5 is to arrive at the coords; the specialized equipment used to find the cache is used only once on site. "Specialized" is not a screw driver. Specialized is something the average person doesn't own, or will need some training to use.)

 

I think time needed to solve a puzzle is to be part of the Difficulty rating. A tough thing to quantify. I don't have many tough puzzle finds, and those I do have are because i saw the "way in" to the puzzle quickly.

 

These days, many challenge cache owners will rate their challenge 5/5 for the numbers of other finds required before you can sign their 1.5 / 1.5 hide. There's no good solution for that problem.

Edited by Isonzo Karst
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So I've been looking all over for a 5/5 geocache in my area (Premium members if there are any 5/5 or just 5 difficulty caches in a 30 miles radius of Wilkes-Barre, PA please tell me :) ) and that got me thinking, what makes a cache so difficult in your opinion. Whether its a puzzle or just a good hiding spot, what makes it a 5 and not a 4 or a 3 in your opinion? Remember terrain the same for everyone but difficulty it is different for everyone.

I like to manage opinions by using the recommendedrating tool from Groundspeak (ClayJar tool).

 

If you rate via the tool, you'll be much more in line with other caches across the borders of this game. Then, to help in the decision (to form my "opinion"), I will look at the Help Center article about Difficulty and Terrain Ratings.

 

The green box in the Help Center article is an output guide from the inputs of the rating tool.

 

If a cache is "5* Difficult", I'd expect a tough puzzle, or a very very sneaky hide. This would mean much research and tinkering, or having to return to the cache site after many DNFs (which I log each visit).

 

I used to believe in the Clayjar tool, but find that it, too, is extremely subjective. It is probably a good idea for beginners to use to get some idea of what the ratings mean, but of limited use compared to experience.

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So I've been looking all over for a 5/5 geocache in my area (Premium members if there are any 5/5 or just 5 difficulty caches in a 30 miles radius of Wilkes-Barre, PA please tell me :) ) and that got me thinking, what makes a cache so difficult in your opinion. Whether its a puzzle or just a good hiding spot, what makes it a 5 and not a 4 or a 3 in your opinion? Remember terrain the same for everyone but difficulty it is different for everyone.

I like to manage opinions by using the recommendedrating tool from Groundspeak (ClayJar tool).

 

If you rate via the tool, you'll be much more in line with other caches across the borders of this game. Then, to help in the decision (to form my "opinion"), I will look at the Help Center article about Difficulty and Terrain Ratings.

 

The green box in the Help Center article is an output guide from the inputs of the rating tool.

 

If a cache is "5* Difficult", I'd expect a tough puzzle, or a very very sneaky hide. This would mean much research and tinkering, or having to return to the cache site after many DNFs (which I log each visit).

 

I used to believe in the Clayjar tool, but find that it, too, is extremely subjective. It is probably a good idea for beginners to use to get some idea of what the ratings mean, but of limited use compared to experience.

Agreed. 10 years later I would say I have a very good grasp on D/T. I still like to check myself against the ClayJar ratings once in a while to keep my opinions in check. I've been pretty much right on or very close each time I've checked my work.

 

There have been many caches, however, where I leave thinking, "How did they get thatrating??" Most cases these caches are overrated, and in some cases very much underrated for its Difficulty rating.

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