Difficulty and Terrain Standards

[+Elsie412]

Where is it listed what the standards and guidelines are for placing geocaches in terms of degree of difficulty and the roughness of the terrain?

[Pup Patrol]

Where is it listed what the standards and guidelines are for placing geocaches in terms of degree of difficulty and the roughness of the terrain?

 

Help Center - Hiding a Geocache

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=19

 

1.16. Ratings for Difficulty and Terrain (D/T)

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=82

 

B.

[+L0ne.R]

Also, when filling out the submission form you will see links to the difficulty and terrain rating system.

 

Here's a screenshot:

 

 

[+ecanderson]

Speaking of which, I'm curious ...

 

At what point in the past did gc.com require that terrain 1.0 be a wheelchair accessible cache?

 

Back in 'the day', 1.0 was presumed to be flat, level ground to which a wheelchair could certainly roll with ease, but there was no assurance that the cache itself could be nabbed from a sitting position within a wheelchair. One always looked for the 'wheelchair accessible' attribute to make that final determination. Now, if attempting to place a cache using a 1.0 terrain, the system insists that you agree that the cache is wheelchair accessible, which it might or might not be in actual fact. That was the point of the availability of the separate attribute, which now seems rather redundant.

[+J Grouchy]

Speaking of which, I'm curious ...

 

At what point in the past did gc.com require that terrain 1.0 be a wheelchair accessible cache?

 

Back in 'the day', 1.0 was presumed to be flat, level ground to which a wheelchair could certainly roll with ease, but there was no assurance that the cache itself could be nabbed from a sitting position within a wheelchair. One always looked for the 'wheelchair accessible' attribute to make that final determination. Now, if attempting to place a cache using a 1.0 terrain, the system insists that you agree that the cache is wheelchair accessible, which it might or might not be in actual fact. That was the point of the availability of the separate attribute, which now seems rather redundant.

 

I don't know when, but I think there was likely a lot of grumbling about inaccuracy of terrain ratings, so the T1 was set aside to ensure that thought was given to the accessibility of the cache container.

 

Theoretically, a T5 cache could, in some cases, be considered "accessible". Plenty of handicapped folks are experienced kayakers...maybe even climbers with the right gear.

[+The A-Team]

At what point in the past did gc.com require that terrain 1.0 be a wheelchair accessible cache?

I'm not sure when they started requiring it (a reviewer or Lackey would probably have to answer that), but the D/T guidelines seemed to imply it at least as long ago as 2010. I browsed through older versions of the site but couldn't find any D/T guidance prior to the creation of the Help Center. If someone of a more advanced age remembers where there might have been such guidance on older versions of the site, feel free to look it up in the Wayback Machine and post a link here.

[+ecanderson]

Just wondered since I placed all of my 'series' caches quite some time ago, and didn't have to contend with this. Caches placed last year caused me to note the change.