Rating of Caches

[wzbt03]

This appears to be one area where each cacher has a wide varience on what makes a cache “how many stars”.
I think that if you are within a tenth of a mile and the walk is one any 10 year old could do – then its a 1 star terrain. If the hide can be found rather easy and does not require an extra clever discovery to get it – then the difficulty should be 1 star.
I think many caches are way overrated on the terrain. There really should only be a handful of caches in Wisconsin with a rating over 3 stars.
The difficulty is a bit high on some and a bit low on others. I think this serves more like a barometer on telling the cacher whether they have a good chance of solving it and find the cache or not.
I have done some caches that are 20 feet from the parking hidden under some sticks with a rating of 3 and 3 which makes no sense at all.
How about a little input from the rest of you?

[Cathunter]

I use the rating questionaire that is recommended by geocaching.com. It can be found at http://www.clayjar.com/gcrs/ .

I agree that there are a few existing caches that are overated. Can’t think of any that were underated, but when caching I never really look anyway.

The first cache I ever found was a 4/4 and if I had noticed I probably would have never hunted it when I was still so green. Looking back, I think it deserved the rating too.

[Buy_The_Tie]

I have done some geocaching in other states, and what I’ve found is that the “star” rating system seems to be a function of the regional terrain. I hunted some caches out on the plains of Oklahoma that to me seemed WAY overrated. I’ve also hunted some caches in a canyon in Texas that seemed WAY underrated to me.

[Ray]

Ah…. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Cache ratings are in the eye of the hider. Trudy & I have learned that we need to know the cache owner to make any sense of the ratings.

The only real gripe that I might have with others ratings is that a 1 on terraine should mean wheelchair accessable.

[Cachew]

I use the rating questionnaire listed above by Cathunter. It is the same one found on geocaching.com when you are registering a hide.

I agree with the Beast about a Terrain of 1 should be wheelchair accessible. Also, see this HandicapAccessibility Guideline Generator, supported by many state caching associations: http://www.britishideas.com/geocaching/handicap.php

Here are two accessible hides: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=44570 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=91819

[Cachew]

By the way, see this for adding additional and explanatory notes to your hide: http://www.texasgeocaching.com/selector.asp

[sbukosky]

The difficulty rating system has not been modified since inception and is long overdue for a change. For example, when I placed Lowes Lake #1, you needed a 4X4 to get to the parking lot and hike though several inches of snow, so I rated it a 4.5 for terrain as a five indicates special equipment needed. Well, a 4X4 and snowshoes is special equipment. However, after the thaw, the difficulty goes way down and I will change it.

The flaw is, how many people are willing to adjust their caches seasonally or should it be necessary? Do we post difficulty based on how it would be in July and just assume that all will be tough in January?

I think we all know that hiking in the winter will be tough without skis or snow shoes but perhaps the cache pages need to metion how snow cover will affect the cache, such as Winter Friendly or Not Winter Friendly. While on that topic, A sore spot of mine is not knowing if Kanook is welcomed when I head to a cache.

Many of these suggestions have been posted on geocaching.com discussion but seldom is a response made, which infuriates me.

[Author]

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