which do you like

[vtwinspin]

what would you rather find a easy cache or one that take some real looking to find I like the chalenge of a one that takes some looking to find
just want to know because Im planning on planting some new caches just wondering how easy or hard they should be

[Lostby7]

So long as they are in La crosse, I like them really really hard.
😉

[Team Deejay]

It doesn’t really matter, but it seems that most of the really “hard” caches are placed in really boring locations, i.e. picnic shelters, small city parks, playgrounds, etc. I’d much rather have a 4 star terrain HIKE than a 4 star difficulty hide.
[rant mode on]
Most of the difficult hides are made that way by bad coordinates, tiny containers, and “needle-in-a-haystack” type hides. We all love clever hides, but they only comprise maybe 10% of the “hard” caches that I have found. The typical “hard” cache is a nano hidden in a fence with 10000 possible openings and coordinates that put GZ 100 feet away from the nearest point on the fence. Oooh, what fun! After people place such a cache, then, because they know its hard, they don’t bother to respond to DNF logs or post maintenance notes, because it is just too much trouble check after every DNF.
[rant mode off]

If you are not willing to continuously check on your caches as they get DNFed, don’t place hard caches. Find a spot you want to share and place a normal cache there. People will thank you for it.

Bottom line: Place the kind of caches that you enjoy finding. Maybe your neighbors will copy you and then you will have more caches to find that you like.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

We all have our own take on these things. We’re more like Team Deejay, bring on the 4+ terrain first. We love a cache that takes us to a place with some kind of uniqueness; a great view on top of the bluff, an interesting historical spot, long and challenging treks to get to the cache. As to difficulty, we like a challenge, but not so hard that it takes us hours or repeat trips. Gas isn’t cheap these days! 😉 That said, a truly unique hide is okay by us. Those bolt ones are pretty cool and especially tough when a cacher encounters one for the first time. We’ve done plenty of 4+ difficulty caches, too. Just don’t make them so impossible that frustrated cachers start wrecking the area in desperation. We’ve seen our share of that and this is just our opinion, but when that happens, it reflects poorly on the caching community as a whole.

We really enjoyed those Heritage series that you placed, for instance. Figuring out the hides or the puzzle was challenging and we learned some things about the area we live that we hadn’t known before.

I know there are Coulee Region cachers who are reading your post and thinking, “Oh no!” But plant away…we’ll curse and rant but we’ve found every one of them in the end! 😆

[jenhen1]

A difficult journey culminated by an easier, interesting/scenic find. I like those best. I love clever hides that are somewhat difficult, like the “Bridge to the Past” cache up here in Eau Claire, but the micro in a rock pile can be somewhat irritating. Easy finds in a non-descript location are just that…easy and non-descript. To us, the more difficult the journey and uniqueness of the final location is the most rewarding type of cache.

[Buy_The_Tie]

@jenhen1 wrote:

…but the micro in a rock pile can be somewhat irritating.

I would say extremely irritating.

[rogheff]

How about avoiding the types of hides you don’t like. There, that’s simple enough.

I like ALL types of caches. Hide them all.

[3 Hawks]

@Buy_The_Tie wrote:

@jenhen1 wrote:

…but the micro in a rock pile can be somewhat irritating.

I would say extremely irritating.

AND HOW and AMEN!!!

[3 Hawks]

@rogheff wrote:

How about avoiding the types of hides you don’t like. There, that’s simple enough.

I like ALL types of caches. Hide them all.

Sounds easy, but many people don’t list the size of the cache and/or don’t really provide any information that could be used to weed out offending caches.

[PCFrog]

I like geocaching for the trips to new places and for the short to long hikes, and finding the cache is that extra reward. That’s why I generally think finding a cache should not exceed about a ten minute search. Taking a nice walk in the woods or a park is nice and relaxing but can be downplayed by spending 1/2 hour searching 30 foot radius for a cache. Granted I have my more difficult caches but a majority of mine are really easy to find. My point of the cache was to bring the cacher to a new place and have them FIND a cache in the end.

[labrat_wr]

@Team Deejay wrote:

Most of the difficult hides are made that way by bad coordinates…..

IMHO, I think that this is the biggest pet peeve of alot of cachers.
Without people placing caches, the sport suffers, but with people placing caches with bad coordinates, the sport suffers. I understand that not every cacher that places a cache can take an average of coordinates over days and days to take into account the weather, the atmospheric conditions, the satellites etc. What we can do is take a couple of readings, walk some distance away and come back, a couple of times to get within a couple of seconds as accuracy/signal strength may vary from time to time. I don’t know about everyone but it feels good to me when someone logs that the coords are right on.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[gotta run]

A difficult journey culminated by an easier, interesting/scenic find.

Yes! Hides that take us to out of the way places–that’s what we thought this game was all about when we got started. Friends took us to a few woods hides and we were hooked. We then began to tackle caches near our home and went to our first P&R and thought….what the heck is this? What’s the point? After time we came to realize the game has a little something for everyone and we in fact included a dead-ender in our Sunday Drive series, and we’ve found our share too. But we’ve also passed on several 1/1 micros even on caching days becuase it just didn’t pay to stop and particularly since kids get absolutely nothing out of signing a log in a matchstick holder.

Please–no micros in rock piles or bison tubes in the middle of pine trees! And if the challenge is the journey, make sure the cache can be (reasonably) easily found when you get there and that the cache type/container does justice to the setting.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[rogheff]

There’s a reason we have a ratings system. A 4 star difficulty cache is not supposed to be easy to find. Why do people get upset when they can’t find it in 4 minutes (or three visits for that matter)? When I hunt a 3-5 star difficulty cache, I expect to have a difficult search ahead. I may even have to return several times. Don’t like 4 star hides? Don’t seek 4 star hides.

There’s a reason the system allows me to not tell you the size. That cache is designed to surprise you in the end. If I told you that you were looking for a dustbuster hanging on a tree, would you feel the same when you found it? Don’t like Unknown cache listings? Don’t seek unknown caches.

Is the long, beautiful hike that takes you to a scenic location in search of a regular cache, really worth the effort if all you find is a musty peanut butter jar, filled with moldy MacToys and an unusable log, in the end?

And lastly, those who don’t hide caches do not understand the difficulty it takes to get good coords. Interestingly, the gripe over bad coords has grown in the past year with the introduction of newer, more accurate GPSrs. Guess what, if a cacher uses an older model that isn’t terribly accurate, then the coords he/she comes up with are as good as it gets. Stop following the arrow down to the inch and just start looking for the thing!

Hide some caches, get the coords as accurate as you can. Then when you think your cache is perfect, have people berate it. Worse, have it stolen. You’ll see it’s not as easy as you assume.

To summarize: Play your own way

[PCFrog]

@rogheff wrote:

There’s a reason we have a ratings system. A 4 star difficulty cache is not supposed to be easy to find. Why do people get upset when they can’t find it in 4 minutes (or three visits for that matter)? When I hunt a 3-5 star difficulty cache, I expect to have a difficult search ahead. I may even have to return several times. Don’t like 4 star hides? Don’t seek 4 star hides.

I agree, the issue is looking for a 1 or 2 star and four people can’t find it. Half the time it is due to someone having wrong cords but other is because they took a camouflage film container hid it in a huge pile of dead trees and rates it as a 1 or 2 difficulty. Then the hint says dead tree. Not only is there a pile of dead trees but 25 others lying around in 30 foot radius.

[labrat_wr]

@labrat_wr wrote:

I don’t know about everyone but it feels good to me when someone logs that the coords are right on.

Perhaps this was misread: I meant that it feels good to me whan someone logs that the coordinates posted on a cache I have placed are right on.
(I may not have as many hides as some but I would hope that with even an older model GPSr that the coords could be better than 60-80 feet off)

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

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