GEOCACHING

Geocaching Ratings

There are two ratings for each cache: difficuly and terrain. The difficulty (1-5, 5 being the hardest) and terrain rating (1-5, 5 using specialist gear). Sounds easy .. but there are

Difficulty

Markwell's Difficulty Guidelines v1.1, which are:

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

Terrain

The Scout Scale:

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.)

Thanks to Scout, Markwell, and Brokenwing for their valuable input via the Geocaching Forums.

Links ...

Clayjar Geocache Rating System
http://www.clayjar.com/gcrs/
Tool for helping geocachers rate the overall and terrain difficulty of their hidden caches.

Newsgroups: sci.geo.satellite-nav Date: 2000/05/10
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&th=70c00fd66421ffdf&rnum=2
Dave Ulmer posts the first GPS Stash "log entry".
In this message thread we also find the first suggestion for a rating system for stashes.

Contact ...