Wheelchairs to SCUBA Gear
I'm going caching with a friend tomorrow, and she's got a cast on her foot. We need to look for caches that will be reachable for her. I went online to do some searching for low-terrain caches that neither of us have found, and one I was looking at in particular reminded me about this topic.
Every geocache has a Difficulty rating, and a Terrain rating. These each go from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest). On the geocaching web page, these ratings are shown as stars:
This cache is a 2 Difficulty and a 2 Terrain
but on my iPhone app, they are boxes:
In other places I've seen them as only the numbers: 2/2
Difficulty
A Difficulty 1 is something that is easily seen without searching, easy to get to, and easy to actually get it in your hand and open it. I recently found a cache that was an ammo can in someone's front yard that I saw as I drove up to park alongside it--pretty easy :)
On the other end, is the Difficulty 5 category. I don't have too many of these yet, but I'm working on it :) A Difficulty 5 would be a cache that is so well-camouflaged you really need to search carefully for it. It could be one that might have a very intricate way of actually opening the container. Another common D5 involves solving a very difficult puzzle to get the correct coordinates before you can even begin to search for it!
A cache rated in the middle somewhere, might not actually be that difficult to get to or to open. It could instead be in a very busy location where there are constantly other people around prohibiting you from simply retrieving the cache and signing the log. You will have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to make the grab :)
Terrain
Terrain ratings are based on how easy or difficult it is to physically get to the correct coordinates of a cache.
A Terrain 1 should be wheelchair-accessible, so will probably be adjacent to a sidewalk or some other kind of pavement, and should be within the reach of someone in a wheelchair.
A container hanging in a bush next to a sidewalk waist-high would be a T1 as long as you didn't have to reach in very far.
A T5 is something that will require special equipment to get to it, such as Scuba gear to retrieve an underwater cache. I have a few T5 finds which were on islands only accessible by boat--the boat being the special equipment.
Here's a link to Groundspeak's handy chart that says all that and more:
With all that said...
So here's the catch: different people have different ideas of what those ratings mean.
I am an overweight 40-something with arthritis in my knees. Generally, if the T rating is accurate, I can't do anything 3.5-4.5 because I'm just not physically able. I might look at a cache page for a 2/4 cache (2 Difficulty, 4 Terrain), but there would have to be something very peculiar about it for me to actually go attempt it. Like maybe the T rating changes according to the time of year. During the summer, you might have to wade through a swamp, but in the winter it's a dry path. I would wait until winter to try it.
A healthy 22-yr-old might think a mile hike followed by climbing a tree to retrieve a cache is not that hard and give it a 1.5/1.5 rating. Someone like me might give it a try and end up frustrated and (silently) cursing that cache ;)
The lesson is, READ THE CACHE PAGE! Look at the description. I was looking at the page for a cache down near Orlando, and it was listed as a 2/2. The description started with something like "Very nice hike in the park that will take you on a 6-mile loop." Um, no thanks. Until I build up my stamina a bit more, a hike on a well-maintained even path is a challenge if it's more than 2-3 miles.
Also READ THE LOGGED VISITS to see what former finders (or not-finders) have said about the cache. Usually there will be very good information, like "Bring your boots, you're going to get wet", or "I couldn't handle this climb", or "Easy park and grab". Granted, you still have to take it all with a grain of salt, because everyone's different in ability and experience. Easy and Hard are very subjective.
The older caches tend to have wildly varying D/T ratings because as I understand it, there wasn't a consistent guideline. Everyone was just kind of winging it. At some point Groundspeak made that handy-dandy chart I linked above, and that's helped give a better picture of what you're getting into with a particular cache. Of course nothing is 100%.
I started writing this blog post because one of the caches I was looking at for my friend and me to try tomorrow was a 1.5/1.5 cache. When I looked at the information on the page, the description didn't really say much, but the logs were very helpful. Several people pointed out that not only are the coordinates off by about 50 feet, but the cache is actually about 7 feet off the ground. My friend definitely won't be able to retrieve it, and it's questionable if I can (I'm pretty short). That cache has now been stricken from my list.
If you ever hide a geocache, try to think about all geocachers who might search for it. Give your cache as accurate of a rating as you can based on that guideline and everyone will enjoy it a lot more :)
D/T 1/1
Cache Count: 1605
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