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I had a great little walk yesterday in the area of the above cache and Swelltor Quarry. It was warm and sunny. I went for 9 caches and none of them were in anyway hard, so it was a easy afternoon caching. So seeing the area seems to be full of easy caches (but there may be more dificult ones towards fourwinds that I have not found yet) I thought I just had to place a more difficult cache and found just the spot and far enough from other caches in the area. I placed the cache at TERRAIN 4 AND DIFFICULTY OF 3.5 after looking at what geocaching.com advise on the site I have reduced it by .5 on both Terrain and Difficulty. It would be nice to hear from people if they think some ratings are too high. I do like the ratings to be high its good for my graph. But a 5/5 would have to be very difficult and require special tools, over night stay, well have a look at the geocaching.com website and that will tell you more.
Hope you will all find the Coffin stone and I hope I do when I go and log my FTF in a minute, no sorry I ment to say to check the cache from time to time.Oh! this opens up a can of worms and is one of my favourite hobbyhorses!
First your cache, impossible really to give an opinion before attempting to find, but having looked on the OS map it is less than a km from a road and only a few yards from the old railway track. How that can ever be more than terrain 2 I can’t possibly think. The railway track by definition is flat and you can easily cycle there. The last few yards do not count as far as terrain ratings go, so even a 2 might be high. The nearby caches are all 1.5 or 2. As for difficulty, if no special equipment is needed and it can be found in less than 30 minutes it can’t be more than 2. So a 2/2 would seem fair sitting at my computer, rather than walking around the railway track at Kings Tor 🙂Generally though, for some reason many cachers want to overrate their caches. Probably because they think it makes a better cache and more people will want to find it. Certainly it helps to fill the grid, but if it’s not genuine then who are you kidding? In my opinion it is difficult to rate any cache on Dartmoor as more than a terrain 4 rating. The following is required for terrain 4 “Experienced outdoor enthusiasts only. (Terrain is probably off-trail. Will have one or more of the following: very heavy overgrowth, very steep elevation (requiring use of hands), or more than a 10 mile hike. May require an overnight stay.)” For terrain 5 it requires the following: Requires specialized equipment and knowledge or experience, (boat, 4WD, rock climbing, SCUBA, etc) or is otherwise extremely difficult.
So which caches on Dartmoor have a genuine terrain 5 rating? The only one I have found all I needed was a pair of wellingtons – hardly specialised equipment. I’ve not done it, but I understand that Satan’s Pit is one of the most difficult on Dartmoor, even that is only rated 4/4. I expect there will be many who disagree with the above, but remember, the ratings only have a range of 1 to 5 and that is to cover every cache on this planet! (plus the one on the space station!)
I would say that there are not any caches on Dartmoor that warrant a 5/5 rating.
I have attempted 4 hard caches this year (not on Dartmoor). Gallows Gate (GC2HVKK) 3/4 rating, Seven quarries (GC3E0R7) 3/4.5 only three finds since being listed on 6th march, Little Everest 4.5 /5 (GC2EQ12) no finds this year. And the Worms turned 1.5/4 (GCPEV9) – one find this year, the first two were a success the last two not. I can’t think of any cache on Dartmoor to match these for terrain rating (unless anyone knows different, i’d love to try any).Dave I aggree with most of what you have said, but before you can pass any comment on Coffin Stone you should go off and find it if you are able to get to it, you should do.
Satan’s pit is the hardest Dartmoor one I’ve done. The puzzle took me three days, the walk 10 minutes, the cache another 10 minutes. But I got very very wet and cold!
As argued elsewhere, I think 2 for everything under 30 minutes is absurd but no point repeating the same ground.
Incidentally, I’m in Cornwall at the moment. I refused to try two caches because they were right on a steeply sloping grass bank above a 400′ cliff. Ok, I’m a bit of a wuss where heights are concerned, and I know others have found them, but these are only 2/4 and 5/3.5 respectively. (The latter requires three DNF’s before you can log, a copy of Hobo and Miss’s). I think they’re rated well, just not for me…
Adrenaline? You can keep it…
There is at least one Dartmoor cache worthy of its 5/5 and that is Muddypuddles GC28Q1K, Great Scientists: Albert Einstein. At the time I rated it as 15/15 but that was mean’t to be a joke!
Normally if I can climb it at my age its terrain rating cannot be a 5. I have done a 5/5 which I would have rated 2.5/2.5 the only equipment needed being a torch and it could be found without even looking at the puzzle to work out where to go.
On a serious note, I agree with Dave’s comments on this subject except for his interpretation of the length of time it might take to find caches of the various ratings. I am too impatient to look for much over 15 mins.nowhere on Dartmoor is worth a terrain of 5 unless at a bottom of a lake or underneath a viaduct.
But we all have our own views, thats what makes life worth living we are all different.When it comes to difficulty it is not only time looking for the actual cache that needs to be taken into account. Sometimes there is a puzzle that takes days rather than minutes. Sometimes it also takes some time to work out how to actually reach the location and where to park.
but nowhere on Dartmoor is worth a 5 Terrain, sand us Dartmoor lovers love getting on Dartmoor and do not like puzzles. Who want to sit at home doing puzzles when you could be out on Dartmoor unless its raining.
I agree with Miss re the time factor on puzzle caches, the 30 minutes is in the guidelines but only applies to traditional caches and similar types. I also very much agree with StationMaster on puzzle caches. My statistics on the 2011 caches show how unpopular they are, especially the very difficult ones. They appeal to a very small audience which is a shame considering the effort that has been put into some of them.
In particular, muddypuddles Great Scientist series were, in my opinion , far too difficult and resulted in very few finds. I worked out 3 of them but really can’t be bothered with the rest. Which is a shame as I am sure the caches are very worthwhile finding especially if they are as good as Hobo suggests. I did think I might try to work out some of them in the dark winter nights, but devoted my time to generating this web site instead! I much prefer his Dartmoor Forest series, which is where I was both Tuesday and Thursday (not that I’ve seen StationMaster’s name on any of the logs!)
I could only accept the Station Masters comment about 5 terrain on Dartmoor if he had found GC28Q1K and also thought it wasn’t a 5.
I’ve just looked up GC28Q1K and it does appear to be a superb cache. However, it’s only ever been found 9 times and not at all in the last 16 months (doesn’t that qualify it for something!) It seems to me that if you are going to create a really good physical cache, it’s rather counter productive to make the puzzle too difficult as too few people will experience the delights (or otherwise) of your work.
You should be seeing my name on more logs on Dartmoor Dave, for 4-5 years I have only been able to get out into the moor for a mile due to health problems. But a couple of days ago I was out into the moor a little further.
back in 98-99 I remember my best walk to Cut Hill and FurTor. So I hope to be out there soon again.off to find Satins pit, the terrain should really be tuff according to the rating. I am ready for swimming, diving, climbing and a long hike, I hope I get one of these. But what I have seen I will just have to wade into a old mine.
Difficulty ratings are pointless. What one person finds easy another finds hard and vice versa. I solved most scientist caches (Robert Hooke is in my opinion by far the most difficult one of the lot) in a few minutes and struggle to make anything of far lower rated ones – especially cryptic ones. And with these new challenge style caches the difficulty rating makes even less sense.
Terrain ratings are a bit more straightforward although I think I disagree with Einstein being a 5 as we didn’t really need any special equipment for it (actually that goes for the Code breaker V: Cryptology as well) .
As for Dave’s comments that the last few yards don’t matter. Something hidden 40 ft up a tree next to the road should be a terrain 1.5?
I was going to start a new topic – Worse Caches Ever! but have posted it here for the time being as we are discussing ratings. Do take a look at this GC1G142 and read the logs (including mine). It is a micro in a huge pile of rubble and is rated 2.5!Having been led to the Coffin Stone by my little friends I am now qualified to comment on it. I am still wondering from which angle it looks like a coffin because I couldn’t see the resemblance. The difficulty rating may be a little too high but the terrain rating is about right certainly no higher.
well the terrain rating is staying how it is, I think Hobo would moan whatever it was. Most caches around are to high, but we all have our own ideas. The other log will be deleted because they do not exist. If everyone made little friends up on the geo-cache site on April fool the site would just crash. And it also messes up the true number of caches there are in the world.
It is called a coffin stone because the is enough room to place a coffin there, and the rock is large enough to cover it.
Why are forums a place where people just moan.
Had a look at the Albert Einstein cache and noticed there have been 57 correct checks on geocheck, so sounds like a true 5 terrain rating seeing as how it has only been found 9 times. Not sure i will be able to solve puzzle to find out, unless i use some initiative.
SM said “Dave I aggree with most of what you have said, but before you can pass any comment on Coffin Stone you should go off and find it if you are able to get to it, you should do.”
Fair comment and today Judy, Tigger and I went to find Coffin Stone. We started from the nearest logical parking just west of Ingra Tor and followed the very easy gravel track until we turned right on to the bridleway which we followed across the ford and up to the old railway track. A few hundred yards around the track until we crossed over to the cache. This route is almost exactly a mile in length, all of it on gravel track or bridleway, with of course, a fairly easy ford, although I would imagine it could be far worse than today. Enter this route information into the terrain rater and it gives you 3, which is probably fair. Difficulty is a problem with this cache as the main difficulty is getting under the stone and finding the cache. If you are relatively nimble it should provide little problem and I found the cache within a few minutes. So probably anything between 2 and 3 depending on how you feel about climbing under many tons of spoil!
Forgetting the ratings for this cache, I thought it to be a very good cache, a bit different to most traditional caches and one we thoroughly enjoyed and rewarded with a favourite. Definitely the best cache placed by SM that we have found to date.
Did a Dartmoor Daves caches today, Terrain ratings to high. But thanks Dave for setting them I enjoyed the walk. Terrain does not really matter, is only a guide. I always use the GS guide.
Mark, since you found nine of Dartmoor Dave’s Caches on 4/6/12, it would help if you said which you thought were overated. You may well be right but it is difficult to judge!
If you use the GC system for rating caches the key question seems to be “What is the trail like?” If you choose “There is no real trail. Wheels are out. May be following a stream bed or be very rocky.” then you will almost certainly get a TR of 4. Surely this is applicable to most of my caches on the open moor?
If you choose “Could be gravel, sand, mud, etc. May be an animal trail. If you’re riding a bike, it had better be a mountain bike.” You will get a TR of 3, but I challenge even Hobo to ride his mountain bike to many of my caches!
All of the caches Mark found yesterday were rated 3 or 3.5 except one which was 4, so no way were any of these overrated according to the recommended system. However, I was disappointed to see that 8 of Mark’s logs were just copied and pasted in and were totally identical! Not very encouraging to any CO as Mark should know, especially after the enthusiastic review I gave of his Coffin Stone!
Yesterday I only said that Dave’s were over-rated because he said mine was. Yes I did copy and paste my logs, because all the caches I found were just under a rock and some were in clear view, but I enjoyed them all. All Daves caches I have enjoyed so far.
I think most of what we say on here is just a bit of good humoured banter, but I must say thankyou for the comments you said about coffin stone.But I am going to say something that I am against, and that is anyone who cycles on open moor off paths for obvious reasons.
I am very happy with the “good humoured banter” but I also hope that we can discuss topics of interest to fellow geocachers. Hopefully shared information will be beneficial to all and I have certainly learnt about Greasemonkey which has helped me enormously with the mega/minor challenges. I would like to think that the site does provide new and helpful information and maybe helps us all see things from a different point of view.
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