When you submit a geocache for publication, you must specify ratings for difficulty and terrain using a 5-star scale. Please try to rate your cache accurately. One is the easiest. Five is the hardest. The difficulty rating covers time and effort in finding the cache (and possibly in signing the log) once at the coordinates. The terrain rating covers the physical effort of arriving at the coordinates. For example:
- This rating system is subjective.
- Geocache ratings vary from one community to the next. A 3-star terrain in British Columbia, Canada is most likely going to be a very different experience from a 3-star terrain in Amsterdam, Holland.
- Events are in plain sight or can be found in a few minutes of searching, so the appropriate difficulty rating for events is one star.
- The length of the hike is from the most logical parking area to the cache.
Geocaching.com provided system quiz