D and T (Difficulty and Terrain)

All caches have a difficulty ration and a terrain rating. The ratings go from 1 (easy) to 5 (hard).

These numbers are chosen by the person hiding the cache.

There’s an official explanation of D and T here, but be aware that no one who sets D/T has ever read this.

Here’s my take on the matter…

Terrain is a score of the physical effort needed to get to the cache.

Difficulty is a score of the mental effort needed to find the cache and sign the logbook.

So…

A simple film pot at the top of a tree accessed only by a five mile walk is low difficulty but high terrain

A cache in someone’s front garden needing a twelve digit lock combination lock to be found is high difficulty but low terrain