I do experience great difficulties when composing a mystery cache so I hope that this guide will be of help to all. It is not easy to get it right but first up is to stick with your coordinates, so don’t try to adjust anything to fit. I try to note down every little nook and cranny at GZ and then proceed from there. With the final place decided upon I make an expanded plan.
You need to use your own judgement to assess the terrain for strollers, wheelchairs, bikes, skateboards, skates and/or mopeds and assign an appropriate terrain rating. After you have settled on an accurate terrain value, you next need to find out how difficult the calculation will be for solvers. Estimating the difficulty is not so easy but previous experience is a good tool to use.
Use your own thought processes/patterns and look at caches that you have solved before and you won’t fall too far off the mark. The mystery cache ‘difficulty setting’ can be adjusted afterwards if it is easier/harder than expected. Try to visualize an unusual cache that you've not solved and mirror your cache setting to this one.
Another tip is to do two together, one terribly simple looking, the other, terribly difficult. Use the two opposing points for estimating difficulty going forward. Please do try to match the difficulty correctly as a wrong value plays havoc with any future caches you might make.
If you design a D5 cache and afterwards create a harder puzzle, it is an impossible task to grade it adequately. Finally, you need to be aware that conditions might vary during the year and a bright Spring morning at the GZ location might be a terribly cold, Wintery, unfriendly icy place in the months of December and January.
NOTES
1. WALK.....use the public walkway (park outside the complex, public bus, dart rail etc. available)
2. It is 'NOT' a park and grab and you CANNOT drive to GZ.
3. Leave no trace...The cache is NOT in the manicured hedge, so do not disturb the hedge.
4. Take a seat and rest awhile...you will be sitting on the cache.
*Congratulations to Dauphins du Désert for FTS and to cliff-diver for being the FTF*