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Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer

Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 25, 2020 04:55AM
Picture a summit challenge, it could hypothetically be to have found, say 10 caches within 0.1 miles of summits. It'd be a challenge to get people out of the city and into the great mountain caches all over. It'd be so cool to build this but the logistics get tough though.

Decision1 - area
First you'd need to limit this to a finite area. Doing the whole world would be an amazing challenge but would burn so much processing time. Even a whole country would be a tough one. Let's just stick with one state, say Idaho.

Decision 2 - What is a mountain summit
The definition for a mountain is highly disputed. Here are some I've seen:
A) Is it sometimes at least 5000' above sea level with 300' of prominence.
b) The Brits tend to say a mountain is 600 meters (1,969 ft) or higher with 30 meters (98 ft) of prominence, often called 'Simms' - bless 'em, they haven't got much to work with.
C) The Marilyn status is also 600 meters (1,969 ft) or higher, but 150 metres (492 ft) of prominence
D) Many Scots use the p600 standard and require 600 meters (1,969 ft) of prominence and nothing else.
E) Some US mountaineers require 500 meters (1640 ft) of prominence and nothing else.
F) Elevation of at least 2,500 m (8,200 ft)
G) Elevation of at least 1,500 m (4,900 ft), with a slope greater than 2 degrees
H) Elevation of at least 1,000 m (3,300 ft), with a slope greater than 5 degrees
I) Elevation of at least 300 m (980 ft), with a 300 m (980 ft) elevation range within 7 km (4.3 mi)

Decision 3 - building the summit list
Once the parameters for mountain are picked, let's say option A for now, you next have two main options to build the list of peaks. It'd be incredible to just have LUA coding that can take geographic parameters across a region and compile a list of qualifying peaks. The other option would be to manually compile a list of peaks.

Decision 4 - building the geocache list
The next step of building the list is listing the geocaches within 0.1 miles of each summit. Again, this could be done manually and constantly updated, but I'm pretty sure there is LUA coding for this task. Having a list of qualifying geocaches that the checker can check against is the easiest way I can think of doing this. Anything else seems like it'd burn way too much computing time and power. The closest I've found to this part of the process is in GC4R94P, The SuMMit Challenge. It looks like it is done with hyperlinks to manually compiled lists.

Conclusion
I don't know how much automation is possible, but I certainly want to try and build a challenge related to geocaching high mountain summits. Once the feasible rules or parameters of the challenge are in view I can qualify myself and then build it. I will likely move for 'x' number geocaches within 0.1 miles of summits on a manually made list of mountains in South East Idaho where I am. It'd just be phenomenal to generalize this style of challenge checker so it can be applied to other areas by other cachers.
Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 27, 2020 11:20PM
Aside from the logistical issues, this challenge wouldn't be allowed under guideline 10:
Quote
Not acceptable
Challenges based on geographic areas other than countries, states/provinces, counties (or their local equivalent). For example, user-defined mapping polygons, latitude/longitude, radius, etc.
Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 28, 2020 12:21PM
Thanks for the response, SumBloke.

You're absolutely right. It'd have to be set to a single county (Bannock). With that in place I'm guessing the only way this would work, because of the tough logistic issues, would be a set up similar to GC4R94P with a list of peaks with their coordinates. Would there be LUA coding to make a list of the geocaches within 0.2 miles of any of the listed coordinates?

Thank you again for you counsel.

Best,
Cheeky Brit.
Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 28, 2020 02:12PM
My point is that "within 0.2 miles of a summit" is a definition of geographic area that isn't a country, region or county. You won't be allowed to make such a challenge.
Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 29, 2020 04:12AM
Oh you're right. I totally hadn't thought of that. You know your rules, sir SomBloke.

Ok, how about this. A and B are longshots that won't work. C sounds like a home run, though:

A) The other option to have any form of cache list geocachers need to find one from would probably breech challenge cache rule 11. "A challenge based on elements under the cache owner’s primary control is not acceptable: examples, my favorites, my caches, bookmark lists, caches by this owner, or this group."
A2)Perhaps if the list was built into the cache page instead of in a bookmark list. Understandably that is still under control of the cache owner and it might just be too similar. The cache page would need to be updated from time to time to reflect old caches getting archived, and adding new caches.
A3) A side step on that would be if a mountain summit geocache list was maintained by someone else, not the cache owner.

Is there truly no way to have a 'sign at least one cache up the top of a mountain' challenge?
B) Just having the requirement to have found a cache with the word 'mountain' in it would probably still not work because a lot of summit caches don't have 'mountain' in their titles and regular in-town caches sometimes have 'mountain' in the title.

C) Requiring a number of caches (say, 3) found at an elevation of over 2000 Meters would pretty much work perfect for Bannock County's base elevation and surrounding mountains. It just can't be generalized to other areas since you'd need to reflect that a mountain in a coastal area would have lower elevation than a town in the Rockies. That stops this style cache being generalized for use anywhere.

Using option C, I could include a list of the active geocaches that satisfy the 2000 meters or higher and in Bannock county requirements.
Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 29, 2020 04:18AM
A and B are not allowed. A because of guideline 11 as you surmised, B because of guideline 10. C would be possible and has been done before.
Re: Summit challenge - the logistics are the killer
April 30, 2020 02:11AM
Fantastic!

Thank you for your help. I'll go get hiking and building.
Hopefully our discussion will answer any questions from anyone else searching "summit" challenges.
Have a great day Sumbloke
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