Newbee (to LC) questions:

[Green Achers]

1- Why does The Year's Top have 2023, yet has this year’s (2024) data?
2- What makes a cache a “Backcountry” cache?
3- Is “First Day Finder” anyone that finds a cache on the day it’s published?
4- Can these cache lists be mapped (or at least show the mileage away from me)?

[Green Achers]

I’m surprised that no one has answered any of my questions yet. Don’t be shy!

[Corfman Clan]

Hi,

Here's my answers.

• For the year's top, there are two links. Currently, "Year's Top Cachers Leaderboard" for 2024, and "2023" for last year.
• For the backcountry leaderboards, a cache must have at least five cache points.
• "First Day Finder" is for everyone that finds a cache on the first day it is found, which is not necessarily the day it is published.
• Currently the cache lists cannot be mapped, nor can they show the mileage away from your home location. Though you can get the distances of caches nearby to another cache.

A lot of this information can be found in the knowledge book.

[Green Achers]

Thank you!
BoGA

[Green Achers]

[*]For the backcountry leaderboards, a cache must have at least five cache points.
knowledge book.

What 5 points? How are the points decided? I know the backcountry cache can be next to a paved road, and I got a cache that took 3 hours of off road trails that wasn’t a backcountry cache. It makes no sense.

[Corfman Clan]

What 5 points? How are the points decided? I know the backcountry cache can be next to a paved road, and I got a cache that took 3 hours of off road trails that wasn’t a backcountry cache. It makes no sense.

See the Knowledge Book Scoring Details for how caches are scored in LonelyCache. In a nutshell, a cache's points are 100 points per year divided by the number of finds.

[Green Achers]

What 5 points? How are the points decided? I know the backcountry cache can be next to a paved road, and I got a cache that took 3 hours of off road trails that wasn’t a backcountry cache. It makes no sense.

See the Knowledge Book Scoring Details for how caches are scored in LonelyCache. In a nutshell, a cache's points are 100 points per year divided by the number of finds.

I have read the book of knowledge (cover to cover) and you know what it says about defining Backcountry Caches? It’s literally says they have to be "qualifying caches." It never says what that qualification is, but it does talk say "For a cache to qualify, it must be worth at least five cache points.” Does a cache in SFO Airport become a “Backcountry Cache” when it goes without being found for 18 days (lo nely caches are worth 100 points per year so every 3.65 days they gain another point)

Again I ask, what points are being considered because it can’t be any of the defined Points: Achilles Points; Challenge Points; Current Cache Points; First Day Find Points; Next Find Cache Points; and Total Cache Points.

To further demonstrate this, there are Backcountry Caches on paved roads, that there are non-qualifying caches that are 2+ hours of driving off-road. This honestly boggles the mind of anyone trying to understand the logic being used.

[Corfman Clan]

Did you read my last reply here? I believe it covers most of your questions, if not all of them. When I mention cache points, I mean, current cache points.

If you have questions about how a specific cache is scored you can ask here, or on the LonelyCache cache page, expand the "Show cache point calculation details" link.

[UsLaynes]

1- Why does The Year's Top have 2023, yet has this year’s (2024) data?
2- What makes a cache a “Backcountry” cache?
3- Is “First Day Finder” anyone that finds a cache on the day it’s published?
4- Can these cache lists be mapped (or at least show the mileage away from me)?

Hey Green Achers, not sure if you are still curious about your questions or if you figured everything out. I saw all of coffman's answers, and thought I might add my thoughts and maybe answer similar questions for any others. These boards are not very active and I check-in every once in a while..... wish I would have seen your questions sooner.

You may have figured out now that "Backcountry score" has nothing to do with where or how a cache is placed. In this case the score is all about high LC scores and perhaps a better name for the these boards would be "Your Top 20 Cache Scores Averaged Comparison Leaderboards" or something along those lines. The score is the average of your 20 highest valued finds in that geographic area ranked against all other finders finds of at least 20 cachers from that geographic region. Example if you have found 20 caches in Davis County, Utah, and all 20 had a LC point value of 100, your backcountry score would be 100. Now lets say you have found 500 caches in Davis County and you total score is 1,750 for the county but your top 20 had a LC score of 50 each, you would be ranked about 113 on the "Best All around Leaderboard" for Davis County but your Backcountry leader board in Davis County would be 50 because the average of your top 20 = 50. So your Banckcountry rank would be in or near the top 10.

Hope that helps. Take it one step further, on your home page the 3rd line down is your "View Top Finds". This is a list of your top 100 finds that you have made ranked by LC point value. If you look at that list and then look at your Lonely Cache wide backcountry caches, the top 20 from your top one hundred make up your backcountry list and the average of those 20 is your backcountry score that gets ranked against all other backcountry scores. If you do not have at least 20 caches that have grater then 5 LC points. . . than there is no backcountry score in that geographic area and you need to go find more caches.

Once again it has nothing to do how or where the cache is placed, just the LC point value of the cache. I will keep checking in on this page and if you still have questions, I will be glad to try to add my thoughts. I love LC and hope you find it fun to see your caching have more meaning as you check your stats on this site.