Letterboxing

The boys, Sophie and I are part of a newly established homeschool hiking/nature club. Below is an activity I planned for the group, like geocaching wasn't enough, now we are hooked on letterboxing!

At our last hike a few of use discussed the idea of adding a letterboxing aspect to our hikes. We decided to met on Thursday, Oct. 25th at 1 PM at Sawyer Point to discuss letterboxing and so that the moms could design the stamps for the letterboxes while the kids played on the playground. Each family that wants to participate will need to design 2 identical stamps to use. Our plan is that each family will then go and hide their letterbox in a local park and the other families will be able to go and find them.

Please RSVP to Laura to let her know if you would like to join in on this activity so that we are sure there are enough supplies for everyone. There will be a small fee for the material to make the stamps with (under $5) and Cari is going to bring the tools to carve them with. Below you will find some links about letterboxing for those of you that aren't familiar with exactly what it involves! Included are the Hamilton County park rules about letterboxing, if you hide them in other parks, you may want to check to see if they have any guidelines.

History of Letterboxing: http://www.atlasquest.com/aboutlb/history/

Letterboxing North America: http://www.letterboxing.org/ has a great FAQ section as well as a section to find letterboxes in your area.

Another site for locating letterboxes: http://www.atlasquest.com/

Hamilton County Park Letterboxing rules and registration form: https://secure.nuvox.net/www.hamiltoncountyparks.org/Geocache.htm

Guidelines For Placing Geocaches or letterboxes within the Hamilton County Park District:

Must use a normal type of container. (ie, it cannot resemble a pipe bomb or otherwise cause alarm to the public, etc.) and provide a description of it.
Must be placed on or near an authorized trail. An authorized trail is one that is maintained by the HCPD’s Trail Crew, usually has either asphalt, crushed gravel or wood chip base. The container cannot be placed more than 25 feet from the trail. The container cannot be placed in any unsafe areas (ie, near a steep embankment).

Placement or access to the container cannot damage park property or vegetation.

All materials must be safe and appropriate for families and children.

Requesting party is responsible for checking the container contents, as well as it’s proper location.

The HCPD must be given the actual location of each container. (For example, The container is .5 miles into the Oakleaf Trail, under the log to the right of the trail sign that is titled “What Good is Dead Wood?”).

Each request will be given a registration number by the HCPD that must be visible on the outside of each container.

The HCPD will record the name, address, phone number and if applicable, the e-mail address of the requesting party associated with the container.

Annual renewal is required for all active boxes.

The requesting party must abide by all Park District By-Laws.

We had great fun creating our stamps today! 6 families showed up to make stamps, including a new family that we had not met before! It will be exciting to find the boxes once each family hides them. Sarah and Brett are going to place one along the biketrail too, so there will be 7 new letterboxes in our area just from our hiking club! And unbelievably, it only cost us each $2 for the materials, thanks to Cari having the carving tools! A fun new activity and we aren't breaking the bank! Jay should be thrilled!