Folks,

The talk about on-box and in-book messages reminds me to update anyone out there who is interested about the Hyalite Canyon series of Montana letterboxes.

Numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5 are still in place. Number 2 has either been stolen or relocated. Numbers 1, 3, and 4 have all been found; in all but one case (one visit to #1) I think they were found accidentally. I.e., only one person appears to have come to the area with clues and with intent to find letterboxes.

These letterboxes are in hammered-steel painted ammo cans and would be a fairly nice addition to anyone's garage. That makes me think maybe #2 was stolen. I've resisted plastic letterboxes for the Northern Rockies because of what a bear can do to a sandwich box.

The OTHER thing that might have happened is that an accidental finder said to her- or himself "Hey, this is cool. Now that I've found this box I'll just hide it somewhere else for the next person to find." That hasn't happened with the other boxes, partly because most of them are in more remote areas. But I found the #1 letterbox more-or-less where I left it and it is in a much MORE frequented area. The reason #2 had a less fortunate fate, I think, is because I noticed on my rounds last fall that my on-box notices, asking people to replace the box EXACTLY where they found it, had peeled off of #2. I didn't have any tape, so I just brought the notices home. (All my boxes have multiple copies of the standard "What is Letterboxing" document in them.)

Anyway, I will be replacing #2, concealing it better (I did the same last weekend with #1), and replacing the on-box notice with something more durable.

The BIGGEST THRILL I've gotten from letterboxing so far, by the way, was to read the notes penned in the notebook by all the people who stumbled onto box #1! There was such delight in their tone!! Many of them said they would go to the Web and find out more about letterboxing. A few said, "You made our day!" One said "We found this box playing golf [in a boulder field!!] and found this box when our ball went clank instead of thunk." They left a golf ball in the box.

Possibly yet this fall, but more likely sometime next spring I'm going to try to interest our local newspaper's feature writer in a story about letterboxing. My cluesheet is in the public library, but people don't know to go there for it. Has anyone out there placed cluesheets in other public places?

That's all for now.

-Mark
(P7F0)