I just returned from a vacation in the mountains of Tennessee and
placed three boxes on my trip. One I believe will be the first one in
the state of South Carolina. The other two are in the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park, on the Tennessee side of the mountains. I
will post the clues separately in the next day or so as I write them
up.

Unfortunately only one letterbox was close enough to me for me to
attempt to find it. That was the Max Patch box in North Carolina, and
I gave up because the mountain access road was IMHO much too
dangerous to continue. Assuming I found the correct road, which was
right at the exit off I-40 in the middle of the mountains, I have
concerns about the safety of attempting this box. According to the
clue posted it, the beginning of the hike was 8.2 miles up this
access road which winds along the edge of the mountains. The road is
a winding single lane dirt road that at one time apparently had a
significant amount of gravel. However when I was there most of the
gravel apparently had washed away previously. It had rained lightly
the night before for the first time in a long time. Consequently,
much of the road was not dry, but rather a slippery mixture of wet
dirt/clay. There is no shoulder or anything like a guardrail, and
consequences of a vehicle slipping off the side of the road would
almost certainly be fatal. I went very cautiously about two to three
miles up the mountain before deciding it was just too unsafe to
continue. Besides the conditions of the road, my other concern was
the narrowness of the road which would be exceedingly difficult to
deal with if I encountered a vehicle coming down the mountain. There
are some areas to turnabout spaced about every half mile or so, but
other than that I cannot see how you could deal with an oncoming
vehicle apart from one vehicle going in reverse until reaching a turn
about, not an appealing thought to me. Consequently, I am not at all
sure I would have continued even if the road had been dry. Too bad, I
really wanted to get up there to the box. I would caution anyone
attempting this box to _carefully_ consider the weather and driving
conditions before heading up that road. If it wasn't such a long hike
up the road, I would have just walked from the bottom. Perhaps some
will think that I was too cautious, but I don't think so. Anyways,
anyone who tries will need to make their own decisions about it.

The box I hid in South Carolina is on a beautiful island off the
coast. The two boxes in the Smoky Mountains are along very nice hikes
to some waterfalls. As I mentioned, I'll post the clues in the next
day or so.
--
Regards,

Eric Mings Ph.D.