Greetings,

         Being knowledgable about preparedness and off the road safety don’t necessarily equate with some unstated letterbox hiking distances!

            A year ago, August 2000, my team partner Bob LaBelle, who has climbed Mt. Aconcagua at 22,000+ feet in South America, and I, an end-to-ender on the Finger Lakes Trail in New York, totaling nearly 600 miles, searched for a letterbox in Central New York.  After adjusting to an erroneously stated starting point in the clues, we hiked for three hours.  We were smart enough to call it quits.

            This spring, the area being familiar to us, and part of the Finger Lakes Trail area, we checked a topo map and went in the back way by car.  We located the site after walking in mile; we found the container; it was empty of contents.

            Based on our projections from the topo map, had we been able to follow the clues in August 2000 we would have had to hike ten miles!  People on horseback undoubtedly placed the letterbox.  See Alpine letterbox in Central & Western NY of LbNA site.

            As a letterboxer I feel we have a certain responsibility; the question is – to whom?

One-half of a senior citizen letterboxing team,

            St. George