Folks,

I hiked up Hyalite Canyon Saturday to take a last look at the letterboxes there before winter. There was about 4" of snow at the trailhead and more like 8" four miles up the trail where the last letterbox is planted.

I got to four of the five locations. Number three was pretty much inaccessible.

#1 is gone. Friends and family reported that it was in good shape in August, but sometime between then and now it has disappeared. (And nope, it wasn't in a culvert! :-)

#2 was in place, visited by at least three parties, but at least one page of sign-ins had been removed.

#4 was in place and had been visited by only one group of my family and friends.

#5 is still unvisited.

In June, when the snow has melted, I'll check on #3 and will poke around to see if #1 was just put back by someone behind the wrong rock. I expect, though, that it is gone for good. I'll replace it if that's the case, in a better hidden location.

Mitch, you might want to annotate the clue for #1 to let people know it's temporarily gone missing. Thanks!

Getting ready for a snowy winter,

-Mark