Mountain Mermaid Letterbox
Placed by: Celticrice
Placed August 2002
Jones Gap State Park
Greenville County, South Carolina
Near Greenville

Difficulty:

Clues easy to moderate. Trail easy walk with some
more challenging climbs near the end. Total loop from
car park is about mile.

Notes about Jones Gap State Park:

The park is located north of Greenville, South
Carolina, off of US 276. Proceed through Travelers
Rest on US 276 and follow the signs. When you get to
Cleveland, youre getting close. Mind the signs, as
you will turn off of US 276 to the right. The park is
busy on weekends, and parking is free but limited.
During busy times, a park ranger will close the road
and turn away cars when the car park is full. Bring a
lunchits a nice spot for a picnic.

The Mermaids Progress:

The Mountain Mermaid crawled out of the Middle Saluda
River where she had been living for as long as she
could remember. She had no idea what would possess
her to leave the watery home that she had always
enjoyed. The river and its tributaries offered her
countless opportunities for exploration, but she found
herself weary of the limited scenery and wondered what
life was like among the legged creatures she saw
running about in the parks through which the river
threaded its way.

She emerged from the river underneath a footbridge
that she had seen numerous land creatures cross over
the years. She did not appreciate that she had been
fortunate enough to grow up in a state park. In her
nave mind, the entire world was such a bounty of
nature. Despite the foreign surfaces (fortunately,
the river had nothing like the asphalt pavements) she
found that she could drag herself along without a
great deal of discomfort, especially by staying under
the trees and their fallen leaves and needles. Not
much different, really, from scampering across the
rocks and boulders in the river, except she missed the
smoothness of the intermittent patches of moss.

She soon came to a moderately sized pool of water.
Land creatures had built this pool as a living area
for mountain trout. She slipped in one end and out
the other to cool herself. Beyond the pool and
farther on the path was what appeared to be a large
dwelling on the right (she wouldnt have understood
the concept of a visitors center). She thought about
exploring the large log building but decided to stay
close to the river in case she grew fearful and needed
to retreat to more familiar territory.

She came to a wide bridge that crossed the river.
After crossing the bridge, she saw a sea of the same
rough black material with large, wheeled vehicles
arranged in rows. To the right was what appeared to
be a trail or path, covered in some of the sand that
she was accustomed to on the river bottom. A sign
read JONES GAP TRAIL, but that meant nothing to the
illiterate mermaid.

She began crawling up the trail and, before long, came
to another sign similar to the one she had seen before
and a new trail branching off to the left. She felt
she should go up this alternative path, even though
the signs lettering, RIM OF THE GAP TRAIL, gave her
no indication of what lay ahead. She carried on up
this new path, somewhat concerned that it took her
away from the river that, to her, represented safety.

Certainly something in the signs message meant that
this way was to be strenuous. The path quickly turned
uphill, crossing log steps that challenged her ability
to pull herself along. She came to a large log that
had fallen across the path. In the river, such a log
would have not been a significant barrier, but here,
on the leaf-strewn, dry path, it proved to be a more
formidable challenge. Someone had carved a
crosshatched pattern in the top of the log, which
scratched her painfully as she dragged herself across.

She soon reached a slight crest in the path and began
to descend slightly. The slope helped her rest
somewhat from her struggle, and near the bottom she
noticed that she could again see over to the left the
river and the bridge she had crossed earlier. The
sight of the water comforted her and spurred her to
continue farther on.

Ahead of her on the path was a large rock, and the
path wound around the left side. After passing the
rock, she came to what appeared to be a fork in the
path. The fork would have been about seven long steps
away for one of those legged creatures, she thought.
She turned to the right, climbed a slight hill
(perhaps another 13 long steps or so) and noticed
ahead of her the largest rock she had ever seen.
Almost as big as the dwelling she had seen earlier, it
was pointed, not unlike a huge version of her own
nose, with the point resting on a smaller yet still
enormous rock underneath. It seemed to point over her
right shoulder, toward the river and downstream. She
simply had to explore this phenomenon further. There
were certainly no rocks like this in the river.

She came to the base of the rock and saw that she
could pass underneath the point of the nose to the
right of the rock on which it rested and then up
around the right side of it. This proved to be a very
strenuous exercise, and she frequently had to use her
entire body to brace herself as she pulled herself up
over the big boulders. She made her way to what she
termed the back of the big rock, opposite the
pointed end. She noticed a tree growing up beside the
big rock that touched the rock about eight feet up and
had begun to grow around the rock as if to swallow it
into itself.

She took a closer look at the tree and then rested her
back against the rock there. Darkness was beginning
to fall, and she realised that she needed to find
shelter and get some rest from her labour. She looked
to the north (had she a compass, she would have known
more precisely that her gaze fell at 330) and noticed
two rocks between which she could walk, almost like a
narrow gate. These rocks were about 8-10 meters away
from the tree, and she made her way to them.

Perched in the gap between the rocks, she proceeded
through and slowly down a slight incline, turning to
the right and making her way through young
rhododendron to the underside of the bigger rock that
had been on her right as she passed through the gap.
She saw that this bigger rock overhung the hill so as
to create a small cave beneath it. She crawled under
the rock, tucked herself up under it as far to the
right as she could get and fell asleep.

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