And instead of finding a box with trinkets inside that you take from and then replace with new trinkets that you brought, a Letterboxer 'collects' a stamped image, most often of a handmade stamp that relates to the environment where it's been hidden.
I took a Letterboxing/stamp carving class last summer and we've been getting our stuff ready to go. But it took a friend of ours recently jumping into letterboxing to motivate us to jump in finally. And boy! What fun...and so addictive!
On our first day out today hunting for Letterbox treasure boxes, we ended up finding 3, and we had a blast discovering new places along the way!
Our first Letterbox was 'planted' by our friend Karen and her "6 Jumping Beans" clan. It was her second planted box and we had no troubles finding it in a beautiful Veteran's Memorial Park in SE Albuqerque. The stamp was cute, too!
The second Letterbox we discovered was a little bit tougher! It required the use of a compass, and I forgot to bring ours this time! We decided to give it a go anyway and I relied on my internal compass instead. It took us a little bit longer because we had to work together using deductive reasoning and some trekking about, but in the end it was SO exciting when we finally figured out where it was hidden! And, wow! What a gorgeous stamp!
The kids above the waterfall at the UNM Koi pond. Before we discovered the letterbox, it was fun to see the turtles, koi and ducks.
Our third discovered Letterbox, Netherwood, was simple to find, but a little bit more treacherous due to cacti and a rocky scree slope to trek up. But the view of the city at the top of the hill was striking and the view of the extremely steep ditch below edged on terrifying for me! I had to keep a close watch on the kids because the drop-off was shocking and the kids kept on wanting to toss rocks down there to see how long it took for it to finally splash into the water at the bottom. I imagine that if someone fell in when the summer monsoons floods this ditch, there would be no hope of getting out alive as it would be virtually impossible to get out up those steep sides.
Before we started our Netherwood trek we enjoyed a little snack break on some unique sculptural artwork near the trail.
A view of the scary ditch and the city of Albuquerque looking East towards the Sandia Mountains.
After we found the Letterbox, Jax and Jem asked if they could scale the monumental hill in Netherwood's beautiful park with awesome views of the mountains and city.
Jackson & Jeremiah had a blast climbing up this hill and rolling and running back down over and over again.
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