Combination Geocache & Letterbox?

[Guest Anton]

Everyone, please sit down...

 

After entering "letterbox" in the keyword search, I see there are several geocaches that are also identified as letterboxes. How ingenious! There may be others, unknown to us because their titles don't include the word letterbox.

 

I'm wondering, how many combination geocache/letterboxes have been hidden? How can I find them all, and how do I generate a complete list?

 

Is this just a mild case of geocaching schizophrenia, or is does it indicate the emergence of a full-blown a treasure-hunting pyschosis? Is this a pattern, or a coincidence? Do we have a serial geocaching event?

 

Rosemary, get me through to Quantico! I think our old friend Dr. Hannibal is back. And this time, he's got a GPS.

 

Anton

 

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Anton Ninno - N2RUD

Syracuse, NY 13210

[Guest wtmrn]

There are around ten in the St.Louis area, as geocaches go they are pretty lame, the containers only have enough room for a stamp and logbook. So much for the geocache aspect. I personally would prefer the sports be kept seperate unless the letterboxers are going to comply with the standards of the sport.

[Guest GLN]

I have to agree with this WTMRN fella. The letterboxes as geocaches really dont excite me much. There are a few around here that you can find from the car and barely have to get out to log the find! A real "drive by" expirence. :-)

 

Gln

[Guest Cape Cod Cache]

Settle down gang ! I'm a GPS user from way back, letterbox was introduced to me via geocaching. Been thinking about making a stamp for an extra in log-book entries. Also a buisness card if I run across a letterbox.

Cape Cod Cache

Geocacher

capecache@hotmail.com

 

I'd love someone to find a book at my favorite book store or any other loony Brit stuff. Password : geocache; Id ; handheld GPS

 

Remember, geoC is the 'Newbie', so we should be willing to try what works, but I'd be pissed if someone took a nice lure from a cache and left a friggin stamp mark !!!

[Guest makaio]

I don't see any reason why a geocache couldn't contain a stamp for visiting letterboxers. Geocachers could sign in and make trade if so desired and letterboxers could simply do their thing with the stamps.

 

I recently hid a multi-cache in a local Nature Park. During my hunt for an acceptable hiding spot I stumbled across 2 letterboxes (see my post in "The Unusual" thread). Pretty weird since I wasn't even looking for them. I went ahead and logged my find in script since I had no stamp and went about hiding my cache. I later learned this park has 8 letterboxes (a series by the same person in this very large park) so I provided a link to his descriptions on my cache page to allow potential cachers to seek his letterboxes while there. Sort of a bi-fecta, if you will.

[Guest cache_only]

What exactly are these letterboxes and stamps? I have no idea what they are.

 

Rob

[Guest Eoghan]

Anton,

Jeremy's just recently added a feature which allows cache placers to identify the type of cache --> http://www.geocaching.com/about/cache_types.asp

so more of these hybrids will probably start being marked that way. The best way to find letterbox clues is to go to the Letterboxing North America website. That's where all the letterboxers post their clues (including the geocache ones) It also has lots of info about the history of the hobby, stamp carving info, etc. The basic difference other than that letterboxing uses a variety of clues and geocaching is based on GPS coordinates, is that the 'take something, leave something' in letterboxing means take a stamp image (stamp the one in the box into your personal book) and leave a stamp image (your personal stamp in the log book).

 

Wtmrn wrote:

quote:

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as geocaches go they are pretty lame, the containers only have enough room for a stamp and logbook

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That's all they're supposed to have. They aren't traditional caches. They're letterboxes that happen to have GPS coords as the clue.

 

quote:

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... sports be kept seperate unless the letterboxers are going to comply with the standards of the sport

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Ahh, geocaching purists emerge. Actually, letterboxing has been around for a much longer time. If anything, geocaching is the spinoff or younger brother. I personally like that there is a variety emerging, including the virtual and log only types. To each his own.

 

GLN wrote:

quote:

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There are a few around here that you can find from the car and barely have to get out to log the find! A real "drive by" expirence.

---

 

So was the first geocache I found. It was no more than 15' from the road. Both types tend to vary from the drive by boring locations on up to challenging and beautiful locations. Some letterboxes are extremely difficult to find and require solving complicated riddles before even heading out to start the search. Some require that you do it on the fly. Some geocaches require more than just coordinates to locate then. Again, to each his own.

 

I'm personally glad that Jeremy added the types distinction. I'd hate to spend a lot of time carving a stamp only to have someone take it and leave a happy meal toy in its place (a la the typical cache type).

[Guest MountainDiver]

s older sibling.

 

Hope this helps.

 

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The MountainDiver

34 01.649 N

84 27.211 W

 

"GPS satellites are nice because they can answer two of the three most common questions in my life: "What time is it?" and "Where am I?" If they could also somehow determine whether I have any clean underwear left, the bases would be covered." --- The Brunching Shuttlecocks

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

Clues are things like "From the place where the stream enters the lake walk on a bearing of 270 degrees for 100 paces until you reach a gnarled tree. Turn until you are looking directly at a distant church steeple and walk forward until you find an old rock wall...." Clues continue in this fashion and lead eventually to the letterbox.

 

Ideal conditions for a multi stage Geocache.

 

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

quote:

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Originally posted by Peter Scholtz:

Clues are things like "From the place where the stream enters the lake walk on a bearing of 270 degrees for 100 paces until you reach a gnarled tree. Turn until you are looking directly at a distant church steeple and walk forward until you find an old rock wall...." Clues continue in this fashion and lead eventually to the letterbox.

---

 

Ideal conditions for a multi stage Geocache.

 

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

quote:

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Originally posted by Anton:

After entering "letterbox" in the keyword search, I see there are several geocaches that are also identified as letterboxes. How ingenious! There may be others, unknown to us because their titles don't include the word letterbox.

---

 

Currently the keyword search function only searches the cache title, not the cache details.

 

Voice your www.geocaching.com wish list at the following geocaching forum:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000265.html

 

In short so far:

 

1. Maps

2. Chat

3. Stats

4. Search options

5. Owner editing

 

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Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za

[Guest wtmrn]

I wonder if there are any letterboxes hidden in Ga state parks? Or on NPS land as that goes?

[Guest makaio]

There most certainly are. I found quite a few while searching the letterboxing.org site. Here's one example that boldly states it resides deep within Everglades National Park.

 

http://www.letterboxing.org/sc/ericm.htm#Deep

 

I wonder if the NPS is aware of letterboxing. If they're going to ban geocaching they better be consistent and ban them too.

[Guest MountainDiver]

Letterboxing.org only shows one Letterbox in Georgia and it's somewhere near Emory University in Atlanta. Doesn't mean there aren't any out there, just that there aren't any posted online.

 

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The MountainDiver

34 01.649 N

84 27.211 W

 

"GPS satellites are nice because they can answer two of the three most common questions in my life: "What time is it?" and "Where am I?" If they could also somehow determine whether I have any clean underwear left, the bases would be covered." --- The Brunching Shuttlecocks

[Guest jeremy]

quote:

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Originally posted by makaio:

I wonder if the NPS is aware of letterboxing.

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The NPS are aware of Letterboxing. I believe we get much more attention because we send weekly notifications letting folks know of new caches in their areas. It's easy enough to put a zipcode in near your park and when one shows up quickly remove it.

 

Letterboxing is much more cryptic and much harder to find and remove. And many of them aren't even listed on the web site! You need to visit another letterbox in order to find them.

 

Jeremy

[Guest metro]

One thing I can say about letterboxers is that they can often be very difficult to find if you don't have their clues. Several in our area of St. Louis are buried.

 

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metro

[Guest Patty-G]

g cards from California and thanks for being thoughtful enough to send one back to me. I am always glad to hear that people enjoyed the cache as much as I did setting it. ENJOY all you do !!!

Patty-G