Letterboxer, meet geocacher; geocacher, meet letterboxer.

Follow the Signal, my new geocache/letterbox hybrid located in the Redmond Watershed Preserve, has been getting a pretty positive reception, and that is very gratifying and encouraging.

My goal in placing/planting this cache/box was to introduce as many participants of each activity to the other activity. I don’t necessarily expect geocachers to take up letterboxing and vice versa (though some cachers have indicated they will try more boxing, and that’s cool!); rather, my hope was to alleviate some of the unnecessary suspicion and tension between the two groups. The main source of that is the probably-rare but truly-unfortunate tendency for cachers who mistake a letterbox for a cache to unwittingly take the letterbox’s hand-carved stamp, thinking it is a trade item. I figure the more we know about each other, the less problems we should see.

I’ll admit that a secondary goal is to show cachers how fun letterboxing can be. I think a lot of cachers dismiss letterboxing – if they even know about it – as too low tech (no GPS, at least most of the time) and maybe a little “girly” (with all that hand-carved stamp business). The bottom line, though, is it’s fun. If you cache because you like finding new, interesting places, you’ll enjoy letterboxing. If you think the clues are always turn-by-turn and thus eliminate the challenge of navigating to the prize, think again; some clues are downright cryptic. Many are very creative and a hoot to follow. As for the stamps: Yeah, it’s intimidating to think of carving your own. But remember, you don’t absolutely have to. And if you do give it a try, you’ll find it’s easier than it sounds, and pretty darn fun as well.

Like I said, people are enjoying it. Here are excerpts from some of the cache logs I’ve received so far:

• “Very nice cache! Glad to see one of these rare icons in our neck of the woods. I had this idea that maybe the wife would be a bit more into the letterboxing aspect as she isn’t very into the geocaching part. I was right. She loved reading the clues and I have a feeling once our daughter is born that we will check out some more letterboxes in the area.”
• “I had a lot of fun with this one. I decided for a change of pace to do this “Letterbox Style”. The description was just perfect and I quickly had the cache… er… letterbox in hand. I really enjoyed this.”
• “Thanks much for introducing us to this and for a nice cache!”
• “Found with our family…including 4 grandchildren. They loved finding it.”
• “Brought ______ out for this one today. It took him a few to catch on to what we were doing when searching the letterboxing way, but when he got it, he really got it. Had a lot of fun and found the cache himself in no time!”
• “I really liked your custom stamps, by the way! Thanks for a nice outing, even with the crazy additional waypoint!”

So far so good. (And by the way, these are the sorts of online logs that I sure wish we had in letterboxing.)