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Thompson's Falls Wildcat LbNA #4143

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:May 18, 2003
Location:
City:Gorham
County:Coos
State:New Hampshire
Boxes:1
Planted by:donna
Found by: Nairon
Last found:May 29, 2016
Status:FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFaFFa
Last edited:May 18, 2003
Thompson’s Falls Wildcat Letterbox

Location: State: New Hampshire County: Coos Nearest Town: Gorham

Planted by: Tweety and Mr. Coon 5/18/03

Difficulty: Easy with a little uphill, less than 100 feet of elevation gain, good kids walk only six tenths of a mile according to the sign, allow an hour or so.

Driving directions: RT 16 north to Pinkham Notch, park in the Wildcat Mountain Recreation Area parking lot that is on your right (east) if you are heading north not too far past the Pinkham Notch AMC Visitor Center.

Background:
We saw this short hike in Robert Buchsbaum’s book of family friendly hikes
(Nature Hikes in the White Mountains, AMC Books) and thought we should check it out to see if it would be a good one to bring the grandchildren. We’ve also discovered that hikes recommended for kids are about right for us. The path flirts with a couple of interesting streams crossing one of them.
The Pinkham Notch AMC Visitor Center is an interesting place to stop and take some other walks, like up Mount Washington at least part way ( ten minutes up the Tuckerman Ravine trail are the Crystal Cascade falls) , or the Lost Pond and Square Ledge trails across the street, and Ellis Falls just down the road (there’s a letterbox there) is a pretty neat short walk.
Also of possible interest, the visitor’s center for the Mt. Washington auto road is just a mile or two north of here.


Directions to the box:
Walk to your left of the ticket building, cross over the stream and start looking to your left after coming off of the bridge for the trail entrance into the woods, There will be a spur down to the stream (branching to your left) and you’ll want to check it out on the way up or back but stay right to continue. Follow the yellow blazes to the left (more like straight) when the Wildcat Trail branches to the right. Continue to the falls along some gentle ups and downs but no real climb.
When you get to the falls go down to the bottom of the falls and as you scramble back up to the trail stand at that intersection (next to a tree with a yellow blaze when we were there) and look up to a large double-trunked birch on top of a rock straight ahead (at 200 degrees). Its about twenty feet off the trail and maybe eight or ten feet higher than the path. The box is hidden among the roots behind the tree with a small rock on top of it. Lotsa luck if there are people around. Don’t forget to look around at the falls.