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Just for you LbNA #70221

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Apr 16, 2016
Location: Hampshire College
City:Amherst
County:Hampshire
State:Massachusetts
Boxes:2
Planted by:water water
Found by: Roo (2)
Last found:Jan 4, 2019
Status:F
Last edited:Jun 29, 2016
Just for you—letterbox series

This two-box series was planted by Water Water and blue jay at Hampshire College for
your birthday, 17 April 2016.

Location: Travel to Hampshire College on Route 116 (West St.) in Amherst and enter the Hampshire campus on the main drive off of Route 116. At the stop sign at the top of the hill, go right, and circle around to the back of the campus, past the Robert Crown Center and the library on your left. After the road turns left at the soccer fields, take the next right, passing the Labron-Wiggens-Pran Cultural Center on your left. Where the road turns left at the Tennis courts, turn right and park where a rutted track goes into the woods.

Clues:

• Enter the woods along the rutted path, keeping tennis and basketball court to your left. Turn left on the first path you come to, almost immediately after leaving the courts behind. Follow that path until you come to a wooden bridge over a mossy brook.

• Cross the bridge and turn right to follow a path along the brook. You will quickly cross another bridge, putting brook on your left. Continue to follow the brook, crossing a third bridge over another brook that joins the one you are following. You are in troll bridge territory. Continue with the brook on your left.

• Where the path rises, look down to your left and see the fellow on the peninsula below. After waving to him (though lost in his thoughts, he may not respond) continue along the path with the brook still to your left, although you are moving a little farther from it.

• When you come to a large fire circle situated on the bank well above water level, stop and with your back to the brook, look about 25 paces in front of you to a large deciduous tree that appears to have a bite taken out of its right side near eye level. Walk to it.

• From that tree, a path angles off to your right. Follow the path a short way until it passes between 2 large trees barely six feet apart. Right after that, look for four large conifers on your left, together with a standing dead trunk of a birch tree. At this same spot, to the right of the path you will find a medium-sized conifer with roots that spread out above ground, leaving space under the tree. This is where you will find the first of two boxes.

• Once you have registered your find and rehidden the box, return the way you came to the fire circle. From there you will go right and down the hill and cross a bridge to the other side of the brook. Follow the path up the opposite bank to a point where one path goes straight and another turns left.


• Take the left turn and follow the path with the brook to your left. You will cross an old log bridge over a gully, originally well made but now rotting at both ends. After stepping over a fallen birch tree, find a fork and go left, down toward the brook.

• Go all the way down to the brook where you will turn right along the bank. (You want to be right next to the brook when you turn right. Do not turn to the right partway down the slope where a deteriorating log bridge over marshy ground leads to a path up a little hill.) Follow along the brook until you come to another fire circle. If you look to your left here you will see the Thinker again, this time from behind.

• Cross the brook where you can (there is no bridge here by the Thinker) and turn right to follow the brook upstream. (If for any reason you are unable to cross the brook here, follow the brook on the side you are on until you come to a bridge on your left. Don’t cross. Skip one bullet point in these directions and continue with the next one.)

• You will come to and cross a bridge where a tributary joins our brook. Continue with the brook on the right, to another bridge, and cross over, putting the brook on your left.

• Continue along the brook. You will come to a third bridge, crossing the brook to your left, but instead of crossing, continue on the path along the side of the brook.

• As the path rises slightly and angles away from the brook, watch for a path that turns off to your left and goes down the bank back toward the brook. Take that path down the bank and across a bridge to an island. Have a look around—it is an interesting place with some unexpected sights.

• When you have completed your island visit, return up the bank to the main path, and turn right, back the way you came. Walk about 45 paces down the hill and watch for a triple-trunked deciduous tree on your right.

• Turn left here about 90 degrees and walk into the woods about 28 paces to another three-trunked tree, this one a birch (silver or gray). The second box is here, hidden in the roots.

• Once you have registered your find and rehidden the box, return to the path, and turn left. Turn right to cross the first bridge you come to and you are back on the path you came in on. Follow it up to the rutted road and turn right to exit toward the tennis courts where you started.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY


Hike length: 1-2 miles