letterbox hybrid caches

[BakRdz]

Thanks for starting this thread. Another cacher had brought up working on some related letterbox hybrids together. Until this point I never really understood what the point was. Just seemed like an ordinary cache with stamp inside. At least it has caused me to look into more of the history.

Question for the more experienced letterbox placers – Do most people double list them between the two sites?

[Trekkin and Birdin]

All but one of ours is cross listed. We did not cross list our Well Rounded Cacher one, because…..well, the letterboxers wouldn’t get the point of that one.

Most of ours combine the GPSr usage with simple orienteering in line with the original intent. All have hand carved stamps. I live to find a hybrid with a hand carved stamp….thank you sandlanders and gotta run!

[HeliDood]

@BakRdz wrote:

Question for the more experienced letterbox placers – Do most people double list them between the two sites?

Obviously I’m not an experienced letterbox placer.
But I have no intention whatsoever of cross-posting my LH cache.

A few weeks ago, I found one of Sandlander’s LHs. It wasn’t much different than a regular cache, except I had to read a story, move to a certain spot and from there move in X feet in a specific direction to locate the cache.

I thought it was neat mostly because I added a new icon to my profile.
I placed a LH for a similar reason.. It was just something different.

[Lostby7]

Found 5 this past weekend….they were all traditional caches (just with a stamp in the container)…not sure if they were cross listed…still the caches were high quality and well planned and placed; in fact three of them now reside on my list of favorite finds….if you find yourself near Hudson WI I highly recommend an LBH run.

I thought about setting one up a few years ago but was counseled by the reviewer….(s)he said why make a letterbox hybrid if you have no intention to cross list it? I agreed and didn’t create one.

[HeliDood]

The letterbox hybrid is currently up & running. As it sits, it is a Traditional cache with a crudely made, home made (by me) Rubber stamp.
Looking at a few other LBHs, mine almost looks wrong.

Am I cheating people out of the whole letterbox experience by not doing the story thing?

The cache is already in place and active. I guess I can tweak it by adding an offset waypoint in there. I could use some help though, since I’m feeling uninspired lately. Anyone have any ideas? PM me if you have any.

[sandlanders]

@HeliDood wrote:

Am I cheating people out of the whole letterbox experience by not doing the story thing?

Took a look at the cache page just now. Official letterboxers might want a bit more, but I’ve seen hybrids for geocachers that seem to be similar to yours. I say don’t mess with it. If you want to do another one, you can try out your new ideas there.

On our three letterbox hybrids, we don’t have the final at the listed coords, and we have people go through other actions to get to the final, but other than that, most just treat it like a traditional. Funny thing, though. After checking one of ours, we saw that some people have taken the stamp in the cache and used it to stamp the book in the cache and added their name. I would assume they wanted to do the stamping thing but didn’t have their own stamp to use.

HeliDood, when we get that new LBH of yours, we will gladly stamp our book with your one-of-a-kind homemade stamp, and we’ll leave our stamp imprint in your log book at the cache.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

As Pat said, the artistic ability of the carver isn’t the thing….it’s the handmade one of a kind nature that we love. I look forward to our next trip through that area to find this one (which may be in a few short weeks, right Seth? 😉 ) There’s some paddling to do along the Wisconsin, you know.

As to whether you’re “cheating” anyone……only the lboxers might feel that way, and if you aren’t cross listing it, no problem. You did give us a song to sing as we search. I might sing that one loud anyway!

[huffinpuffin2]

A bit of a diverge, but while hunting for a geocache in Door County, two young ladies came running over carrying a box and asked us “are you looking for this?” It was a REAL LETTERBOX! It happened to be placed about 20 feet from a geocache. Luckily, we had our trusty gotta run-hand-carved hp2 stamp, which we proudly produced and made a ‘find’ on it instead.

We then got into a good discussion explaining some of the joys and details of our respective passions, as they were unfamiliar with geocaching, and we knew little about real letterboxing. The biggest question was, what do you do when two or more ‘teams’ meet up at a letterbox – well, we decided the appropriate thing to do was to exchange stamps – so SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

They then helped us track down the geocache, and then headed off to do more letterboxing. Plus they revealed they would soon be doing some near Suamico – by gotta run! Small World!

We now have an account with Letterboxing North America. It’s really interesting to compare the description of the geocache and the letterbox, which coexist, side-by-side.

Sunset Beach-Queen of sunsets! LbNA #: 49871 http://www.letterboxing.org/BoxView.php?boxnum=49871&boxname=Sunset_Beach-Queen_of_sunsets!

v.

Phish Creek Photo Op GC1WDWC

[Todd300]

Not to change the subject, but I read your log on that, HP. Because Door County is like 20 miles across the bay from me, they fall in my notification range even though it’s like a 2 hour drive around the bay. So I get plenty of logs from the DC area.

Anyways, We have a few letterboxes in my hometown and one is like 20 feet from a cache that is now archived. Many cachers have said they have found the letter box thinking it was the cache itself.

So I wonder if there should be some rule about caches being a certain distance apart from a letterbox. I’m not saying it should be 528 feet as it is with any other caches. But it should be far enough apart to avoid confusion on what is what. I think 100 feet is sufficient. The problem with that is – many letterboxes do not have coordinates so there is no way of knowing how close the letterbox or cache are.

But hopefully there is a solution to avoid confusement in the future.

[Lostby7]

I have found several letterboxes near geocaches…just part of the game. I actually archived my favorite cache due to two letterboxes which moved in next to my cache…the damage to the area was getting out of hand with all the traffic.

[HeliDood]

we’ll leave our stamp imprint in your log book at the cache.

That brings up another question. For real letterboxers, would you rather see 1 logbook in the cache or 2?

I’ve only visited 1 other LBH, the Lady at the Lake. There were 2 books in that cache. I was unsure at first as to which book to sign.

[-cheeto-]

Given that in most circumstances (multi’s and mystery caches being the exceptions) a geocache is in a known location whereas a letterbox is found via “instructions”. I believe it should be the other way around. Letterboxes should be restricted from being placed near known traditional geocaches. 😉

That is pretty funny about the letterbox and cache being in the same spot with similar writeups. Both of those were placed after we camped last year in Fish Creek… was wondering why I hadn’t known about them.

Good spots seem to attract hidden items…

[-cheeto-]

@huffinpuffin2 wrote:

A bit of a diverge, but while hunting for a geocache in Door County, two young ladies came running over carrying a box and asked us “are you looking for this?” It was a REAL LETTERBOX! It happened to be placed about 20 feet from a geocache. Luckily, we had our trusty gotta run-hand-carved hp2 stamp, which we proudly produced and made a ‘find’ on it instead.

We then got into a good discussion explaining some of the joys and details of our respective passions, as they were unfamiliar with geocaching, and we knew little about real letterboxing. The biggest question was, what do you do when two or more ‘teams’ meet up at a letterbox – well, we decided the appropriate thing to do was to exchange stamps – so SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

They then helped us track down the geocache, and then headed off to do more letterboxing. Plus they revealed they would soon be doing some near Suamico – by gotta run! Small World!

We now have an account with Letterboxing North America. It’s really interesting to compare the description of the geocache and the letterbox, which coexist, side-by-side.

Sunset Beach-Queen of sunsets! LbNA #: 49871 http://www.letterboxing.org/BoxView.php?boxnum=49871&boxname=Sunset_Beach-Queen_of_sunsets!

v.

Phish Creek Photo Op GC1WDWC

Found this cache yesterday 🙂 Sure would help with the confusion if they posted accurate coords on the cache and that the posted coords (and hint) didn’t take all finders exactly to the letterbox! Posted a note about this on my cache log.

Also posted a picture of the top of the letterbox 😉

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