Joan Ridgely looked around to make sure no one was near her as she hid her camouflage-painted Lock & Lock container under the log. When hikers passed by, she tensed up, greeted them and waited until they were out of sight before she continued.
“You can’t let a passer-by see what you’re doing,” she said.
Ridgely is a letterboxer, and she was in the process of hiding one of her boxes at the Elk Meadow Open Space Park in Evergreen.
Letterboxing is similar to treasure hunting, according to “The Letterboxer’s Companion,” by Randy Hall. While the hobby originated in England more than 150 years ago, it took off in the U.S. in 1998, after an article about it appeared in Smithsonian magazine.
Those interested in taking up the hobby should first visit atlasquest.com or letterboxing.org for information about getting started. Clues — usually written in a narrative fashion — for all letterboxes can be found online.
Before going on a hunt, finders need to either hand-carve or purchase a rubber stamp and logbook. Planters place a rubber stamp and a logbook inside every letterbox they hide. When the finder discovers the hidden box, they stamp their stamp into the box’s logbook and stamp the box’s stamp into their logbook.
Ridgely’s self-bound spiral logbook is filled with stamps from around the world, including Simon and Garfunkel, Dr. Seuss, the Denver Broncos logo and Sarah Palin.
Having found 1,600 boxes and planted 163 with her hand-carved stamps, Ridgely can be considered a veteran letterboxer.
“Letterboxers would rather find something someone created, rather than store-bought,” she said. “But I’m the exception. I find them all.”
She has boxes in 11 states, Greece, the Virgin Islands and Canada, that she monitors through annual visits. This way, she makes sure that none have been stolen or damaged. The online letterboxing community is also on top of monitoring their peers’ boxes. If a letterboxer finds that the box they are searching for is either missing or damaged, they will notify the owner via e-mail.
But former letterboxer Amy Paris has not experienced such kindness from the Denver letterboxing community.
The Denver resident stopped the hobby less than a year into it after she experienced some elitism with another enthusiast at a Denver letterboxer meet-up.
A newbie at the time, Paris made the mistake of asking the organizer about one of her boxes in public.
“She told me that it was taboo to ask her a question about it when there were other people around,” Paris said. “Then she banned access to the people who weren’t privileged enough to view the clues for that box and posted on her site that people can’t be trusted.”
Paris was turned off after this incident.
“What’s the point of letting only your friends find it?” she said. “If you’re going to limit who can see the box, where’s the freedom in that?”
Letterboxing is often grouped with geocaching — a treasure hunting game where you use a GPS device to hide and seek containers — even though the two groups are hostile toward each other.
“They have different philosophies,” said Teresa Topping, one of the few who practice both hobbies. “Geocachers are after numbers, so they plant one on every corner. But letterboxers are geared toward taking someone to a new place.”
Back in Evergreen, Ridgely hiked three-quarters of a mile downhill after planting her box, poking the ground with her hiking stick as she walked. She was out of breath.
“It’s hiking with a reward,” she said. “Would I really climb up that mountain if there weren’t a letterbox up there? Probably not.”
Lynette Zilio: 303-954-1211 or lzilio@denverpost.com
