Sunday, April 19, 2009

Fairies of Mount Isinglas

My friend Elissa sent me info on Letterboxing and we just had to try it! Its a bit like a scavenger hunt, where you search for hidden boxes. Once you find the box, you use the stamp inside to record it in your letterbox diary... and you leave your own stamp inside the book that is in the box. Its amazing the different boxes we found, and how many people had visited them... from as far away as California!

It was a blast... and we found a lot of natural treasures on the way :) Below are the clues to the first letter boxes we tried to find. We only found 1 out of the 3. We beleive the other two were destroyed or removed.




To find the Fairies of Mount Isinglas,
take route 125 to Rochester Neck Road, Rochester, NH

http://www.mountisinglas.com/
You can see the trail map here and some picture and more info.!

From route 16
take exit 12 and take a left till Rochester Neck Road is on your right at a set of lights.

From route 101
Take exit 7 onto Route 125 till your in Rochester/Gonic. Rochester Neck Road will be at a set of lights on your left.

Take Rochester Neck Road and travel about a mile. The park is well marked and on your right.

Mountain bike are allowed, but we do not recomened them for the children.
Bring BUG SPRAY!!!!!

There are 3 paths you can take that will lead you through this fabulous little park, we will be going through parts of all three, please grab a trail map, located in the mail box and we will start to the right of the sign, on the BLUE trail. The paths that you will be following will be a very large circle that you will travel counter clock wise.

As soon as you start on this trail, you will come to a fork (one of many) in the road, stay to your left, look for blue markers on the stones and/or trees. You will soon come to a nice little bridge. We have found many tadpoles or frog eggs here, depending on what time of year you go. You will travel a little bit of a distance till you see another fork in the road, take a right, now look right again down this path, you should see a YELLOW marker now and the #7

Here is where your first letter box will be. Look at #7 and find the very large boulder behind it, here is the Acorn Fairy.

Now back to face the #7. Take a left. Do you hear water? Follow the sound of the rapid running water.

You will see the #8 this marker was placed here to show where an old mill once stood. Looking into this fast running brook will often see people fishing. Becomes BLUE and YELLOW path.

For box #2 look for the very large rock face on your left. This rock has many interesting crevases and tiny caves, also a great place to have a picture taken! Facing the rock look to the right of it, there is a tree growing out of the rock. The Daisy Fairy will be hiding in the roots.

Before rushing off to see the beautiful water fall, look on the ground, you can find many little books of mica, quartz, and various other great rocks!

Now check out that wonderful water fall! Also if you look around, you will see remnants of a beavers work on some small trees.

Now keep following the path, it will fork again, we took the left, but the right path will get you to the same place.

These paths will become very small but you are on the right path!
Now further up you will see a path with a red maker on it to the left, you need to take this path, if you miss it, and you just see yellow markers on the trees, you have gone too far, turn around and look for the red path.

Follow the RED path, it will start to go uphill quickly. Follow this path till you see the next #7 This is a hemlock pocket, look for the three large pine trees after #7, one has a red marker on it. Looking at the 3 pines, look on the left side of the path for a very large pine just after them, Box #3 is hidden behind this tree, The Mushroom Fairy (also called the fairy bumbie by my daughter).

At this point, any path you take will get you back to the parking lot, but this is how we went. It can be muddy, but we had a great time doing it!

After the Mushroom Fairy you'll come to another fork in the path, go right(look for RED)
You will pass over another nice bridge and see #11.
At next fork, go left.
Cross over the mushie mud by way of the nice rock path, then hop skip and jump over the other muddy areas.

Now you will come to 3 rock steps up and the paths combind again. BLUE and RED, take a right.
Another nice bridge and before you know it, the parkinglot!



1 comments:

*~*Lis*~* said...

i'm so jealous!!! I can't wait to go out and try it!