WWLB010. BOULDER
Location: Boulder, Colorado, USA
Keeper: Andrew Schelling
Status: Letterbox removed or stolen.


Start at Baseline Rd. and Ninth St. Follow Baseline west into the mountains. Almost immediately on your left you will see a sign, “Entering Boulder Mountain Parks.” At the one mile marker is a self-service fee station. If your car is not registered in Boulder County you may want to get a day permit ($3) so you won’t get ticketed if a ranger sees your parked car. Follow the road another 2.5 miles. It will take you through five hairpin turns as you ascend, before following Gregory Canyon to where Flagstaff Summit Road cuts off to the right. To your left is a gap in the trees that drops onto a dirt road. Enter the gap and park anywhere.

You will see a fire gate with a sign, “Green Mountain Lodge.” You are at 7000’ elevation, so bring water and appropriate clothing. Walk through the gate, & follow the track downhill a few minutes until it bears right & joins the Ranger Trail. About five minutes farther, after crossing a small creek, you’ll spot a Park Service message box with a small toilet-building reached by a wooden bridge. A notice in the box announces “You Are In A Mountain Lion’s Home.” Here the trail forks, with the stone Mountain Lodge visible through some brush in the middle. Take the right-hand trail, across another light wooden bridge, into Long Canyon. From the end of the bridge count fifteen paces up Long Canyon Trail. Turn ninety degrees to your right and pick out a solitary lodgepole pine, twenty-five paces off. Go to it and look straight up the canyon side. There is a rough outcropping of pink and gray granite, about forty-five paces uphill, mottled with chartreuse lichen, studded with white quartz crystals. A small pine tree stands atop the jagged rock, with the hulk of a dead pine, partially charred, its roots exposed, lying behind. The letterbox is on the back-side of this downed tree.

After getting your stamp you can continue up Long Canyon. The first steep ravine that appears on your left – about ten minutes – is Panther Canyon (panther = mountain lion).

Note from the Letterbox Keeper:
October through May the box could be covered by snow. I do not know, but the ink pad could be frozen too.

Second Note from the Letterbox Keeper:
Feb. 12, 2005, the day I selected the letterbox site: up Long Canyon trail a few hundred yards through the snow, some hiker had hung on a branch at face level the fresh leg of a mule deer. The hip and thigh were stripped of skin, flesh, and meat. The nearly meatless lower leg and hoof were intact. It is common for dogs to find a lion’s kill site and bring a trophy down to the trail.

Additional Note:
Couple days ago I was up on Green Mtn. The letterbox is gone. I ran into a Park Service employee who said they have been mapping undocumented trails, so I'm suspecting someone found it & removed it. A ranger might remove it as an unwanted man-made object in a region designated wild. I thought it far enough off any frequented trail that it was not
going to be found by anyone without a map. But rangers, or Park employees, may
be ranging farther afield than I expected, so it is a matter of luck or ill-fortune for
someone to happen on it.