Celebrating 20 Years of Boxing on Max Patch! LbNA #72802
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Add Location| Owner: | wandaandpete
 |
|---|---|
| Plant date: | Apr 5, 2018 |
| Location: | Max Patch |
| City: | Hot Springs |
| County: | Madison |
| State: | North Carolina |
| Boxes: | 9 |
| Found by: | Not yet found! |
|---|---|
| Last found: | N/A |
| Last edited: | Oct 20, 2020 |
739. Celebrating 20 Years of Boxing on Max Patch!
Legendary mountain loop with the AT in western NC
Max Patch is a lovely bald mountain top to visit along the Appalachian Trail in western NC, near the TN line, just north of the Great Smokies and southwest of Hot Springs, NC. It is a grand grassy place from which to get broad 360 degree mountain views on a clear sunny day, so, having backpacked through so many times while on my AT hikes of the 80’s and 90’s, I was absolutely tickled to learn so many years ago now that it was also the site of the earliest dated official letterbox plant in North America - supposedly planted on April 26, 1998! It just seems so appropriate to have this cool lofty spot as the starting point for American-style letterboxing, with its founders’ focus set on getting people up and out on clued adventure hunts (as opposed to “Dartmoor-style scavenging” or mere “stamp collecting”) that we hoped putting out a few more letterboxes in the area to celebrate 20 years since that first letterbox planted here on Max Patch would serve as an incentive for even more letterboxers to come and experience this legendary place and the storied beginning of our own wonderful American-style letterboxing tradition!
Now, please note that this mountain is very popular, both with day-hikers and with AT backpackers in season, so great caution will be needed to keep the dozen or so boxes currently located in the area safe. Also, bearing in mind that more than half of the 1.5 -mile loop is in open field with little or no place to hide should probably eliminate the need to add any more boxes to this area. We can probably still accommodate a couple more boxes that we’d already promised to find homes for nearby on a future trip, but any more than that would likely be too much for the area to sustain, and we certainly wouldn’t want to turn this historic American letterboxing site into an ephemeral “egg hunt”! I had really quite forgotten just how much of the loop is on the bald (10 years since last there for BABE 10!), so please take great care with scouting out and replacing these boxes! The good news is that the boxes we planted are all on the less used and less steep portions of the loop, whereas most day-hikers go straight up “Grand Central” and most backpackers stay on the AT. In fact, we only had one person pass us the whole time we were planting, so it should be quite easy to remain discreet about what you are doing up here just by keeping a watchful eye out. And, if possible, choose a beautiful sunny but uncrowded day!
So, now it’s your choice on how to get to the Patch itself - north from I-40 exit 7 at Harmon Den, south from 25/70 in Del Rio, west from 209 south of Hot Springs near Bluff, or by backpacking from Georgia or Maine, as I did several times each way - oh, so long ago! Actually, even though some of the roads up the mountain have now been paved, even just getting to the trailhead itself is still part of the adventure, so do your research ahead of time so you can pick the route you like the best to get to the wood sign for the Max Patch trailhead parking lot, or roadside parking if the lot is full. Then just get out there and enjoy!
Start your walk up the gentler trail prong to the left of the large brown kiosk (while hopefully any crowds will choose to go straight up the steeper route directly ahead!) Very shortly we left a clear film container with a tight gray lid deeply buried (like a carrot) at the base of a smallish 2-trunk tree about 5 steps off trail on the right. We left it behind the slightly larger left trunk, under a single stick, to serve as that proverbial “carrot on a stick” to get people going up the mountain, but also remembering to completely snap the lid shut and to carefully replant the microbox “like a carrot” to keep our “MAX PATCH CARROT PATCH” alive and healthy!
Now continue up the trail about 125 steps to find a fairly large multi-trunk blueberry bush about 5 steps off trail right that is directly downhill from a white pine just east of a couple of smallish multi-trunk trees on the “upper level”. Behind that particular “lower level” trailside blueberry bush, under a small rock, find phynstar’s “HARVESTING BERRIES” in a little round blue-topped lock and lock container. ( Looks like this might be a good place to do just what the carving shows if you get here in the right berry-picking season!)
Next to find the “thistle”! Gently ascend now, perhaps singing a tune or two, until you approach the famous “trickle” where that first Max Patch box was planted so long ago. Just before reaching the trickle, downhill to the left is a square concrete foundation with the only metal we could find on the mountain! So, we carefully attached wronghat’s “MAX PATCH THISTLE PATCH” in its black keyholder along with our attempt at wronghat clue-writing style: “Bee knee thistle efts pout, Sir Hound Ed buys tones!” (Careful now with that thistle, don’t get prickled near the trickle or leave the box in a pickle!)
(While you’re here, you might as well hop across the trickle and find that historic first Max Patch letterbox with its third replacement stamp, if you don’t already have it! A brief stamp history is contained therein.)
And now it’s time for “CHEERS to 20 YEARS” by airstreamdreams! Continue gently up trail past a long row of rhododendrons on the right. Just before the end of the row is a 2-trunk tree with green feet about 5 feet off trail on the right. Behind it, buried under a flat mossy stone or two find a boxingly bubbly reason to celebrate - 20 years of American adventure-style letterboxing right here on Max Patch - and here’s to many more!
Now approaching the “breezy zone” - a perfect place for “HATS OFF to MAX PATCH” by pugs +bee! Indeed, on a normal day here on the upcoming open grassy arena of this famously windy Max Patch bald mountain, your hat probably would get blown right off your head in just a few steps further up, if it were not well tethered! However, before that happens, duck back to the next to last tree on the right that has about 5 trunks and a flat mossy rock behind covering a camo pouch with a type of little feathered cap that could easily be blown away by “the breeze” (which also just happened to be my old trail name on the AT!), so please remember to replace that flat little rock “paperweight”! And “hats off” again to Max Patch, capped off by its lofty long-standing status as the earliest dated publicly posted letterbox we know of in this hemisphere!
Now out of the trees and off through the breeze to catch those views of 360 degrees! It really is so wonderfully invigorating out here that you most likely won’t mind at all going the extra half mile for this stamp by oceanwinds called “HIKE MORE, WORRY LESS”! In fact, that is what often happens when you get out here and just want to keep on going, so turn left with the AT northbound and wind your way down to treeline. From the first large tree directly left of the trail, pick your way carefully about 20 steps northwest to a pair of old trees with one broken off making a 10’ snag. Lying westerly from between them, roughly parallel to the trail, is a large charred fallen trunk with the box hidden by rocks and bark under it a couple of feet from the still standing trunks. (N.B. This box could use a logbook, if anyone happens to have one to spare!)
Now to get MAXimum appreciation of this big bald PATCH, HEAD all the way back across the CROWN of it, zipping briefly down “Grand Central” if you need to check out the top of that “western sideburn”! Then continue on the AT southbound down several dozen log steps, curve right and see indications of approaching “brush zone” or “receding hairline”, whichever the case may be. Stop when you reach the first small white pines to the left and right of the trail near an AT white marker post. Go a dozen or so steps uphill to behind the white pine on the right and look under the needles under a flat rock or two for another box from airstreamdreams with a funny stamp giving some extra expressive meaning to the term “BALD PATCH”!
So, by now perhaps you’ve gotten quite a patchwork of letterboxing experiences and are ready to start looping back to your car. Continue through some patches of thin trees, down some more log steps, and reach a junction with a wooden sign left and a wood pole right directing you back to the parking lot. Go right on this flat stretch, looking for a nice place to lay down a “MAX PATCHWORK QUILT” from Bluebird, maybe behind that first larger white pine on the right, since those pine needles do make such good box bedding!
And finally, as you loop around this last section of mostly level trail, we hope that you didn’t take a tumble anywhere along the line or get too scratched up on brambles or anything like that! However, just before you begin to skirt the last bald area going towards the parking lot, stop at the “Trail Closed” carsonite pole on the right. Almost even with that pole, on the left side of the closed trail, though still on the right of the main trail, is the last small white pine we saw, with just a few scrub pines and prickly bushes beyond before the last bald stretch begins. If you look behind that little white pine, we hope you will get “ALL PATCHED UP”, another box put together by Bluebird! We also hope that you had a wonderful, memorable time on Max Patch and are as happy as we are to have this special place as our site for celebrating North American letterboxing’s first 20 years! And thanks again to everyone who sent stamps and boxes for this Max Patchwork Project!
Cheers,
W & P
Hike length: 1-2 miles
Legendary mountain loop with the AT in western NC
Max Patch is a lovely bald mountain top to visit along the Appalachian Trail in western NC, near the TN line, just north of the Great Smokies and southwest of Hot Springs, NC. It is a grand grassy place from which to get broad 360 degree mountain views on a clear sunny day, so, having backpacked through so many times while on my AT hikes of the 80’s and 90’s, I was absolutely tickled to learn so many years ago now that it was also the site of the earliest dated official letterbox plant in North America - supposedly planted on April 26, 1998! It just seems so appropriate to have this cool lofty spot as the starting point for American-style letterboxing, with its founders’ focus set on getting people up and out on clued adventure hunts (as opposed to “Dartmoor-style scavenging” or mere “stamp collecting”) that we hoped putting out a few more letterboxes in the area to celebrate 20 years since that first letterbox planted here on Max Patch would serve as an incentive for even more letterboxers to come and experience this legendary place and the storied beginning of our own wonderful American-style letterboxing tradition!
Now, please note that this mountain is very popular, both with day-hikers and with AT backpackers in season, so great caution will be needed to keep the dozen or so boxes currently located in the area safe. Also, bearing in mind that more than half of the 1.5 -mile loop is in open field with little or no place to hide should probably eliminate the need to add any more boxes to this area. We can probably still accommodate a couple more boxes that we’d already promised to find homes for nearby on a future trip, but any more than that would likely be too much for the area to sustain, and we certainly wouldn’t want to turn this historic American letterboxing site into an ephemeral “egg hunt”! I had really quite forgotten just how much of the loop is on the bald (10 years since last there for BABE 10!), so please take great care with scouting out and replacing these boxes! The good news is that the boxes we planted are all on the less used and less steep portions of the loop, whereas most day-hikers go straight up “Grand Central” and most backpackers stay on the AT. In fact, we only had one person pass us the whole time we were planting, so it should be quite easy to remain discreet about what you are doing up here just by keeping a watchful eye out. And, if possible, choose a beautiful sunny but uncrowded day!
So, now it’s your choice on how to get to the Patch itself - north from I-40 exit 7 at Harmon Den, south from 25/70 in Del Rio, west from 209 south of Hot Springs near Bluff, or by backpacking from Georgia or Maine, as I did several times each way - oh, so long ago! Actually, even though some of the roads up the mountain have now been paved, even just getting to the trailhead itself is still part of the adventure, so do your research ahead of time so you can pick the route you like the best to get to the wood sign for the Max Patch trailhead parking lot, or roadside parking if the lot is full. Then just get out there and enjoy!
Start your walk up the gentler trail prong to the left of the large brown kiosk (while hopefully any crowds will choose to go straight up the steeper route directly ahead!) Very shortly we left a clear film container with a tight gray lid deeply buried (like a carrot) at the base of a smallish 2-trunk tree about 5 steps off trail on the right. We left it behind the slightly larger left trunk, under a single stick, to serve as that proverbial “carrot on a stick” to get people going up the mountain, but also remembering to completely snap the lid shut and to carefully replant the microbox “like a carrot” to keep our “MAX PATCH CARROT PATCH” alive and healthy!
Now continue up the trail about 125 steps to find a fairly large multi-trunk blueberry bush about 5 steps off trail right that is directly downhill from a white pine just east of a couple of smallish multi-trunk trees on the “upper level”. Behind that particular “lower level” trailside blueberry bush, under a small rock, find phynstar’s “HARVESTING BERRIES” in a little round blue-topped lock and lock container. ( Looks like this might be a good place to do just what the carving shows if you get here in the right berry-picking season!)
Next to find the “thistle”! Gently ascend now, perhaps singing a tune or two, until you approach the famous “trickle” where that first Max Patch box was planted so long ago. Just before reaching the trickle, downhill to the left is a square concrete foundation with the only metal we could find on the mountain! So, we carefully attached wronghat’s “MAX PATCH THISTLE PATCH” in its black keyholder along with our attempt at wronghat clue-writing style: “Bee knee thistle efts pout, Sir Hound Ed buys tones!” (Careful now with that thistle, don’t get prickled near the trickle or leave the box in a pickle!)
(While you’re here, you might as well hop across the trickle and find that historic first Max Patch letterbox with its third replacement stamp, if you don’t already have it! A brief stamp history is contained therein.)
And now it’s time for “CHEERS to 20 YEARS” by airstreamdreams! Continue gently up trail past a long row of rhododendrons on the right. Just before the end of the row is a 2-trunk tree with green feet about 5 feet off trail on the right. Behind it, buried under a flat mossy stone or two find a boxingly bubbly reason to celebrate - 20 years of American adventure-style letterboxing right here on Max Patch - and here’s to many more!
Now approaching the “breezy zone” - a perfect place for “HATS OFF to MAX PATCH” by pugs +bee! Indeed, on a normal day here on the upcoming open grassy arena of this famously windy Max Patch bald mountain, your hat probably would get blown right off your head in just a few steps further up, if it were not well tethered! However, before that happens, duck back to the next to last tree on the right that has about 5 trunks and a flat mossy rock behind covering a camo pouch with a type of little feathered cap that could easily be blown away by “the breeze” (which also just happened to be my old trail name on the AT!), so please remember to replace that flat little rock “paperweight”! And “hats off” again to Max Patch, capped off by its lofty long-standing status as the earliest dated publicly posted letterbox we know of in this hemisphere!
Now out of the trees and off through the breeze to catch those views of 360 degrees! It really is so wonderfully invigorating out here that you most likely won’t mind at all going the extra half mile for this stamp by oceanwinds called “HIKE MORE, WORRY LESS”! In fact, that is what often happens when you get out here and just want to keep on going, so turn left with the AT northbound and wind your way down to treeline. From the first large tree directly left of the trail, pick your way carefully about 20 steps northwest to a pair of old trees with one broken off making a 10’ snag. Lying westerly from between them, roughly parallel to the trail, is a large charred fallen trunk with the box hidden by rocks and bark under it a couple of feet from the still standing trunks. (N.B. This box could use a logbook, if anyone happens to have one to spare!)
Now to get MAXimum appreciation of this big bald PATCH, HEAD all the way back across the CROWN of it, zipping briefly down “Grand Central” if you need to check out the top of that “western sideburn”! Then continue on the AT southbound down several dozen log steps, curve right and see indications of approaching “brush zone” or “receding hairline”, whichever the case may be. Stop when you reach the first small white pines to the left and right of the trail near an AT white marker post. Go a dozen or so steps uphill to behind the white pine on the right and look under the needles under a flat rock or two for another box from airstreamdreams with a funny stamp giving some extra expressive meaning to the term “BALD PATCH”!
So, by now perhaps you’ve gotten quite a patchwork of letterboxing experiences and are ready to start looping back to your car. Continue through some patches of thin trees, down some more log steps, and reach a junction with a wooden sign left and a wood pole right directing you back to the parking lot. Go right on this flat stretch, looking for a nice place to lay down a “MAX PATCHWORK QUILT” from Bluebird, maybe behind that first larger white pine on the right, since those pine needles do make such good box bedding!
And finally, as you loop around this last section of mostly level trail, we hope that you didn’t take a tumble anywhere along the line or get too scratched up on brambles or anything like that! However, just before you begin to skirt the last bald area going towards the parking lot, stop at the “Trail Closed” carsonite pole on the right. Almost even with that pole, on the left side of the closed trail, though still on the right of the main trail, is the last small white pine we saw, with just a few scrub pines and prickly bushes beyond before the last bald stretch begins. If you look behind that little white pine, we hope you will get “ALL PATCHED UP”, another box put together by Bluebird! We also hope that you had a wonderful, memorable time on Max Patch and are as happy as we are to have this special place as our site for celebrating North American letterboxing’s first 20 years! And thanks again to everyone who sent stamps and boxes for this Max Patchwork Project!
Cheers,
W & P
Hike length: 1-2 miles