Treasure Quest: To Hunt or Not To Hunt: 2011

About Letterboxing

About a year ago I got word of an outdoor activity called “letterboxing” from a special lil lady. As it turns out, it is a treasure hunt fashioned outdoors activity. A simple glimpse through the (www.letterboxing.org) website and the various locations where boxes have been placed is all it takes to get started. This is a international movement, available or can be recreated anywhere on the world. There are clues that will lead you to the location of the box. Inside the box you will find a notebook with a note from the person who placed the original box. Many placers will create a unique meaning behind the location or the reason for the box’s placing. In the notebook you place your mark…a stamp of your choosing along with your name and a message of your own. What intrigued me the most of this activity at first was the simplicity behind the idea with an excuse to do some exploration of familiar locations but most importantly to visit new places never stepped foot in.

Traveling feeds the soul. New places, experiences, and getaways teach new lessons and give us a greater outlook to life. Routine can blind us from our existing enclosed lives. Human nature is curiosity. So the question than becomes to hunt or not to hunt? Ultimately this becomes a quest for an artifact. An artifact of any sort is given value through human contact and importance than is transcribed. Human interaction through artifacts has existed since the birth of humanity. So you see this activity can be much more than a simple treasure hunt.

Treasure Hunt

When planning a getaway, letterboxing comes to mind. Site seeing instills a good sense of the location. So when I planned a trip to beautiful Big Bear City, letterboxing was definitely an activity to do. We drove off away from Big Bear City for like 40 minutes off the road in the middle of nowhere to go find this letterbox. The place is next to Baldwin Lake in a very isolated looking area. We got lost for a few minutes figuring out the correct roads to take. When we finally got on the correct road, the next clue read “Follow this road for approximately 1/4 mile to an opening in the fence. There is a small wooden sign that reads "Critical Rare Habitat." We got there and there was only one side of the fence open small enough for one person to pass at a time. We thought “weird, but ok lets get off.” We got off and started to walk down a trail that it led up a hill. Not to steep, not to challenging of a hike. However, the most noticeable aspect of the area was that we were surrounded by woods in every direction and the mountain up top. Isolation was the state of mind. The air felt fresh as if it was a reward to the lungs. Every step taken was a challenge out of the ordinary due to the elevation of the area. This site can reach up to 6,749 feet. Forward we went.

The first few clues where easily followed; however, we reached up to the point that read, “Follow the trail up the left side of the fork. At that point you should be at the Pioneer Grave Site.” There it was, an actual graveyard. There must of been about 9 to 10 graves with only rudimentary rocks placed on them with a crude wooden cross and no description. At this point, am sure we all pondered “what is this? Where are we? Are we safe?” Well we had gone that far…at the end, curiosity killed the cat and we pushed forward in true human nature. As if the thought of the grave site disoriented us, we pressed onward for about an hour at a true loss searching for the last clue...the tree stump where the letterbox rested. Working together proved futile, so we split in to couples taking different routes. As we made our way up what seemed a much more coherent trail, my partner in crime spotted a strong round stump at a distance. We rushed to it in full excitement and hope. Our eyes were on a circular reconnoitering mission around the stump (as many previous stumps had been carefully inspected before). We worked in true duo action to remove the rocks next to the stump. At the bottom, there it was…our treasure reward! The letterbox! We quickly scream (as if we were no in the 22^nd century) to our fellow team mates. They scream back to signal a response in a true “Marco/Polo” game fashion. They finally get to us as we are anxiously opening the plastic box. We open the note pad to read the messages imprinted.

The Aftermath & Facts Found Afterward

The box had been placed there since April 12^th, 2003. The first note left on the box was from someone in 2006. The last person to discover this box had just been there a few weeks prior to our discovery. One can only be in awe after seeing how many people had gone down the same path to follow this treasure of self-fulfillment. One can only wander if their experience was the same as ours, if we shared thoughts down the quest, or the excitement during the process. Reading the messages, it became evident some of the answers to those questions were a yes others would always be left to the imagination. However; one thing is certain, human connection is felt through the experience and the simple flip of the note pages. People’s names and stories have been imprinted in a place of this earth.

Having a history background always sparks my curiosity when it comes to encountering artifacts. My mind automatically starts questioning everything? What am I seeing? Who were the people or the forces that created the artifact? What was the motive? Can we recreate a history of the site from the items left behind? These questions sparked the curiosity that led to research an appetite that needed to be fulfilled. As it turns out the trail that we traveled on during our letterboxing experience would be a the biggest gold rush settlement in Southern California. Holcomb Valley would be a mirror experience to the biggest gold rush site, San Francisco; violence and wealth hungry males crowded the area for a chance to make it! The site is named after, William F. Holcomb, a prospect miner who accidentally found gold when he went on a daring chase after a grizzly bear. A treasure can not be kept secret and word got out. The population rushed to 1400 by 1860 (mostly males) without any prior warning for development to catch up with the growth. Lack of development or city planning is most easily inferred in the famous site known as “Hangmen’s Tree,” that served to administer justice without trial. The wooden fashioned shacks left behind on the site reveals the rugged temporary migrant lifestyle that these men lived. The sacrifice of the “now” for the possibility of the grandiose “than” was enough for men to flock the site. The site surely grew to an international metropolis hub. The majority of the men would face the crude high prize of this lifestyle, which leads me to believe that the graves I passed on “Pioneer/Miners Graveyard” site unpretentiously belonged to the many nameless men that paid the high cost of a dream. This graveyard thus represents another chapter in American history, one that might not be as commonly told but nonetheless represents the values that men give their lives for. Nameless man fighting for progress will always fill history. For a moment in time these men were not nameless, but instead filled my mind with curiosity that led me to “imprint” words that might have been missing from their tombs. Who will find them and what understanding can be made of them is to be determined by others who can very well write their stories down.

Views & Remains of Holcomb Valley