What the heck is a Letterbox Hybrid?

Letterboxing is another form of treasure hunting that uses clues instead of coordinates (To learn more about letterboxing visit http://www.letterboxing.org/). A letterbox hybrid is a letterbox whose owner has also posted it on geocaching.com and posted its coordinates.  This means it can be found whichever way you choose.  These types of geocaches will contain a stamp that is meant to remain in the box and is used by letterboxers to record their visit.

Butterfly Letterbox Hybrid

A few weeks ago, I convinced the Crew to help me find GC1DV9G – Butterfly Letterbox Hybrid in down town Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I explained that we would us drawings of different land marks around town to find our way to the final geocache location.  I failed to mention we could just use the coordinates and save about an hour of hiking around town (oops, not my fault they didn’t read the description!)

We drove downtown and made our way to the a parking spot near ground zero.  We then discussed where we thought the first clue was leading us.  As we walked in that direction, the Crew started questioning why Flagg2007, the cache owner, posted coordinates so far way from the starting point (I remained silent until this passed).

sketch12 from the Butterfly Letterbox Hybrid Geocache

We finally arrived at the landmark in the first drawing and began searching for the location of the next drawing.  It took just a few minutes to realize the goal was to stand where the artist was standing and not actually going to the location of the landmark.  We forgot this a few times along our journey and had to double back to re-orient ourselves.  As we worked our way through the drawings on the geocache description page, Dave mentioned that he thought we were going to end up right back where we started (I believe that boy has an internal compass, like his daddy).

We came around the corner near ground zero we spotted my truck and Dave says, “See, I told you!”  I quickly explained what I had done, but said either way we were going to be walking the same distance.  We could have parked near the first picture and walked back to that location after finding the cache or parked near the cache so we finished up with the win.  They all agreed I had made the better choice, but I think I was still in trouble for keeping my plans to myself.

We had a nice hike downtown and got to enjoy a different kind of cache.  I would call it a win!

If you’re ever in Chattanooga, Tennessee and want to have a great geocaching adventure, I highly recommend the Butterfly Letterbox Hybrid Geocache.  You won’t be disappointed.