Northborough Trails Letterboxing Quest Explained

Special thanks to the following letterboxers for their helping pulling this Quest together: The Merry Pranksters, Dale End Farm, Mim, and StarWars Chick.

The intent of the Northborough Trails Letterboxing Quest is two-fold: to introduce the great trails of Northborough to letterboxers, and to introduce letterboxing (and the trails) to local folks. In preparation for the launching of this Quest, we have planted at least one letterbox on all of the trail systems in town, so there are now several new ones to seek!

About the awesome Northborough Trails Committee

Northborough Trail Maps

Northborough Trails Committee website

Directions to Northborough Trails

Northborough Letterboxing blog (with clues)

About the Quest

The goals

1. Find the 10 letterboxes with stamps that together form a map of Northborough.
2. Find at least one letterbox on each of 5 trails (of your choice).

The rewards

Successful completion of steps 1 & 2 above will earn you:
1. The Northborough AppleFest stamp (if you did not get it at AppleFest)
2. A Quest-specific stamp that can only be earned by finishing this quest
3. A small “token” recognizing your accomplishment
4. A familiarity with our trails, so you can choose your favorites to hike again!

How to achieve the goals

Goal #1: The Map of Northborough stamps

1) Find the Map outline stamp. This requires you to hike the Cold Harbor Trail, and you’ll definitely want to do this first. Stamp this outline into your logbook. This stamp divides Northborough into 9 sections, each of which contains a trailhead that you will visit. Clues to the Map letterbox.

2) Find all of the 9 stamps planted at or very near nine of our trailheads. We recommend that you only color the letter in the middle of the stamp (take a marker with you), and not the outer borders (it will look nicer). The outer borders are there to help you fit the stamp (like a puzzle piece) into the correct location & orientation on the map you stamped from the Map box. A stamp found at a trailhead will be the “puzzle piece” for the part of town where the trailhead itself is located. Thus, you may want to use a town map with trails identified to help guide you. Clues to the Puzzle Pieces letterboxes.

Goal #2: You need to hike five of these trails! Provide evidence of this (the image of at least one letterbox stamp from each of these five trails), and you’ve met Goal #2. The names of boxes on each trail are listed with the Puzzle Pieces.

Once you are at the trailhead, though, wouldn’t you just want to go ahead and hike the trail? They all have at least one letterbox planted!

Upon completion of the Quest, please email us so we can arrange your reward! zess.devine@gmail.com

***Email us with any questions!!***

As with all of our letterboxes, we encourage feedback so that letterboxers will enjoy the hunts, and not get frustrated by poorly written clues or unintended hazards.

NOTE: Before you set out you must read and agree to the Waiver of Responsibility and Disclaimer.