1092-1101. Secret Trail Mystery Trip Series (10)
Charlestown, TI

Searching through our mess of old letterboxing stuff for something else to plant locally during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic lockdown, we stumbled upon several more old stamps of sewsewbizzy’s that must have gotten misplaced a while back because we didn’t quite know what to make of them. Well, we still don’t - they must have been part of some game or something for which we just have no clue! However, that’s certainly no excuse not to just go out and get them planted somewhere to at least give ourselves and hopefully a few of our neighbors some exercise out on our local trails during these trying times!

So, Pete had the idea to use the numbers on these stamps as a sort of countdown towards reaching some destination: 3 “50”’s, 1 “40”, 1 “30”, 2 “10”’s, 2 “5”’s and a final destination! We had recently checked on a couple of our old boxes on the eastern side of Burlingame, and came upon a bike trail that we had almost forgotten about called the “Secret Trail”, so we decided to use that as the basis for this series. However, the loop we had intended to use turned out to be way longer than we had originally anticipated (over 4 miles), so instead of using the whole loop for this series, we just turned this into a hike of around 2 miles “in and out”.

The starting point is the same one as for several other of our boxes: the Schoolhouse Pond parking lot on Kings Factory Road in Charlestown, or the small pull-off a couple hundred feet to the south of it where the blue-blazed trail heads west into “Burlingame East”. Follow the blue blazes awhile until you reach the “Y” junction with blue bearing left and the red and white “Secret Trail” heading off up the rocky ridge to the right. From the middle of that junction, take about 10 steps south to the far side of a short stone wall to find a “magnifying glass” with “50” on it in a black pouch under a stone in the crack between a slanted rock and its neighbor. Then go 8 steps further south to find a “folio” with “50” on it under a stone at the base of a large ledge covered with black foliose lichen that sort of looks like burnt-edged pieces of an ancient mapbook. Then go five steps further south to find a “globe” with “50” on it perched upon a high green shelf (about 5’ up) under the right side of narrow piece of plank.

Now take the “Secret Trail” west up the rocky ridge 100 steps or so, and look on the left edge of the trail for a low flat lichen-covered rock slab with a small cavern below. What’s that hiding in the little black pouch under the 6x4” stone over by the left side of the cavern? Certainly not something we would have expected! Maybe something from “Victoria’s Secret” in a “40”?

Next continue down the rocky slope to a mossy rock area with two sets of double-red and white blazed trees just before a sharp turn left. What do you spy behind the first double-blazed 2-tree on the right? Under a gneiss chunk of rock beneath the mossy ledge behind that tree is another magnifying glass, this one sporting a “30”, with which to spy a curvaceous birch at 245*.

Now head towards that curvaceous birch and continue down the slickrock trail curving right to cross water, then up more slickrock with a good-sized root extending across the trail. Soon afterwards, look for an old oak growing on a rock island about 8 steps off trail left. There behind that right side of that oak under a grinder-shaped rock is a good place to pick up your “10” luggage. Then 10 steps north, tucked with a stone “bookmark” between two pages of the four-trunk tree is the place to pick up another “10” guidebook!

Continue along now to a rocky open area with a large pitch pine ahead and switchback left with the red and white blazes. (A white-blazed east-west tending trail is just ahead, if you miss this turn.) The trail curves down and up again through rock ledges before reaching a medium oak on the right that has blazes on both sides of it and a large split boulder with a stiff black mustache on its upper lip a few steps behind. Under a stone resting on a slightly raised mossy bed behind the 2-tree to the right of the split boulder is one “5”, and under a stone behind the 2-tree behind the split boulder is another. (How fortunate! ;-)

Finally, just walk another 100 steps or so to a flat open rocky area with lots of reindeer lichen and note a 3-tree left with a 2-tree behind it. Under a couple of stones behind the bulge at the base of the dead 2-tree is where we left a round lock n’ lock box with logbook and your final mystery destination stamp! (Bet you weren’t expecting to end up there!;-)You could continue up and down on these rocky winding trails for several more miles, as we did, but it is much shorter to simply turn around here and cruise back the way you came!

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