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Letterboxing Northeast Coastal Boxes
(December, 2002: The first letterbox is likely missing due to brush
clearing at the site...) Rhode Island's salt ponds are crucial estuarian hatcheries for a variety of wildlife. While the osprey has made a substantial recovery in this area, a small shore bird called the Piping Plover continues endangered. They require something we're not quite ready to provide: open space on undeveloped beaches. The 1999 Piping Plover Restoration Project at Ninigret Pond resulted in 8 nesting pairs raising 25 chicks to fledge. Peak nesting season on the beach is from early spring to late summer: Ninigret Conservation Area is open during this period. It is also quite beautiful during the fall and winter. Directions: This is really two separate hikes separated by a short drive: for the first section take the Ninigret Park exit on RI Rt. 1. At the park, follow the signs all the way around to the nature trails beyond the observatory and senior center. Park in the rocked-in area of the old Naval Airfield runway. This area can be exceptionally buggy! Walk to the information board in the southeast corner and take the trail to your right heading southwest. Bear left (south) at the fork and walk ½ mile to an observation tower. Enjoy the view of the pond before stamping in to the first letterbox, hidden 18 steps southeast of the little info board there. Hug the left side of the trail and look under a flat stone in the bushes to the northeast. Returning to your car, head south on Rt. 1 (you'll need to first drive north before flipping a U-turn). Drive several miles to East Beach Rd. (again making a U-turn), and follow it to the end. Turning left you'll find beach parking in a block or two. Beach comb your way east along the barrier strand separating Ninigret Pond from the sea for about 3 miles, until you reach the Charlestown breach way, Ninigret's opening to the ocean. Turning left, follow the breakwater north until it loops west into a sandy cul de sac with fenceposts surrounded by beach bayberry, rose, and poison ivy. Now follow the 4-wheel drive road that parallels the beach back towards the west a short way, until you see a boardwalk heading north to Ninigret Pond. This is the Arnoldia Nature Preserve area: a short way down the boardwalk, with a defunct privy nearby, your reward is tucked under the large square deck, in the northeast corner, between the deck and it's supporting cinderblock foundation. You can return to your car via either the beach or the 4-wheel drive road that parallels it. Enjoy!
A delightful and gentle two-mile walk on the Rhode Island shore with views of salt ponds and barrier islands, and splendid birding, for a pair of letterboxes. You could also easily include the "Trustom Pond Quest" letterbox along the way for a triple. Directions: In Charlestown RI on Rte. 1 between Moonstone and Ninigret Beaches, turn south to Green Hill Beach. This is Post Rd: after a couple hundred yards, turn left onto Green Hill Beach Rd and follow it for 0.7 miles to the end. Turn left at the stop sign, then quickly left again onto Matunuck School House Rd. After 0.8 miles, find the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge entrance on your right. The Trustom Pond NWR occupies old farmland bordering salt pond estuary. There are two connected loop trails, each with a southward-pointing extension that leads to observation towers over the wetlands. From the parking lot, if the small headquarters is open, grab a map. Then follow the well maintained path past a map board to skirt a field and pass a farm pond. The trail turns to grass. Turn to the path bearing 144 degrees, and then at another map, go left to 134 degrees. Follow this straight old farm road past a lovely bench and out to the observation tower: the East Point Letterbox is behind the stairs, under a flat rock. Now return to the map by the farm pond and turn onto 244 to cross a short boardwalk. At a wide intersection, go 270 degrees and then 282 degrees at the next intersection, towards the second observation tower. This path will lead you up to another crossing with a bench and map: turn to 146 degrees. This larger, more isolated observation tower is the place for a rest! Again, peak behind the stairs and under a flat rock for the West Point Letterbox. When you've had your fill of this expansive place, return to the last map to plot your next adventure!
(We're pretty sure both these boxes are missing)
Note: "Wildlife Management Area" is a euphemism for Hunting
Zone. These areas are not safe for letterboxing during hunting season
from Monday through Saturday. We do not recommend letterboxing here even
on Sundays during the hunting season. This is not a multi-use area and
hunters are not welcoming of hikers, bikers, birders, or boxers during
their season. Hike and clues: easy. Time: 60 to 90 minutes of level walking (about 3 miles). We really think you'll enjoy this one! Barn Island Wildlife Management Area is an especially wonderful place in a driving snow storm, wild with the promise of the osprey's return come spring. In summer and fall it is completely relaxing, a quintessential, New England impressionist-school landscape painter's setting. From I95 in Stonington CT, take exit 91 and turn west on Rt. 234. After ½ mile, turn left on North Main St and continue 1.5 miles to turn left again onto Rt. 1 East (for a spectacular side trip, continue straight across the light and down into Stonington Borough, and a glimpse of old New England, with a sense of what Mystic has forfeited to tourism). Several miles down Rt. 1, at a traffic light with a "boat ramp" sign, turn right on Greenhaven Rd and then immediately right again onto Palmer Neck Rd. The trail head parking is on the right after 1.5 miles. In an area of homes famed for classic understated elegance and excruciatingly boutique quaintness, spot a gem of whimsical playfulness on your right during the drive in. Bring insect repellant, binoculars, field guides to trees and birds, and your blaze orange sweatshirt during hunting season (September-March). Park in the small lot and head east through the gate by a memorial stone onto the wide trail. You will cross several raised dikes across 700 acres of salt marshes, separated by "islands" of woodland. At the first fork, branch right, then right again at the next. Walk on to a wilder dike, with more of a footpath. Cross again into woods. Your trail will gently curve northeasterly and travel between stone walls before coming to an old cemetery on the right, bounded by stone walls and with large mortared stone portals at the northeast end. Pass through an opening in the wall and follow a path down to the markers, finding one dating from 1765. Continue down the hill, with a wall to your left, past a large multi-trunked maple, to cross northwards through this new wall at a holly tree by two white markers. Turn right onto a faint deer trail, paralleling the stone wall (now on your right) southwards to emerge onto another marshland. The views here are spectacular. Now to find the letterbox! Return to the main trail outside the cemetery and turn left to retrace your steps southwest to cross the first dike, and bear left at the intersection. Continue over the wooded island and cross the curved dike again, passing over another island and then a short dike and into the woods. Now watch carefully for a faint trail to the left between a chest-high jumble of rock and a multi-trunked maple. Turning onto this path, a short bushwack leads to another, similar maple on the shore, with a second letterbox wedged between the many trunks. Stamp in while sitting on the conveniently placed rock overlooking the estuary. The final return is quite simple: two dikes separated by a left at the intersection between.
Sunk in June 2000 and replaced 6/29/01: this one is very well hidden. Newport, Rhode Island bills itself as the "yachting capital of the world," but it also has some terrific walking tours. We've been sail-walking Newport for years and this is one of our favorites. Since this box was placed in August, these instructions assume a summer season southwesterly, the breeze that made the America's Cup races famous. You'll beat upwind to your goal trading tack upon tack. On a winter cruise, northeasterlies prevail, making your first legs a downwind run, and you'll have to jibe. This can be confusing to Midshipmen, those beginning sailors, but trust your navigators because the courses you set will remain the same and will occasionally be marked by buoys on the way. This cruise is about 4 nautical miles. Bon voyage! From your berth at the Newport Yacht Club on Long Wharf, raise anchor and set sail on an easterly course. Cross the shipping lanes and move through the nautical stores before crossing another shipping lane. Keep your tiller on an easterly heading, choosing the more southerly side of the current. After the second show-boat, tack to the south at the "C" buoy. Now you will begin to work upwind, following a zig zagging course while you tack back and forth. After one southerly leg, tack east in front of the big luxury liner named for a fabulously wealthy yachtsman. Two legs will bring you to the "D" buoy: tack south. After two more legs, tack east again and go for another single leg. Tack south and hold your course for two legs. Tack east for a short leg, then south at the "M" buoy between sailmaker's boats. Continue for one leg. Tack east and travel up two legs to the main shipping lanes, where you'll tack to the south again. Heading south, toot your whistle to signal your crossing, then sail for two legs to tack southeast at the second "B" buoy. Run between the brick-red waves: your navigation crew was stationed in the houseboat to starboard in a previous commission. After two legs, tack south at the "S" buoy. Sail for two legs and tack east, then cruise another two legs before tacking south. Beat upwind for two more legs and then tack east. Travel up to the end, and a quite distinctive landmark. Heave-to for a rest and enjoy this anchorage. When you're ready to get underway again, fall off (not literally, please) onto a new heading, north. Run downwind to pass two short stone walls to the east, then find a wide, safe (not steep) path heading south. Sail out onto the promontory and sight your goal at 240 degrees. Complete your voyage log book. If the fishermen or party boats are anchored here and you can't wait them out, please consider passing up this one for a second voyage, as they have sunk this letterbox in the past. Now to return to home port: continue northerly until your canal begins to feel fenced in. Jibe west at the ladder and sail one leg, leaving the ocean in your wake. Jibe north for a leg, then west at the "M" buoy. After another leg, jibe north, cross the shipping lanes, and continue northerly between stone bulkheads for a longish leg. Jibe west at the "O" buoy, and travel for a leg before jibing north. Sail one leg, jibe west for another leg, and make a gentle zig zag to port and starboard at the "G" buoy. Continue west to the next major shipping lane, cross over carefully as the captains are quite frantic in these waters, and sail down a smaller rhumb line leaving the reaching hands to your right. Sail west again for two legs, jibe north t the "S" buoy for one and a half legs and then jibe west into the white pilings and sail down to the harbor. It is just one leg north to your anchorage and all the pleasures and refreshments that await sailors on shore.
(revised 6/23/00 but the Chasm box again reported missing) A lovely 2½ mile beach hike with letterboxes like bookends on either side. The Second Beach area in Newport RI has an amazing amount of open space for such a crowded Eastern island, with a wealth of wildlife. Directions: On the Newport Bridge continue with Rt. 138 to the end, and turn left at the light on Admiral Kalbfus Rd. (Rt. 138). Travel up the hill and cross straight ahead at Broadway Ave, leaving Rt. 138 to turn left without you. Continue down Miantonami Ave to Valley Rd. (Rt. 214). Turn right at the light, continue straight through the next light (Rt. 138A), and go left at First Beach onto Crescent Ave and then left again onto Purgatory Rd. Go up and over, passing St George's School, and park at the Second Beach parking lot on your right if possible. In the summer season you may have to drive farther down the road to a larger parking lot, and during peak season there is a parking fee. For this hike, take a long easterly walk down the beach. At the far end enter the Sachuest Point NWR, and take the first shoreline trail to your right, heading south. Walk around the point counterclockwise and turn northwards, passing a scattering of rock islands and a lovely rocky cove. Avoiding the well marked shortcuts, keeping to the shoreline path, you'll come to an observation platform at the northern tip of the point. Enjoy the views of the Sakonnet River, Little Compton, and Third Beach. Before you leave, backtrack easterly down the trail about 50 yards to a short path onto the rocky shore. Step down and then turn right, and in about 25 steps, look in the beach rose bushes on your right for the Sakonnet Point Letterbox, moved here after the original was attacked by vandals. Continuing westerly along your trail, regain the park entrance and again tour the beach line, this time heading west. At the beach's end, continue westerly up the road, passing a memorial park bench and bearing left on Tuckerman Ave. Turn in at the Purgatory Chasm parking lot and follow the path at 145 degrees, leaving the bridge to your right. Out on the point you'll find a concrete block: turn northeast and go about 30 steps to a small juniper in a puddingstone outcrop. Turn to 260 degrees and take 10-15 steps to find your second discovery, the Purgatory Chasm Letterbox, under a rock behind a small oak tree. Now get out the beach blanket and sun block!
Vandalized in late-1999 and replaced by The Wiz in Rhode Island. Many thanks, Bob! November 2004: most likely missing... A single letterbox in the harbor defenses beside the bay. Difficulty: easy level mile with a brief scramble. Directions: in Newport, RI, follow Thames Street southwards and turn right on Wellington Ave. Drive along the southern end of Newport Harbor, and curve left with the road. Turn right at the stop sign, then curve left again before going right at another stop sign. Turn in to Fort Adams on your right and go through the gates (seasonal fee). Drive straight past the sailing center with views to the right of the mansions on Breton Cove. Park in the large parking lot. Hike north with the water to your right past the Museum of Yachting, and visit the classic boats in the small basin on the point. There are stunning views of the Newport Bridge and Rose Island Lighthouse. Keeping Narragansset Bay on your right, curve southward with views of Jamestown, Fort Wetherill, and Beavertail. The imposing walls of Fort Adams continue on your left, and begin to become overgrown and tumble-down. Pass through a gate, and then take the steep path up to the wall on your left. The Fort Adams Letterbox is tucked into the base of the western portion of the wall, just before you turn left to mount up and over onto the viewing spot. Stamp in here and enjoy the bay. Then continue south on the path with the water on your right, with views ahead of Hammersmith Farms. Turn left (east) with the roadway up to the Eisenhower House, and then down the hill to the park road by the gates. Turn left to your waiting car.
(Originally a three box series, Fast Passage was first placed in September 1999, but the third box in the series soon went missing and was never replaced. The first letterbox was kindly refreshed by cscm and Rustypuff in March 2003. We recarved and replaced that one over the Thanksgiving Weekend of 2003. In the summer of '03, MusicWoman superceded the missing third box at the lighthouse with one of her own. Please spend some extra time on the re-hiding part so this remaining box will continue to wait for us out at Land's End). Now a single box guarding the entrance to Narragansset Bay, with views of several other letterbox sites in Newport and Jamestown RI. A short level walk. Directions: in Newport, RI, follow Thames St south along the narrow one-way portion, and turn right on Wellington Ave. Follow the signs indicating Ocean Drive: pass westerly along the southern border of Newport Harbor, and then curve left before turning right at a stop sign. Curve left and turn right again, and pass Fort Adams State Park, Hammersmith Farms, Oceancliff, the Coast Guard Station, and finally the Inn at Castle Hill. Turn left into Brenton Point State Park, and drive south and then east through the parking area to park at the Portugese Memorial. From the memorial, cut north across the grass to the Fisherman's Memorial at the flagpole. Using the compass rose there, head northeast to gain the walkway outside the visitor's center, and pass into a small garden. Continuing north through the hedge, enter the Japanese Rock Garden and find the bridging rock on your right. The letterbox is tucked behind the crumbling stone wall just east of this rock. Hopefully your search was a fast passage! ...last updated 03/21/2006
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