A few ideas at LRP — trail-wide placement math, a clock on the BEGIN triangle (17:27 & 19:38 are both hand-overlap times), and a full object atlas
Cross-posting what I shared in the MW and Cowlazars Discords (full files + a LIDAR overlay video are in those threads, #c-27 / #the-appalachian-footpath-box).
The short version:
- I re-verified the LRP corridor match against the ENTIRE trail with written-down math: 3,947 candidate windows (every side trail + the AT in segments), whole 112-pt dashed path placed rigidly at ONE locked scale per candidate, scored on coverage, corridor consumption, and trail-switch count. Ranks 1-14 all came back Little Rock Pond, converging on the same placement (2 trail switches = the blue+white combo). First non-LRP corridor is 1.5x worse. This says the DRAWING fits LRP uniquely — it does not prove the box is there.
- The clock: 1727 and 1938 read as 17:27 and 19:38 — two of the 22 moments a day when hour and minute hands OVERLAP (a clock becomes a single unambiguous pointer). Put a dial on the BEGIN triangle: one orientation makes the 17:27 pointer hit the END triangle and the 19:38 pointer hit the compass, within ~0.7 degrees. Verify it yourself with a protractor.
- Object atlas: I hand-labeled all 64 objects on the map (icons, words, marks) with fractional coordinates so anyone can locate them on their own copy. In the Discord threads as markdown.
- Myth audit: a "what Jon actually said" doc separating verbatim sourced quotes from community salt ("200 ft of the TRAIL" is a misquote of "200 ft of the BOX", no "blue blaze" quote exists, LRP has never been named/confirmed/denied, etc.), with source links.
Honest disclaimers: AI-assisted, and AI is genuinely bad at this without a lot of human correction — early versions of the math confidently ranked LRP #160 before the rules were fixed. Could still be wrong in ways I haven't caught. And confirmation bias is real; I was trying to test whether the LRP match is genuine or luck, not to prove it.
It may not be at LRP. But if it is — this was my thinking. If you go: be safe, be kind to the place, pack out everything, leave it better than you found it. And if you find it with a kid or a fellow searcher next to you, remember the baseball rule.