The claw-wrench-hand

Consistent figure on the AT map

I’m continuing to document all of the visual bits of information on the Appalachian Footpath Box map that I was giving less attention to earlier on. This is perhaps because of my considering anything that wasn’t in the “foreground” and/or, if very small, feeling identifiable as AI/template noise. This may still be the case but I am going to try and do a better job of looking for more subtle things that might be intentionally designed. One of those things is what I think is a claw-like gesture (or perhaps a wrench)

I don’t know how to describe it other than its like a long handle/base with a two-prong something at one end.

Here’s an example. This is near the bear and rocks and also kind of looks like a curved tree trunk. In this case, the “prongs” are near the top.

The ones that really grabbed my attention, though, were these two which seem to be near exact matches with one as a darker form and the other visible in the negative space.

The bottom image is very faint (this is near the white mark), but even an additional mark to the bottom left seems to be there too. This might just be some AI generated pattern that got repeated. These screenshots are from the high-resolution PDF ebook.

I spent $25 on a 30x “loupe” to have a better magnifying experience than using some old thing we had laying around the house. It was hard for me to photograph it well, but the darker one feels easily visible with a magnifying glass. The fainter one does not feel as visible.

Here’s another place where I think the author manipulated a marking to give it that “claw-like” look.

This is one of those water-stain-looking things, but on the left it looks like it was digitally erased or painted over in a Photoshop-like tool. And then there is a slight marking very similar to the brush stroke of the dashed line marks.

Perhaps this is some kind of indicator of changing scale? I think this one above looks very similar to the darker one noted earlier.

As one more example, this one I noticed during a recent “tree hunting” look around the map. This is a shadow-looking thing along the left side of the map. The “prongs” are not as sharp - if anything this might be closer to the first bent tree image I shared (the one near the bear + rocks).

Another thing I noticed

I am more and more starting to think about a “tree-theme” for the map given the prominent tree-looking thing in the circle and then more subtle trees (or tree trunks/bases).

The image above comes from the bottom of the map. I have been looking more closely at the border of the map and trying to examine the places where it looks like there were human-made deviations from a “crumpled paper” background template. The left side kind of looks like the head of a fox (side profile), but the right looks more like a fallen/uprooted tree.

I really hope fallen trees (or trees in general) are not part of the landmark-set we are supposed to be working with given how quickly things can change with trees (alive or dead).

Here is that area with more of the bottom border.

In the center, that also kind of looks like a log (cleaner cut). And then to the right of that is what I see as a side profile of a skull and then something dangling. Could these all be part of some sequence/story? I also really hope the treasure box isn’t dangling! That thing reminds me of how the gems (the treasure for each respective “casque”) were woven into the artwork connected to The Secret treasure hunt (examples below)