
An 85-year old millionaire hides $1M treasure in the Rocky Mountains (2016) - yurisagalov
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/13/469852983/seeking-adventure-and-gold-crack-this-poem-and-head-outdoors
======
saycheese
Worth noting people have died looking for it, which makes me believe the claim
is likely real, especially given Fenn has charted private helicopters to help
search for those lost and known to be searching for the treasure:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure)

Fenn hasn't been out in the Rocky Mountains, north of Santa Fe, to check on
the chest since he hid it, but he knows it's still there.

My guess is that the prize is not inside, but with Fenn; which explains why he
checks to see if someone has found it and requests they provide proof of what
is inside.

Fenn has more clues posted here: [http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-
thrill-resource-page](http://www.oldsantafetradingco.com/the-thrill-resource-
page)

~~~
widforss
That is not a plausible theory. Sure, the treasure might be elsewhere, but I
wouldn't keep the prize in my own possesion if I were over 70 years old. What
if someone finds the chest after his death.

I would rather believe it contains a note requesting that Fenn should be
contacted by the lucky one.

~~~
saycheese
Assure you that there are ways to deal with Fenn dieing and still require the
party finding it to make contact with someone to claim the prize; in fact,
Fenn planned this when he thought he would die from cancer.

~~~
1001101
From Wikipedia: "He filled the chest with "treasure" containing gold nuggets,
rare coins, jewelry and gemstones, along with a jar holding his autobiography.
He intended to hide it and end his life nearby, with the treasure as a
legacy.[2] However, he survived his illness and waited until he was 79 or 80
to hide the treasure."

These are all bearer instruments. You may not know if it's found. 79-80 is
2009-2010. If he had a cellphone, there's a trail for some enterprising telcom
worker or NSA analyst to follow (base station->sector->signal strength if not
outright location). Presumably he drove there, maybe some ALPR database to
mine.

------
elif
If he's confident that no one else knows where it is, either he killed
someone, or it is in a place where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest.
I know some AT thru hikers that old, but I don't think their packs were that
heavy, and the load was better distributed/more ergonomic.

If I had to guess, the location is within an 8 hour hike (12 miles at that
age) of a road or jeep trail. Between that and the water clue, I think the
field is considerably more narrow than the 5,000ft map in the article.

dang. I think i got bit by this gold bug ;)

~~~
takk309
From the clues, I have a suspicion that it is on a river that is accessible
only by rafting. An 80 year old man could easily raft to a location on his own
depending on difficulty of the river.

~~~
ghaff
That's certainly the _obvious_ meaning of that one stanza. Put in on a river
and paddle downstream a distance that would be too far to walk. (Of course, he
would need to get back to his car somehow unless there was a second person
with him who could drive to the take-out. And this doesn't really square with
his supposedly taking two trips.)

~~~
iaw
Depends on how far he had to raft, it could be a hundred yards between where
he enters the river and where he leaves it. He's been hiking those forests for
years.

------
gmisra
Before getting too carried away, I'd suggest reading this piece [1], about the
search for Randy Bilyeu, the missing treasure seeker mentioned int the NPR
article. It provides lot more background and context, and is enjoyable as far
as long form journalism goes.

Like many, I've casually followed the story over the years, but in the 5280
article, the reporter interviews Fenn in the context of the manhunt. To me,
Fenn comes off as someone whose obsession with his own eccentric idea of a
"game" overrides the very real life-and-death situations created as a result
of that game.

The NPR article is surprisingly blase considering the dangers involved.

[1] [http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-
colorado-m...](http://www.5280.com/news/magazine/2016/07/how-one-colorado-man-
disappeared-while-hunting-hidden-treasure)

------
ehsankia
There was a neat little mini-documentary by Vox [1] that went over the details
of this, talked to a few other people obsessed by this treasure hunt. Pretty
good overview of the history and current state of the hunt.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk)

------
trentnix
This is the first time I'm hearing of this treasure - fun stuff!

Reading the poem, the first place that popped into my head is Brown's Canyon
National Monument, just outside of Salida, Colorado.

[https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-
monument](https://www.fs.fed.us/visit/browns-canyon-national-monument)

It's just 3.5 to 4 hours north of Santa Fe, is an area with multiple hot
springs (Mt. Princeton, Poncha Springs, etc.), and downstream (Arkansas River)
you go through Bighorn Sheep Canyon and the Royal George.

It's just an amazing area on this Earth.

~~~
logfromblammo
So maybe go to Nathrop, CO, put your raft on Arkansas River where Chalk Creek,
Gas Creek, or Cottonwood Creek joins it, then go downstream past 2 Class IV
rapids (Canyon Doors, Pinball) and "put in" below Browns Creek.

There is a rail line there, so if you are squeamish about whitewater, it
probably wouldn't be difficult to portage around the 12 named rapids on that
section of the river. You could probably park at Hecla Junction and reach the
search area by land.

Below Widowmaker (IV) rapids is an intermittent creek bed ("no paddle") to the
west, that runs into some trees surrounded by big boulders ("heavy loads").

I'd start at 38.668777 N, 106.055444 W and follow the dry creek bed up to at
least 38.670606 N, 106.063440 W, myself, but I'm not likely to ever visit that
part of the country. If you find the chest there, send me a gloating postcard.

The place appears to be surrounded by ATV trails within 200 feet, so it's
likely the guy just claimed "someone has been within 200 feet" because people
are within 200 feet of it frequently, just from riding the trails.

~~~
developer2
I suspect that 200 feet off any walkable/drivable path is too easy for such a
treasure. It's more likely within 200 feet of a river/stream/creek - the
assumption being that there are people canoeing past without getting out and
traversing overgrowth with no obvious man made paths.

The only detail that really matters in terms of whether someone can ever even
find it is whether it is buried. If it's buried with no markers, the odds of
stumbling upon it even with a metal detector are so incredibly low.

~~~
logfromblammo
If I were nearly 80 years old, I'd skip the shovel, and either drop it in a
natural crevice or dump it underwater. Then mark a blaze on a vertical
surface, so that it's only visible from ground level.

Also, 200 horizontal feet does not account for terrain. 2/3 of the way across
a football field is not equivalent to 200 feet across a hedge maze.

~~~
developer2
I love your way of thinking. Assuming proper waterproofing, hiding it
underwater would be the most unexpected thing you could do. I'm a smart guy
and that thought hadn't occurred to me, even if I only dedicated 3 minutes of
my time to the process. The majority of people would naturally assume it's on
land; to place it in the water automatically ruins the consensus assumption.

~~~
turc1656
Weird. This is the very first thing I thought of. That, or properly secured
way up in a huge tree. How many people are looking up, right? Although, the
tree thing doesn't fit with his ability as a ~80 year old to put it up there.

I believe the reason my mind first went here is because of Star Trek II: The
Wrath of Kahn - in the climax of the film Spock analyzes Kahn's movements and
informs Kirk, "his pattern suggests two dimensional thinking."

~~~
logfromblammo
You also have to account for wildlife and weather. You wouldn't want a big
blow or a bear to knock your chest down and scatter the contents. But you're
correct that most people don't look in all directions when they walk.

Underwater was actually the first thing I thought of. Why a bronze chest,
after all? Gold doesn't corrode, and bronze doesn't float.

I recall tales of WW2 military units tasked with cleverly camouflaging things.
Technology has progressed. You can now take a photograph of terrain and print
that exact photo onto a cloth which can then be epoxied over a fiberglass form
and decorated with local surface features.

So I could make a fake fiberglass rock large enough to cover a 10" cube,
perfectly camouflage it with a custom print shop order and about $80 in
supplies, and anchor it to the ground. You might not realize it was a treasure
cache even if you tripped and landed with your face one meter away from it.
But that's not necessary if you just control sight lines.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Those are interesting ideas, but those kinds of techniques would violate the
spirit of the deal. By creating such a large search area, he tacitly agrees to
not hide the box itself too well.

~~~
logfromblammo
"The deal", as I see it, is to find the treasure by solving the riddles and
clues, not by stumbling across it by chance.

If the clues were sufficient to pinpoint the location with 1m precision, it
would be acceptable to hide something so well that you would have to be within
1m to notice it. A buried treasure would require this magnitude of precision.

If the clues give 10m precision, I'd expect that the target should blend in a
bit, but still be detectable from 3m away. A buried or submerged treasure
marked with an obvious blaze could get away with this magnitude.

At 100m precision, you actually need to be sort of obvious. At 1km precision,
it should be painted hunters orange and shoot fireballs into the air
periodically. At 10km precision... you probably should have taken some of that
treasure and hired Will Shortz or some other professional puzzlemaster as a
consultant.

------
seren
If you're into that sort of things, you can have a look at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl).

~~~
ehsankia
Also the Book of Masquerade [1] which was a pretty fascinating little treasure
hunt. There's a great lecture [2] on game design and eastereggs that gives a
great overview of the events surrounding it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_\(book\))

[2]
[http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html](http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html)

~~~
nothis
Psalm 46 was what I've been thinking of when reading the article, especially
after this bit:

>For further clues, you have to read the poem in his self-published book, The
Thrill of the Chase.

He might actually make money on this, lol.

~~~
finid
So at the end of the day, the guy might be giving away $1 million, but it's
likely he will also make more than that from the book sales, or at least
something close.

No wonder he has a million to throw around!

------
iplaw
Has he ever confirmed whether the treasure is still at the location?

What if someone found it long ago, not knowing that it was part of a scavenger
hunt, and decided to hide their discovery?

~~~
ehsankia
I'm not sure how old this information is, but I remember him confirming it
still is and also saying that someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm
not sure how he knows that, I wonder if he has cameras setup there?).

Actually, looking at the wikipedia page [1] for it, it seems to be from August
20, 2016.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure)

~~~
notatoad
>someone once made it within 200 feet of it (I'm not sure how he knows that)

There's at least one forum [1] where people post reports of their search. He's
probably just keeping an eye on where people say they've gone looking for it.

[1][http://www.chasechat.com/](http://www.chasechat.com/)

~~~
ghaff
It also occurs to me that if you do get to the general location by paddling,
as many have speculated, if someone posted or emailed him with the correct
put-in spot he would know that they would have passed by the treasure.

------
NaOH
The podcast Everything is Stories did an episode on Mr. Fenn and his hidden
treasure in March 2014. For anyone interested it fills out the picture a bit
of his life and his motivation for doing this.

[http://www.eisradio.org/item/003](http://www.eisradio.org/item/003)

------
Mango_Diesel
Random related story:

I was in New Mexico recently to see family and my brother said he had recently
picked up a hitchhiker who had been searching for the treasure. She had
started in Colorado and apparently been following clues found in the poems
with geological features to travel along the Rio Grande in search of it. She
believed based on her searching at the time (this was 1-2 months ago) that the
treasure was likely hidden somewhere in Pilar. Apparently she had found marks
on rocks in Embudo that led her to believe it was apparently on the other side
of a rock formation she was near.

I wouldn't put too much faith in this person's account, but she had apparently
been searching for it non-stop for several months and had been led to Pilar by
these "clues".

------
Grazester
This is interesting especially since I just started reading Read Player One.

~~~
gunnyguy121
Ohh. Good book imo. I get that a lot of people think the references are
annoying, but I found them to be rather charming. Of course I'm young so I
probably didn't get them all

~~~
wooshy
I actually had the same thoughts about ready player one when I read this
article. It was such a interested book and being able to be part of something
like that in real life sounds like it would take over my life.

------
notadoc
Sounds like the Rocky mountain version of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

------
Darthy
Could it be that he never checked whether all the hints he gave sufficiently
narrow down the location to just one spot? That he has additional knowledge
for every line, knowledge which he thinks is self-evident, but knowledge with
is actually just very personal to him, and cannot be inferred?

In this case, the riddle might never be solved, and he might die in the self
delusion that all the attention this raised is because he is a gifted writer,
when the reality is much more sad: he was a terrible riddle author that threw
away a million bucks.

~~~
mrspeaker
It's a quirky guy who buried treasure - actual treasure - along with a riddle.
That's fucking magical and fun... it's beautiful. You'd have to be pretty sad
to think that "reality is much more sad" for him.

~~~
ehsankia
Exactly, he most definitely didn't do it for designing a riddle, he did it for
the fun of seeing how people would respond and seeing them struggle and go
beyond expectations.

------
gk1
Vox had a good video about this recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ahNpQLgdk)

------
SubiculumCode
Bet satellite recordings know where he hid it. Some spy is chortling.

~~~
planteen
What if he hid it on a cloudy/rainy/snowy/foggy day?

~~~
oh_sigh
There are wavelengths other than visible light that satellites use.

~~~
planteen
Yeah, and which of those go through rain? The atmosphere blocks lots of
wavelengths outside of visible light. Rain fade is huge above 11 GHz. Good
luck imaging a person from orbit at a low RF frequency.

[http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/transmission_l...](http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~scarn/teaching/GE4250/transmission_lecture.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade)

------
avenoir
Outside has published a number of columns on this usually accompanied with
crazy stories of treasure hunters. If nothing else, it's a great way to get
some folks into the wild :)

------
Balgair
Some friends and I decided to have a go at the treasure a few years back. It
was a good excuse to go out camping and road-tripping with some mates. We
identified a spot we each thought it may have been and then spend some
weekends one summer checking them out. One place we found outside of Estes
Park, CO did have a rather large hole dug out right next to a 'swamp'/water-
filled depression, there were a LOT of beer cans and champagne bottles around
from at least a winter beforehand. The place fit all the bills for the
treasure's location, at least to our minds. Maybe the people that found it are
mum, the tax reasons would be enough to shut my mouth too.

The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many attempts
at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet, if the
thing really exists. Maybe Fenn put some note in there that says to contact
him for more cash or something, so that he'll know that it was found. I doubt
this. More than likely, there is no treasure at all and it is an intentional
wild-goose chase and the 'real treasure is friendship'. But that doesn't
square with all the deaths people have had looking for it. If the 'real
treasue is friendship' then Fenn has real blood on his hands. We all had a
great time camping at least.

~~~
hueving
>The treasure has been around for so long, and there have been so many
attempts at it, I figure there is no way that it has not been discovered yet,
if the thing really exists.

I think you are vastly underestimating the size of the rockies. The clues are
so vague that there are probably thousands of square miles that match the poem
description [1].

1\. [http://www.npr.org/2016/03/13/469852983/seeking-adventure-
an...](http://www.npr.org/2016/03/13/469852983/seeking-adventure-and-gold-
crack-this-poem-and-head-outdoors)

~~~
amelius
> I think you are vastly underestimating the size of the rockies.

I would bet there is probably more than $1M worth of (naturally available)
gold to be found in the Rockies, and it is spread around, so it's much easier
to find than a single treasure.

~~~
planteen
Way more than that. The Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mine produces over 200,000
ounces of gold per year. Not to mention countless closed mines that are
probably yet to be played out.

------
awerg34gg
If this interests you, I highly recommend checking out book The Secret. Super
interesting.
[http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage](http://thesecret.pbworks.com/w/page/22148559/FrontPage)

------
amenghra
Reminds me
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_O...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_Owl),
which is hidden in France and people have been searching for it for decades.

------
appleiigs
Maybe I should start off with Pokemon Go first to get warmed up. Similar
concept where Fenn wants people to bring out their inner Indiana Jones.
Instead of giving away a fortune, the makers of Pokemon Go were trying to make
one.

~~~
omgam
Or, the makers of Pokemon Go were installing a system to easily obtain video
footage of any urban location (less easily, other areas).

If the Fenn-treasure-seeker ground penetrating radar drone teams do
materialize, they will almost certainly locate archeological sites, which is
pretty cool. The algorithms ought to also pick up petroglyphs while searching
for blazes.

------
josephpmay
If this interests you, you might like the book Daemon by Daniel Suarez. (Ready
Player One also deals with similar themes)

------
pcthrowaway
Is it not possible someone's already found it? Whoever finds it would have to
pay taxes if they report it.

------
alpinextrm
Seems like he'd be setting himself up for a kidnapping?

------
mannykannot
I am not sure I would publicly claim to be the only person who knows where
there is an untraceable million-dollar stash, whether it is true or not.

------
cammio
(2016)

------
eternalban
Let me get this straight. People have died and this geriatric narcissist
hasn't yet decided that maybe 4 dead people are too many and maybe, possibly,
it would be a better karmic strategy for him to forgoe his little scheme and
just call the thing off?

~~~
nommm-nommm
[http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/r...](http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sports/outdoors/2016/03/04/rocky-
mountain-national-park-fatalities/81268090/)

>Since 2011, 21 people have died in Rocky Mountain National Park, eight of
those fatalities coming in 2014 alone. While grim, Rocky Mountain's annual
death toll pales in comparison to that of Grand Canyon National Park, which
averages 12 fatalities each year... About 150 people die in national parks
each year, according to the latest federal data, tracked between 2007 and
2013.

Yet we don't go shutting down the National Parks or accuse the Federal
government of bad karma.

------
alpinextrm
Seems like he's setting himself up for a kidnapping?

------
oakville
He even hid a bottle of wine behind those books on his shelf...

------
joering2
> The most recent was Randy Bilyeu who went missing in January 2016 and was
> later found dead in July of that year.

I wonder how he feels knowing at least one person died because of his actions
:(

