The Biggest Problem With Fenn's Treasure Solution

[LurkerMike]

You can quote me on this:

The biggest problem many searchers have with where Forrest Fenn hid his treasure chest, now that we know with near certainty the exact spot, is how Forrest by far didn't have the best solve for his own poem as compared to the many much better solves developed by countless searchers over the years. All Forrest had was the correct solution, and he warned that many would be disappointed when they learned where he hid his treasure chest. And he didn't disappoint to disappoint in that regard.

Me? I'm just glad it's over and I can move on to new adventures having found the real treasure Forrest Fenn gave his searchers for some 10 years: Adventure!

-Mike Nodine, AKA Searcher "LurkerMike"

[thehomeofBrown.com]

My solves led me to incredible places! Unfortunately, those were not the same places where Forrest's poem was leading. But I had a good time anyway.

I'm reminded of these words from Forrest:

I don’t feel qualified to give advice but a few ideas that I would like to say have guided me are:

Stay in your job only if you love it.
Get out in the mountains and turn a log over to see what’s there.
Avoid those things that distract you from your self esteem.
The key word is contentment. If you can find it, everything else has already fallen in place.

[Must Listengood]

I was in love with my solve. That's a huge problem that I think is shared by many.

But nothing was lost as far as I am concerned. I made cherished memories and found places that will forever be mine and mine alone. I learned a ton from Forrest - you don't come across people like that often. My Father died when I was 17, and he was born a little before Forrest in central Texas. Forrest reminded me of my father a lot. It's silly, but he felt like a surrogate father.

[djjmciv]

Well, it stands to reason as many searchers are for more educated, etc. than Forrest Fenn.
It would be a stretch to call Forrest an average professional writer. Anyone who would grade him above that doesn't have much graps of the English language no more than Forrest did.
I've stated this many times and it's well documented that English professors had graded him at a high school level. Which again, is about what you'd expect.
So, perhaps what Mike was trying to say is that Forrest was out of his league here.
His imagination and writing ability wasn't on par with how large the chase became. It and the community deserved better, but you take what you can get I suppose.

[shyorphan]

You can quote me on this:

The biggest problem many searchers have with where Forrest Fenn hid his treasure chest, now that we know with near certainty the exact spot, is how Forrest by far didn't have the best solve for his own poem as compared to the many much better solves developed by countless searchers over the years. All Forrest had was the correct solution, and he warned that many would be disappointed when they learned where he hid his treasure chest. And he didn't disappoint to disappoint in that regard.

Me? I'm just glad it's over and I can move on to new adventures having found the real treasure Forrest Fenn gave his searchers for some 10 years: Adventure!

-Mike Nodine, AKA Searcher "LurkerMike"

the problem is only 1 person knows the solve with certainty and it ain't Jack and it was not NMH. hopefully the true solve will be exposed some day.

[shyorphan]

Is it you?

There’s only one way left to prove it.

[Old Pilot]

You can quote me on this:

The biggest problem many searchers have with where Forrest Fenn hid his treasure chest, now that we know with near certainty the exact spot, is how Forrest by far didn't have the best solve for his own poem as compared to the many much better solves developed by countless searchers over the years. All Forrest had was the correct solution, and he warned that many would be disappointed when they learned where he hid his treasure chest. And he didn't disappoint to disappoint in that regard.

Me? I'm just glad it's over and I can move on to new adventures having found the real treasure Forrest Fenn gave his searchers for some 10 years: Adventure!

-Mike Nodine, AKA Searcher "LurkerMike"

Good one (near certainty).

[ventricity]

I have only seen one good solve to the poem in all this time, and that is Vertigo's solve.

[BigOnus]

I have only seen one good solve to the poem in all this time, and that is Vertigo's solve.

I've witnessed the solve being delivered in fragments, and alternatively to some degree, but I have not seen anything much resembling the correct solve written on the web...

[Sherif Billy]

Good one (near certainty).

Number 1 of the ten suggestions
1f Billy

[AaBbCcDdEeFf]

The biggest problem with the Fenn poem is someone found the chest without solving the poem. With so much emphasis on Yellowstone from TTOTC, Occam's razor says it's in Yellowstone. The problem is, WWWH is far far away from there in another state clear up by the Canadian border.

If Fenn wanted a good poem and a good contest it should have been the other way around, with the poem being about Yellowstone and the chest being found in Glacier Park or wherever, who cares where just some place that isn't Yellowstone.

[Cary_Galloway]

You can quote me on this:

The biggest problem many searchers have with where Forrest Fenn hid his treasure chest, now that we know with near certainty the exact spot, is how Forrest by far didn't have the best solve for his own poem as compared to the many much better solves developed by countless searchers over the years. All Forrest had was the correct solution, and he warned that many would be disappointed when they learned where he hid his treasure chest. And he didn't disappoint to disappoint in that regard.

Me? I'm just glad it's over and I can move on to new adventures having found the real treasure Forrest Fenn gave his searchers for some 10 years: Adventure!

-Mike Nodine, AKA Searcher "LurkerMike"

It is definitely not what a lot of people imagined. I agree with Jack when he suspected a stanza was missing because of the abrupt jump to "if you've been wise and found the blaze" a past tense. So it indicates there maybe have been a bridging stanza directing you where to look. I feel that "brave and in the wood" seems it should be stuck in before the blaze line.

I can have issues with the poem and still believe that is the poem that takes you to the spot Rudy found.

FF did say bring a sandwich and a flashlight. Makes me think he envisioned a long hunt in the woods to find the blaze/chest.

[Old Pilot]

The biggest problem with the Fenn poem is someone found the chest without solving the poem. With so much emphasis on Yellowstone from TTOTC, Occam's razor says it's in Yellowstone. The problem is, WWWH is far far away from there in another state clear up by the Canadian border.

If Fenn wanted a good poem and a good contest it should have been the other way around, with the poem being about Yellowstone and the chest being found in Glacier Park or wherever, who cares where just some place that isn't Yellowstone.

Anybody who found the chest without solving the poem was directed to the chest by someone with a good solve -- or, at least, knowledge of the specific location. Smells very fishy to me.

[djjmciv]

- Education doesn't necessarily equate to intellectual prowess. FF blows many of us out of the water in that category. I know plenty of "educated" dumbasses.

- Even if he wasn't the most eloquent writer, how many people (including many English professors) do you know who had the motivation and intellectual curiosity to write and publish more than a dozen books?

- With all due respect, most searchers were out of their league here.

- The community doesn't deserve anything, and we take what we can get. That being said, it hasn't all been gotten. I don't think this is over yet.

I'm pretty sure they've would have written quite a many of books if their main form of income was sitting around the gallery all day, maybe selling two paintings a month.
The fact that he wrote so many books shows how slow his gallery was, the fact it made him a millionaire shows how overpriced they were.

[LurkerMike]

The biggest problem with the Fenn poem is someone found the chest without solving the poem. With so much emphasis on Yellowstone from TTOTC, Occam's razor says it's in Yellowstone. The problem is, WWWH is far far away from there in another state clear up by the Canadian border.

If Fenn wanted a good poem and a good contest it should have been the other way around, with the poem being about Yellowstone and the chest being found in Glacier Park or wherever, who cares where just some place that isn't Yellowstone.

Did you notice on the map in the book that the Canadian Border was not a solid line for a national border and instead used a dash dot dot dash like like this: - . . - which in Morse Code, something Fenn would have learned in the AF, is the letter "X"? A strange but true coincidence.

My favorite solve that I searched was in GNP at Heaven's Peak, just 5 miles down the canyon from Mount Brown, with giant geological Double Omega's in the karst there like the ones in 'Nam, more Water High streams above 5k feet than any other place in the Rockies, heavy loads of mini-glaciers around Heaven's Peak, Wolverine Falls at the base of the creek that leads up into the hanging canyon, you can see Canada from the spectacular grandiose view as if looking out of the cockpit of a plane flying between 5k and 10k feet... yep, my favorite solve for all of those reasons and many more that "seemed" to fit the poem, yet it was not the correct solve nonetheless.

There was even a private air strip just outside GNP owned by a former WWII P-38 Lightning pilot that had a loaner car for pilots who flew in to use, which would have allowed the chest to be hidden there in less than a day if he flew in to that strip from Cody to GNP one morning.

But according to Cynthia, Forrest never went to GNP, information that would have been good to know when I first learned of the Chase in 2018 and began to search on my vacations. I would like to think I would have stayed on my first solve, Madison Junction had I known that.

But at least I don't have Jack's problems