Forrest Fenn's Treasure

The account

Forrest Fenn was a Santa Fe art dealer who beat cancer and decided, as a kind of dare to the living, to hide a treasure. He filled a small bronze chest with gold coins and nuggets, jewels, and ancient artifacts, carried it out into the Rocky Mountains, and in 2010 published a memoir with a poem buried in it, twenty four lines holding nine clues to the spot. Then he sat back and waited.

For a decade they came. Hundreds of thousands of people read the poem and walked into the mountains after it, from New Mexico to Montana. Some quit their jobs and gave it years. At least five died trying, lost in cold rivers and high country, until the state of New Mexico begged Fenn to call it off. He would not. The chase, he said, was the whole point.

In June 2020 a quiet message went out: it had been found. The finder stayed anonymous, then revealed himself as Jack Stuef, a young medical student who had read everything Fenn ever said and worked the poem down to a single spot in Wyoming. Fenn confirmed it just months before he died that September.

And then Stuef did the one thing guaranteed to keep the fire burning: he refused to say where. The treasure is real, the chase is over, the chest is empty, and the exact place it sat for ten years, the place a poem and nine clues actually pointed to, is a secret held by one man who will not tell. Thousands still drive into Wyoming to stand where they think it was, because a door that is closed but not locked is the hardest one in the world to walk away from.

Known intelligence

• Santa Fe art dealer Forrest Fenn hid a bronze chest of gold, jewels, and artifacts in the Rockies and published a 24-line poem with nine clues in his 2010 memoir "The Thrill of the Chase."
• Hundreds of thousands searched over a decade; at least five people died hunting it.
• Found in June 2020 by Jack Stuef, a medical student, at a spot in Wyoming he has kept secret.
• A 2022 auction of the chest's contents brought about 1.3 million dollars.

Theories of the hunt

• Court filings and Fenn's own hints point to the Yellowstone area of Wyoming.
• Stuef has kept the exact spot secret to honor Fenn's wishes and protect the site.

How it was found

• A young medical student, Jack Stuef, who had pored over every word Fenn ever published, solved the poem to a single spot and found the chest in Wyoming in June 2020, then refused to say where to protect the site.

Leads, where the trail points now

• The chest was found in Wyoming in June 2020; estate-litigation filings pointed to the Yellowstone region, and many analysts place it near the park boundary.
• Jack Stuef has never given the exact spot, to honor Fenn and protect the site; the precise coordinates remain unknown to the public.
• The poem's nine clues are still reverse-engineered; the most argued lines are begin it where warm waters halt and below the home of Brown.
• This is now a verification and history hunt, not a live one. The chest is empty and its contents were auctioned in 2022.

The trail, in order

• 2010: Fenn publishes the poem in 'The Thrill of the Chase.'
• 2010-2020: a decade of searching draws hundreds of thousands; at least five die.
• June 2020: Jack Stuef finds the chest in Wyoming.
• September 2020: Fenn dies, having confirmed the find.
• 2022: the contents are auctioned for about 1.3 million dollars.

Sources and the record

• Fenn treasure (Wikipedia)
• The Man Who Found Forrest Fenn's Treasure (Outside)