Do you like PUZZLES?

How about the most alluring of all puzzles... BURRIED TREASURE?

"...“Where warm waters halt… where warm waters halt… where warm waters halt.” For two summers, I’ve been exploring the Rocky Mountains with those words on my mind. Why those four words in particular? Because I believe they lead to a modern-day treasure chest.

In 2010, Forrest Fenn, a retired antiquities dealer based in Santa Fe, N.M., set about creating his own legend: He bought an antique bronze chest and filled it with valuables and artifacts including gold dust, coins and nuggets, Chinese jade carvings, a 17th-century gold-and-emerald ring, an ancient turquoise bracelet — together worth between $1 million and $2 million — and then lugged all 19 kilograms of it to a mysterious hiding place somewhere “in the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe.” He then released a poem containing nine clues as to the treasure’s whereabouts..."

The above segment is from Mary Caperton Morton a biologist, geologist, hiker, skiing medic, photographer,professional house-sitter etc.

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/trail-treasure-rocky-mountains


Anyone interested? There are dozens of Fenn Treasure blogs, essays and photos.

I will start out.

"warm waters" to me does not refer to temperature at all. A 'warm water' would be a stream featuring water that was red, yellow or orange hued. So look for water with high mineral or sediment content.

A water course halting to me means a stream bed that abruptly takes a sudden crooked turn, so the word 'halt' is not being used as 'stop' or 'linger briefly' but in the Biblical sense of 'the lame the halt the blind'.

I can tell you one thing, it won't be far from a road. Deer hunters have the same problem - lugging something means sticking close to vehicles, so I always know 'how far in' they are going to be.

If I was this guy, I would have trusted no one - so it goes double on the lugging it in thing.

PS: I see he says it's "too far to walk" but I stick with what I said unless he was able to break it up into trips where nothing was heavy. But what does he mean by "too far to walk"?

My son is very interested in finding this treasure. He thinks it is near the Flaming Gorge dam.

Quote: Wizard

My son is very interested in finding this treasure. He thinks it is near the Flaming Gorge dam.

Perhaps... but perhaps not:

Quote: "The Week"

...Despite Fenn's insistence that searchers focus on the text, nothing seems off-limits. There are as many solutions to the poem as there are nooks and crannies in the Rocky Mountains. For example, if you start at Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming (where warm waters halt) and continue downstream 15 miles (too far to walk), you come to a park named for French Canadian fur trapper Baptiste Brown (home of Brown). Follow the river and you come to Fort Misery, where pioneer Joseph Meek hid out among notorious outlaws (no place for the meek). The geography, the trappers, and the wordplay all read like classic Fenn. But: no treasure...

From the same article above, here is a reprint of the poem:

As I have gone alone in there
And with my treasures bold,
I can keep my secret where,
And hint of riches new and old.

Begin it where warm waters halt
And take it in the canyon down,
Not far, but too far to walk.
Put in below the home of Brown.

From there it's no place for the meek,
The end is ever drawing nigh;
There'll be no paddle up your creek,
Just heavy loads and water high.

If you've been wise and found the blaze,
Look quickly down, your quest to cease
But tarry scant with marvel gaze,
Just take the chest and go in peace.

So why is it that I must go
And leave my trove for all to seek?
The answers I already know
I've done it tired, and now I'm weak.

So hear me all and listen good,
Your effort will be worth the cold.
If you are brave and in the wood
I give you title to the gold.

Quote: Fleastiff

A water course halting to me means a stream bed that abruptly takes a sudden crooked turn, so the word 'halt' is not being used as 'stop' or 'linger briefly' but in the Biblical sense of 'the lame the halt the blind'.

An alternative, and I think much better explanation, would be a stream that suddenly descends underground.

Too far to walk. First of all he was an avid hiker and many people walk zillions of miles. The PCT hikers don't think that any distance is too far to walk. I think what he is implying is that the distance is greater than one would be physically able to walk on account of obstructions such as a stream inside a cave with low headroom. The treasure is further than one is able to walk. Far is not determined by distance or likely exhaustion but by obstructions. One would not be able to walk, but might have to crawl further once encountering the lowered headroom.

As to 'near a road/trail' I might tend to agree but do feel that he would be far more highly motivated than a hunter lugging a deer and there are such things as mountain bikes and wheelbarrows.