![]() Fenn’s word and the clues in his enigmatic 24-verse poem. In 2016, he estimated that more than 65,000 people had joined the quest for the cache, guided by nothing more than Mr. Fenn said he had no other motivation for starting the hunt than to encourage families to “get off their couches.” And get off their couches they did. One cryptic clue said to begin the hunt “where warm waters halt, and take it in the canyon down.” Fenn said the treasure was ensconced somewhere in the Rockies at 5,000 feet above sea level. ![]() He said he had originally planned to have his remains buried along with the riches.īut when he recovered from the cancer, he said, he ventured alone into the Rockies with precious items culled from his collection - “265 gold coins, hundreds of gold nuggets, hundreds of rubies, eight emeralds, two Ceylon sapphires, many diamonds, two ancient Chinese jade carvings, pre-Columbian gold bracelets and fetishes, and more.” Fenn, a former Air Force combat pilot who grew up reading adventure stories about pirates, cowboys and Indians, decided to start the treasure hunt decades ago, after he learned that he had kidney cancer. Fenn told the newspaper The Santa Fe New Mexican. His self-published 2010 memoir, “The Thrill of the Chase,” provided clues to the chest’s location in the verses of a poem.Ī man who did not want to be identified found the chest, confirming the discovery with a photograph of it, Mr. ![]() “I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot,” he added. “It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago,” Mr. Fenn said someone had finally found the treasure chest, which held, by his estimate, $2 million worth of gold nuggets, sapphires, diamonds, pre-Columbian artifacts and other riches. His death was confirmed by a grandson, Shiloh Old. Stuef did not return a phone message left on Monday by the Associated Press seeking comment on finding the treasure.Forrest Fenn, an eccentric New Mexico art dealer who enticed thousands to search for hidden treasure after he announced in a 2010 book that he had stashed a bronze chest filled with gold nuggets and jewels somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, died on Sept. Stuef denied the allegations, saying he never met nor heard of the woman before the lawsuit and the treasure was nowhere near New Mexico, Barbarisi wrote. In the lawsuit, a woman who believed the treasure was hidden in New Mexico claims the finder succeeded by hacking her texts and emails, Barbarisi wrote. And maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself what a hold it had on me.”įenn’s grandson, Old, also cited the lawsuit as a reason for confirming Stuef’s identity. “If I didn’t find it, I would look kind of like an idiot. “I think I got a little embarrassed by how obsessed I was with it,” Barbarisi quoted Stuef as saying. The article on Monday identified Stuef as the author.Ī court order in a federal lawsuit against the Fenn estate prompted Stuef to identify himself to writer Daniel Barbarisi, who had been in touch with Stuef for a book he has been working on.īarbarisi identified Stuef in an article published on Monday in Outside Magazine and wrote that Stuef became obsessed with the treasure after learning about its existence in 2018. Stuef, meanwhile, initially remained anonymous in a Medium article published in September in which he described finding the treasure but not specifically how or where. He said in July the treasure was found in Wyoming, and then died in September at age 90 without identifying the finder, deepening the intrigue. Many others needed rescue, including a man who rappelled into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in winter.įenn announced on 6 June that the treasure had been found but did not say who found it or where. The poem inspired many to go treasure hunting – sometimes getting into precarious situations in the unforgiving Rocky Mountain backcountry.įenn said repeatedly the treasure was not in a dangerous or especially hard-to-reach place but at least four people died searching for the chest. “We wish Jack the best of luck, and we hope that the searching community will treat him with the respect that he deserves,” Old wrote.įenn, who was also a decorated US air force fighter pilot during the Vietnam war, left clues to finding the treasure in a poem in a memoir entitled The Thrill of the Chase.įenn at the time said he hid the chest filled with coins, gold nuggets and other valuables estimated in value at $1m to $3m in the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe in either Colorado, Montana, New Mexico or Wyoming.
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