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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

• DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  > 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. Say it's filled with coins: he could have carried the empty chest and its contents separately, distributing the load. He could have also made multiple trips.
  • weaksauce 10y ago
    According to him he did just that. Two trips.
    • elif 10y ago
      Ah that makes sense. Still, off-trail in the Rockies with 20lb is difficult for me at 30. the CDT might be a good starting point.
      • weaksauce 10y ago
        It was two trips in the same afternoon too.
        • takk309 10y ago
          Do you have a source for this statement?
          • ghaff 10y ago
            It's apparently a statement he's made a number of times, e.g. http://mysteriouswritings.com/questions-with-forrest-fenn-and-the-thrill-of-the-chase/questions-with-fenn-archive-1/ http://mysteriouswritings.com/questions-with-forrest-fenn-an...
        • legohead 10y ago
          Doesn't that conflict with this hint: > Not far, but too far to walk. So he took a car to some area, and then drove a motorcycle (or snowmobile) twice to the spot? If you're taking a vehicle why do you need 2 trips, though.
          • weaksauce 10y ago
            It would conflict somewhat if it was a literal instruction that it's too far to walk. he's also alluded to the meaning in the opening of one of his books what "not far, but too far to walk" is and said in an interview that "it doesn't take a genius to see what he meant".
            • frakr 10y ago
              At the bottom of a lake? Could drive to where you put the boat in. Can't walk to the bottom of a lake.
              • weaksauce 10y ago
                also said it was wet and exposed to wildfire so I doubt it's at the bottom of a lake unless the lake is seasonal.
                • olalonde 10y ago
                  If he is into mysteries, he might have picked the riverbank where D.B. Cooper's ransom cash was discovered in 1978 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper#Physical_evidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper#Physical_evidence).
                  • RugnirViking 10y ago
                    If he is into mysteries, its entirely possible that he didn't hide any money and is hoping people will find my cooper or his money instead :)
  • Fezzik 10y ago
    I'm not familiar with the area, but he could have also carried the chest on a Pack Mule. Short of treacherous terrain they are quite sure-footed. Or was there some indication he carried the chest to the location himself? Other than the blurb on Old Sante Fe Trading Co webpage I didn't see anything saying as much. I didn't watch all the videos though. Theorizing is fun.
• forsaken 10y ago
  He might know how to fly a helicopter :)
  • elif 10y ago
    investigating that hypothesis is easier, since there are fewer places to land a helicopter in the rockies. or maybe he tied down the control stick and rappelled from the empty helicopter. Or perhaps dropped it on a line and went back on foot later to conceal it :)
    • oh_sigh 10y ago
      > or maybe he tied down the control stick and rappelled from the empty helicopter That's not how that works. Please don't try that with your helicopters.
      • Pyxl101 10y ago
        Why not, by the way? Why don't helicopters have a simple control input system these days, that can be interpreted by a computer and applied to actual flight controls? I'm imagining a helicopter with the same controls as a current one, but where the "balancing" act is done by computer. It's stable by default, and the human inputs controls to ascend, descend, rotate, or tilt in the desired direction. So a human could take their hands off the controls in a stationary helicopter and it would stay stationary. If the human wants to fly forward, they push the cyclic stick forward, and that's it, no need to compensate in the other controls. Is this just not done because fly-by-wire would make helicopters even more expensive or less reliable? Are there any fly-by-wire helicopters today? After writing this question I decided to do some web searches and came across http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/23977/why-not-simplified-fly-by-wire-helicopter-controls http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/23977/why-not-si... and a Wired article about a fly-by-wire helicopter: https://www.wired.com/2012/02/electrons-dominate-new-sixteen-passenger-bell-helicopter/ https://www.wired.com/2012/02/electrons-dominate-new-sixteen... I'm looking for a description of what it's like to fly from a pilot. Haven't turned up anything yet.
• Cpoll 10y ago
  > where an 85 year old man can carry a 40lb chest I wonder if you couldn't take it pretty far with a motorized contraption. You could also hire some help that you're reasonably sure isn't experienced in mountaineering, and has no reason to believe they're carrying something valuable. Then, even if they discover the contents, they will be unable to return to the scene. Also, it might be much less than 40lbs, assuming the treasure consists mainly of rare coins and gemstones, and not so much gold nuggets.
• malz 10y ago
  He hid the treasure in 2010, I believe, so he was only 78 or so, if that changes the parameters of your old-man filter.
• takk309 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    • elif 10y ago
      Perhaps he took two trips to the put in. once it was floated the weight would be less of a burden and he could have taken any number of miles downstream that same afternoon. He could have then packrafted to any subsequent point down the river or any trail connecting, taking as many days as he needed to extract himself after the deed was done. Perhaps it is even intentionally in a place where it is relatively easy to get to, but difficult to get out of.
      • ghaff 10y ago
        I've seen enough variants on the "two trips" comment that I probably wouldn't read a whole lot into it. e.g. he's quoted in one interview as making two trips in a car, so one trip might have been to pick up a boat. It's also easy to believe that (assuming this is real), the X spot could be fairly isolated while the put-in and take-out are trafficked to the point where getting a ride back to a car might not be a big deal.
• iaw 10y ago
  There's I think 5 states that it's been narrowed down to. I actually have a map open on my computer now that reduces the searchable area to 10%. It is out there, but don't make assumptions about what/how Fenn did his thing. That man can accomplish some impressive feats.
• stonemetal 10y ago
  Note he claims to have made two trips in one day. So make that a place where a 85 year old man can carry 20lbs. Also make it much less than 8 hours from the road.