Answer:
Located above 5,000 ft and below 10,200 ft.
♦At least 8.25 miles North of Santa Fe, New Mexico
♦Not in grave yard
♦Not in out house…..not associated with a structure
♦Not in a mine, tunnel, or cave
♦Where warm waters halt is not a dam.
♦Chest and contents weigh 42lbs. (Fenn said 44lbs. in one email, but has said 42 several other times)
♦Chest is 10x10x5 inches and made of Bronze
♦Forrest published a map in his book Too Far To Walk and told us the chest is hidden somewhere on that map
♦The treasure is in one of 4 states: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado or New Mexico
♦“Begin it where warm waters halt” is the first clue
Subjective information:
♦Don’t go where an eighty year old man couldn’t go
♦Not associated with a structure……what does “associated” mean?
Def: Connect (something) with something else because they occur together or one produces another Does this rule out it being in town? Could it be in a front yard, park, Memorial, etc. etc.; as long as it is not in a structure?
♦Seasonal search: Since it’s above 5,000 ft. just about all of the search area will be impacted by some snow. As the elevation increases the “search season” decreases.
♦ There are nine clues in the poem.
♦ Start at beginning
Concerning the “at least 8.25 miles north of Santa Fe” clue that Forrest gave us.
The clue was originally handed out in a comment Forrest made on a story Richard Saunier wrote for his blog “Mountain Walk”. The date was April 16, 2012 when Richard published his story titled: Forrest Fenn: Land Surveyor in which Richard lays out his theory that Forrest has given us clues as to where he has hidden the chest in the form of metes and bounds. The next day, April 17th Forrest left a comment on Richard’s blog that reads in its entirety the following:
“Since Richard mentioned the olden days lets harken to 1620 when universal land measures first became law in England and America. As you rode your horse into town you had to pass 80 telephone poles in order to reach a mile because they were 1 chain apart, or 66 feet. And each chain had 100 links, if you wanted to break it down further. Road rights-of-way also were 1 chain wide. And 80 square chains made a square mile, or 640 acres – and that was 1 section of land.
But if you’d rather count fence posts you had to pass 320 in order to reach a mile because they were a rod apart, or 16.5 feet. And since everyone knew that an acre was 10 square chains (43,560 square feet) it was easy to tell how many acres were in your neighbor’s farm.
Some aspects of those measures are still in use today in the horse racing business because a furlong is 10 chains in length, or 660 feet. You should feel smarter now because that’s so easy.
If you want to apply those important figures into the thrill of the chase I will give you an additional clue. The Treasure chest full of gold and precious jewels is more than 66,000 links north of Santa Fe.”
After Forrest left that comment others did the math
100 links = 1 chain
66,000 links = 660 chains (66,000 ÷ 100)
1 chain = 66 feet
660 chains = 43560 feet (660 x 66) = 8.25 miles
