Where Warm Waters Halt

This thing still hasn't been found, so I redirected my research to an art angle.  I googled "famous art" and "Yellowstone".  Mr. Fenn was an art dealer with a particular fascination for Nicolai Fechin's work (unrelated).  I had the hope he was a student of Thomas Moran and also liked the Nicolas Cage movies "National Treasure" and "National Treasure:  Book of Secrets".   My hope was that this will have motivated him to hide his trove somewhere special of national interest, like in the movie, and create his own book of secrets, like in the movie.

     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.

When correlating with Mr. Fenn's book of secrets, "The Thrill of the Chase", this stanza suggested to me that he is speaking about Yellowstone.  He has made several public references to Alice in Wonderland, e.g. a poem from the book, questions on how deep is a hole, etc., and the book has a chapter hinting on important literature.  To me, "in there" meant to imagine entering the painting, like Alice.

     Begin it where warm waters halt

Mr. Fenn says the key to solving the puzzle is to begin it where warm waters halt.  There is a famous painting that I believe is a puzzle key to the poem.  Thomas Moran attended an expedition with Ferdinand Hayden into Yellowstone in the 1870s.  Moran sketched scenes he saw.  He then used his sketches to paint famous landscapes, specifically one of the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone which was used to advertise the park as an attraction.  Moran's perspective in this painting was from a location later dedicated to him as Moran Point.  This landscape was so compelling it was purchased by our government for $10K and placed in the Senate Lobby in the Capitol building.  It is claimed to have motivated the Senate to declare Yellowstone a reserved area of national interest.  The painting became a national treasure unto itself and now hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the current curator is Elizabeth (Betsy) Broun.  More on my thoughts of coincidences related to Ms. Broun to come.

Thomas Moran kept a diary of his Yellowstone expedition.  On page 4 he uses the word "halted" in the same sentence as "Yellowstone falls".  "July 27 Left Tower Falls. Halted at noon on Mt. Washburne. Arrived at Yellowstone falls in the evening."  That's a huge word coincidence.

Where warm waters halt suggested to me the perspective of his most famous painting, where the warm waters of the park, the lower falls, and the geyser steam in the distant background are frozen in time, halting on the canvas.  The curiosity about Moran Point was that it may have been lost to the wilds if Moran himself had not drawn an X on some copies of sketches ( see Lee Whittlesey's exceptional article in Yellowstone Science. )  It seemed coincidental enough that this was the right treasure map to which Mr. Fenn hinted because it has the X marking the spot.  For quite some time, people believed Artist Point to be the correct location where Moran made his famous sketches, and Artist Point was incorrectly named from this (mis)information, likely by a resident park photographer. Mr. Whittlesey expertly corrected and published this for us by his research and the evidence presented.  I walked out onto Moran Point to almost the end of the promontory.  This was probably the most stupid thing I've ever done.  It's a closed off area, the ground is extremely slippery with skree.  No 80 year old man would have attempted this.  Please do not try it as the probability of losing your life is high.

     And take it in the canyon down,

If we start at the perspective painted, and head toward the canyon where we see the figures ...

     Not far, but too far to walk.

I read this as hinting of the horses in the painting, that the treasure is not far from the painting's perspective, to walk down into the canyon a bit, but that Moran and team arrived at this point on horseback.  Coincidentally, nearby is a trail called Seven Mile Hole Trail.  Seven Mile Hole is a fly fishing location at the Yellowstone River just inside the canyon below the Lower Falls.  It's starting location is near Inspiration Point, at the Glacial Boulder.  Mr. Fenn loves to fly fish and writes fondly of it in his book.  Seven miles is too far for me (and most 80 year old men) to walk.

Another more interesting aspect of this hint is that there is a trail down to Red Rock Point from Lookout Point.  It's a great view at the bottom, a zig-zag asphalt path and a wooden walkway in the more unstable areas.  Curious to me was the sign at Lookout Point describing the path drops approximately 500 feet.  Of the accessible points I could reach, Red Rock Point looked like the best chance to me of being the scene nigh in the painting, where Moran is sketching.  The walk up is definitely a hike.  I did this twice because I wanted to be sure I was at the right perspective.  Mr. Fenn mentions that he also went to his spot twice, the first time with the chest, the second time with the contents.  If he made the trek twice to Red Rock Point, God bless him.  I could see where he would have done it tired and now he's weak.  My legs and feet are still sore.

Mr. Fenn wrote a follow-up book for "The Thrill of the Chase" titled "Too Far to Walk".  I speculate he did this because it seems like several of the stories in his book of secrets are intended as clues pointing to Moran, Yellowstone, his relationship with his father, and his intentions for motivating us to search for it.  Speculating from the sense I received, it seems like he wants his trove to end up in the Smithsonian as a national treasure so that his name is remembered in history, leaving his own mark in this world.  "Too Far to Walk" was likely written for the purpose of actually telling his life story, which could be why it's a bit bigger with a bit more content.  We're told that in the chest is his auto-biography.  It would seem he reconsidered the risk of that story being released well into the future and wanted his story to be public while he was alive.  There definitely has been a swelling demand for it.

     Put in below the home of Brown.

This clue confused me quite a bit after getting onto this path.  There are horses in the painting that are brown, a tawny brown horse stands out and has a white "blaze".  The painting has become their home, frozen in time.  Mr. Fenn has a chapter dedicated to Bessie the tawny calf.  I'm not sure if Bessie is in reference to the horse, or to Ms. Broun, or both.  Mr. Fenn also included a story with rust in his book.  As the canyon is said to be rusting from the iron content in rhyolite, perhaps below the home of Brown means to look under some rust-stained rocks.

Also, Glenn Browns History of the United States Capitol catalogues when the Moran painting was purchased, and the year it arrived.  This Brown had several homes around the area, architected other famous ones north of the Capitol building, as well as north of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  He influenced quite a bit of L'Enfant revival at the turn of the 20th century, which coincidentally suggests ties back to the "National Treasure" movies and the significance of the Moran location in DC.  With some coincidental silliness, "Glenn" has two upside-down horseshoes in his first name (coinciding with the double-Omega colophon in the back of Fenn's book that has been irritating so many in search of Dan Brownian symbolic significance).  Nick Cage uses the name "Paul Brown" during a scene as an alias in the movie because his family's history (Gates) doesn't allow for much respect in the academic world.  At any rate, a capitalized "Brown" seems both coincidental with the movie clue of "Silence" being capitalized, and intended to confuse.  I wondered if it was cleverly referring to Brown of the Capitol.

     From there it’s no place for the meek,

I thought this might refer to the slaughtered deer in the painting on the path toward the horses.  Another historical coincidence is that Hayden started his expedition career with Fielding Bradford Meek, a paleontologist, funded with Smithsonian money.  They were friends until Meek died at the age of 59.  He did not attend the Yellowstone expeditions.

     The end is ever drawing nigh;

I felt this in my stomach when I realized the coincidence, but it wasn't yet my AHA moment.  In the painting, within the figures on the left, (another meaning of the word nigh), is Moran sketching.  Moran is forever drawing on the left, and the end of the clues are approaching.

     There’ll be no paddle up your creek,
     Just heavy loads and water high.

To me, these become self-explanatory after looking at the painting.  One can't paddle up a creek in a painting, or up a high waterfall.  I thought heavy loads might refer to the 42-lb treasure chest itself.  If it's at Red Rock Point, carrying that much loot back up the hill would absolutely encumber me.

     If you’ve been wise and found the blaze,
     Look quickly down, your quest to cease,

The tawny brown horse on the left has a blaze, a white marking.  The word "blaze" is used to describe such a marking on a horse.  Mr. Fenn even pointed that out for us, that a blaze can also be on a horse. Perhaps the treasure is just under the home of the Brown horse, quickly down beneath the blaze.

     But tarry scant with marvel gaze,

When searching for "where is Moran Point", I learned that it is a promontory in between Lookout Point and Grand View Point.  To me, "look out!" is a less fancy way to say "tarry scant", and "grand view" is another way to say "marvel gaze".  Mr. Fenn anecdotally describes that lots of people have shared with him where they have been.  He tells with confidence that one of these locations are within 500 feet or a couple of hundred feet of the treasure, and they still haven't found it.  According to various maps, Moran Point is about 500 feet away from Lookout Point, and another 500 feet away from Grand View Point.  It's right in between.

     Just take the chest and go in peace.

I had thought taking the chest in peace from this location without working with the Yellowstone National Park officials would be illegal.  If it's there, and I find it, I had originally believed I would take it directly to a Ranger Station and ask for help on their process.  I consulted with David Horan, the attorney famous for helping defend and secure treasure finds.  His clients have mostly been finders of sunken ships.  Surprisingly he hadn't yet heard of the Fenn treasure.  During our discussion, he suggested the following to me (disclaimer:  this is not legal advice; please contact Mr. Horan immediately if you should find the treasure to find out what exactly you should do):

• This is not abandoned property like a sunken ship.  Mr. Fenn secreted the chest with the intention of anyone who could figure out these clues to find it.
• This is not unclaimed property like an uncashed check where the state needs to help shepherd an intended transaction.  Mr. Fenn says in his poem that whomever should find it, it now belongs to them.
• Mr. Fenn did not ask permission of the location's governing body to hide it.  They have no knowledge that it is there and are not protecting it, nor are they liable for it.
• The object and its contents cannot be claimed as cultural materials originating on this land.
• While Mr. Fenn won't say whether he did or did not secret the chest onto private property, the probability of this scenario is significantly reduced if he consulted an attorney about items found on private property.  Items found on private property rightly belong to the property owner, certain cultural items like Native American burial artifacts excepted.

Mr. Horan suggested that a person finding this chest could reasonably take the chest and go in peace without having to report it, including within Yellowstone.  While Yellowstone officials may disagree with this position, it certainly does suggest that a court argument would ensue, and the time required to work through the process might require years and a lot of money.

     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, I'm going out on a limb here.  Elizabeth (Betsy) Broun is the Smithsonian art curator in DC while the lead female character in "National Treasure", Abigail Chase, is an archivist at the National Archives in DC.  Mr. Fenn suggests in his book that art curators hate him, in his context because he lets kids touch important paintings like Gilbert Stuart's George Washington.  In the "National Treasure" movies, Abigail Chase is full of knowlege about American artifacts.  Ms. Broun works for the Smithsonian whose entire mission and purpose is for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge".  Mr. Fenn challenges us to THINK (thinker.org is an art search engine and domain owned by Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), and he likes to drop hints like "leeve" and "knowlege" and "knoyledge", intentionally misspelled words.  I still haven't found what "leeve" means, other than it is used in famous literature, "The Three Musketeers", but he used it in a blog post after setting it up that his spell-checker was overworked, so clearly it was intended.  In "National Treasure", one of the clues is "Heere at the Wall", a misspelling of "DeHeere", the former name of "Broadway" in Manhattan, NY.

But back to Ms. Broun.  Betsy Broun's last name is, well, misspelled in this context.  She hails from the great state of Kansas, coincidentally where I am sitting while writing this.  I vaguely recall a reference where they crossed paths, perhaps in her thesis, but I am uncertain of this.

Now, my AHA moment...  "Abigail" is a Hebrew name with the meaning "my father is joy".  Mr. Fenn's book of secrets spends a lot of book-time rejoicing his father.  Joy is a synonym for thrill, hence "Abigail Chase" is a pretty strong coincidence for The Thrill of the Chase.

     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.

I felt like "brave" might reference the Native Americans in the painting.  Or it might reference braving the curious bear on the rock in the background near the left edge of the painting.  It might also just simply suggest that to get to Moran Point, and the treasure, one has go off trail and look around in the woods.  Mr. Fenn confirms this, that the treasure is hidden off trail, and nowhere near any man-made structures.  He's also said the deep thinker who figures out the clues will confidently walk right to it.

I've felt like "in the wood" may be significant because "wood" is singular instead of plural, and using "listen good" came before it.  To me, it means a singular "wood" was either intentional, or simply one is unable to "listen goods".  I'm choosing the latter meaning, in that "wood" rhymed with "good" better than "woods".  Super-coincidentally, the artist Harry Fenn made wood engravings of Moran's famous paintings so that they could be published in newspapers and books.  When I asked if Harry Fenn was related to Forrest Fenn, I received word he was "probably" related, but the common ancestor between them is also probably too deep in the past for anyone to connect them.  Coincidentally, Henry Wood Elliott was the official artist during the same Hayden Yellowstone expedition, but his works weren't worth $10K of cold.  When looked around Red Rock Point, a location that looks like where Moran is sitting in his painting, there was what looked like a sappy "F" scrawled on a tree, but no chest nearby.  Mr. Fenn did mention kids should turn over a few logs.  Like Indiana Jones, I hate snakes.  I hate mosquitos more.  There were mosquitos everywhere.

Other compelling coincidences of interest which boosted my confidence around Moran's painting include:

• Ms. Rockefeller's mention in the book.  The same Ms. Rockefeller gifted a similar Moran painting of the Lower Falls to the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.  I'm not sure if Mr. Fenn was wanting us to THINK about that or not.
• The chapter titled "Tea with Olga" has been suggested by others as pointing to Thomas Moran's "The Mountain of the Holy Cross" painting from Colorado.  They suggest the name Olga has a Russian meaning of "holy", while T (Tea) could also be a cross symbol.
• Mr. Fenn told a searcher the treasure is more than 300 miles west of Toledo.  This actually seems like a real clue.  In the book "Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains", there is a reference on page 383 to another book, "A Man and a Dream", suggesting Ruth and Thomas Moran traveled to Toledo.

In conclusion, to me the nine clues are the sentences separated by the nine punctuation pullout points, periods, the places where we rest in between sentences.  To me, the nine clues suggested Moran Point where X marks the spot, more specifically, the area on the left where Moran is seen sketching, and even more specifically, underneath the brown horse with the blaze.  That's where walked confidently.  It wasn't there.

Stretch

Over the past month I've been focusing much less on the number of potential matches in clusters, and more on interpretation of "where warm waters halt".  Mr. Fenn instructs seekers to do this rather than wasting time on what the other clues might tell us.  In doing so, I've found perhaps a couple of high probability locations that are of very strong interest to me.

E.C. Waters was a steamship in Yellowstone Lake which was abandoned and later burned at Stevenson Island.  Several ideas in the book and the fact that it was a steamship suggested to me this is "where warm waters halt".  Another clue from Mr. Fenn, "not associated with any structure", may have killed this idea before it grew popularity.

And then recently, this idea popped up using a foreign language translation kit of words and can also be supported by several ideas in the book.  "Agua tibia" is Spanish for "warm water".  What if Mr. Fenn used these Spanish words as his key?  I started to follow this line of thinking.

Mr. Fenn was an amateur archaeologist, and is no stranger to bones.  He suggested he changed his poem to remove a line referencing "leaving" his "bones" behind after taking the chest.  Tibia is a bone in one's calf.  There is a chapter in The Thrill of the Chase titled "Bessie and Me" where Mr. Fenn describes his relationship with his fawn-colored calf, Bessie.  The calf is home to a tibia.  This could refer to his clue of "below the home of Brown".  If one begins where a tibia halts, one may be at a knee ("The Knees" at the Sleeping Ute Mountains in Colorado) or below the tibia, an ankle... Talus is Latin for the anklebone, the equivalent "bone term" of a tibia.  Talus is also a geological term for referencing a large mass of rocks at the base of a cliff.

Nine Mile Hole is a significant location as Mr. Fenn writes about his time fly fishing near West Yellowstone, MT with his father.  There are two photos in the book of his father posing at Nine Mile Hole after fishing.  Many people have visited Nine Mile Hole, but perhaps have not known where to look because of an incorrect interpretation of the clues in the poem.

There is a sign posted in Yellowstone National Park with the title of "TALUS" near Nine Mile Hole at a pullout location.  It describes an area across the Madison River, and gives an educational definition of talus.  Having noticed this when I was driving through Yellowstone this past Easter, it clicked for me.  I now have this "word association" interpretation of the poem:

- where warm waters halt:  agua tibia, go to the end of the tibia bone where one finds the talus bone, ergo the Talus sign at Nine Mile Hole
- take it in the canyon down:  walk past the sign to the Madison River
- too far to walk:  Nine Mile Hole, 9 miles is too far to walk
- below the home of Brown:  could be Brown trout, might allude to Bessie the fawn-colored calf, calf is home to the tibia bone, points again to ankle, talus
- no place for the meek:  be brave
- no paddle up your creek:  no need to walk up Madison River against the water flow
- water high:  in the Madison
- find the blaze:  I wonder if the Talus sign is the blaze.  If not, one may have to walk downstream a bit and look for a blaze.
- look quickly down:  I'm going to guess that if the Talus sign is the blaze, the chest is in the river close by.  If the blaze is not the sign, then I would be looking at trees for the blaze, near large boulders and rocks in or near the river.

Is it such a stretch that an amateur archaeologist living in New Mexico and having grown up in Texas might see the humor in "agua tibia" being the key to linking to another word like "talus"?

Break-through

I feel I had a break-through today on the Fenn treasure puzzle while contemplating a different puzzle from Duck Miller's The Whistle Pig.  I'm going to return my attention to Fenn's challenge now.

Stay tuned.

Game Theory

I like to think of the field of searchers as a spectrum, a Gaussian distribution if you will.  On one end, you have the curious.  These are people who have heard the story, assess their chances as immediately improbable.  Or perhaps they live near a potential cluster of interest and search there for a weekend, but then they return to their lives having incorporated a bit of pop culture into their social currency.  Heading more toward the middle of the curve, they might send a friendly email to Mr. Fenn thanking him for providing their family with some needed time away from the Xbox.  I speculate these are the folks from whom Mr. Fenn enjoys hearing.

On the other end, you have people like Dal and Stephanie, two souls I admire and with whom I have never communicated.  I have seen or heard their names in relationship to Fenn's chase in many many references. There is even one video where Stephanie asks Mr. Fenn "who has searched more", her or Dal.  These are the folks the media zoom into with their own curiosity.  They are outliers.  I speculate they are the folks Fenn enjoys entertaining, enjoys watching them reason their way through with their views.  I speculate he must relate to this behavior best as he has mentioned elsewhere.  Plus he teases them with subtle hints like "you'd faint" if you knew how close you were.

Dal and Stephanie are, in my way of relating, the Thomas Edisons of the chase.  Edison was often considered mainstream.  He spent an enormous amount of time using brute force try-and-fail techniques experimenting with ideas.  His process of acquiring knowledge of what didn't work paid off for him in many ways, but it was also a very expensive path with many fat-cat investors supporting his efforts.  Repeating this type of behavior, risking more than $30K to find $3M, must require experience that these techniques have paid off in the past.  This should also bring a level of confidence to the point where this behavior will continue to be rewarded.  It would seem this behavior has already rewarded Dal.  He can afford to brute-force his way through the chase.  He is using, essentially, what is called a Battleship algorithm, like the game of guessing where your ship is... B3! Miss!  Folks like Dal and Stephanie drive several thousand miles to their position, jump into a stream, and jump out empty-handed, never knowing for sure if they've come within 500 feet before driving home.

There are others, perhaps not as far to the "+" outlier side of the distribution curve.  They work quietly and arduously behind the scenes, the puzzle solvers, the Nikola Teslas of the chase.  Tesla competed with Edison by using his imagination, his math, and his wit to attempt to solve problems prior to investing.  Tesla had very little means, was often viewed as crazy, yet many of his competitive inventions are either in full use today, or still being deciphered.  "Imagination is more important than knowledge", asserts Mr. Fenn.  It is the competition, the chase, that drives each of us to use the tools upon which we rely.  For my tools, I am using math and NLP.

Bear with me as I frame it up to show why searchers fit a probability curve.  If we view the chase itself as a math problem, and we first assume that the chest is truly out there, we know there is a finite set of possible locations within our sample space (Rocky Mountains across 4 states, above 5000 ft and below 10,200 ft). This starts to look like a topology set problem with a singularity of interest, an isolated point. Over 150K square miles of 10"x10" points are available for assessment.  Only one of these points has our target, or b = {0}U[1,2, ... up to about 60 trillion possibilities] where b is our wise blaze, and {0} is our "x marks the spot" within the whole mess.  Perhaps the so-called TALgorithm is an advanced form of life with brute-force Battleship-style physical point searching capabilities.  Not likely if it puts us in Sand Dunes.

Diverting for a moment to another way to view it, a discrete probability of actually finding it, the search area could be represented eerily enough for "Fenn knowledgists," as Ω.  If we think of each probable point as x within Ω, where Ω = about 60 trillion points, we can represent this with mathematical shorthand by saying x ∈ Ω. How probable is it that we choose the correct spot?  Without clues, your chances of winning at PowerBall are better... 231,660 times.  Attempting to solve probabilities of this magnitude is staggering as it is not be possible for a single person to visit all locations using a battleship methodology in any reasonable amount of time, even if we were to expand for "line of sight" adjustments.  A good majority of searchers give up at this point because the clues themselves are pretty vague to be helpful.  Perhaps Mr. Fenn knows this, and maybe this is why he suggests he hopes it isn't found now, but in 10,000 years.  So we turn to less conventional interpretations of the clues to increase our chances, but also if our objective is to solve it sooner, we should turn to math.

Using cooperative game theory, we reduce our time, combine our capabilities, and improve the probability of finding it in far less time than 10,000 years.  However, in cooperative game theory, the outcome is to find a Nash equilibrium between the players.  I've seen it suggested on blogs that people combine their efforts.  Intuitively, the more people involved, the less the reward for the individual.  But is 1/10th of the payoff better than losing all of it?  In treasure hunting, the allure, the chase, the goal, is to outsmart everyone else and to do so before someone else beats you to it.  The treasure in hand is undoubtedly the winner.  So perhaps it's just in how we view the problem and the goal.  If we shift our perspective to collaboration rather than competition, the objective can be achieved sooner.  But the chase is a competition.  And so we each go our own way, most of us stop, only a few of us continue, and only one of us will find it.

Given it hasn't been found yet and the clues are so ambiguous, the probability of who will find it has increased significantly to be someone casually looking, primarily because there are MANY more of those than there are the hardcore searchers.  That's what makes this more than intriguing, and I speculate it has earned a place in American pop culture.  In doing so, I'd bet the chest is now worth much more in total than the sum of its parts.

Google

Google Forrest Fenn. If you haven't heard of him, don't worry. I hadn't either until it was time to field test.

I love google. Mr. Fenn talks about googling his father. He talks about leaving his mark in time. Google is a phenomenal set of algorithms created by thoughtful geniuses who not only understand how to build a remarkable index based on popular relevance, but also how to distribute the information across a scalable infrastructure... as long as it isn't required to be accurate or timely. I look forward to when google is able to crawl the deep web and discern relevance from garbage, and be able to free the information that is trapped there for various reasons. But more so, I look forward to when google is able to decide on its own what should be available immediately rather than just whenever. News releases are fresh, but so is something like a court filing or a campaign contribution. I look forward to when those are instantly available and aggregated through google instead of distributed and available after 30 days or more. It will make building a more timely network diagram so much easier.

In text mining Mr. Fenn's book, I have stumbled upon something I believe to be a clue within the same chapter where he publishes his poem. It is related to his fascination with collecting soda caps. Perhaps there is a gravestone marker which is also relevant to the poem, although he has stated specifically that the treasure is not in a graveyard. And a canyon with the word wood in the name is useful. In this case warm waters halting would be a former steam engine train station.  Google has helped me with some research. But as Mr. Fenn states, it's best to be out there looking.  After all, google won't put me on the 10"x10" spot.

Cartman's Mom

I have a photocopy of the chest pinned to my wall at work.  I put it there as a reminder to leave at a more reasonable hour and to allow for time in the evenings and weekends to continue this project.  Lately I've been relating that image to another one, a spot that had an interesting probability that I mentioned in my first post, one which I had been researching with very little progress.

Today I received in the mail a book called Ouray Ice Park Guide, a guide to ice routes in a man-made ice climbing park in Ouray, CO (pronounced you-ray).  The book is great.  It makes me want to learn how to do this.  I've seen a couple of mentions of this feature in other blogs but hadn't given it much of a glance until I looked up the meaning of the river on which this park sits, Uncompaghre River.  Depending on one's preferred reference, Uncompaghre is presumably a Ute word for unca (hot), pah (water), and gre (spring).  Further reading about the Ice Park suggests the creators have made a deal with the local government to allow them to tap into the reservoir on a dam of Uncompaghre.  This deal allows them to spray the water into the canyon at night allowing it to freeze to the canyon walls.  This attracts ice climbers.  Warm water seems to be halting everywhere here in taking this canyon down.  And Brown Mountain is a prominent peak near Ouray, with a very visible angle from the park up the Million Dollar Highway.  You can see this from Google Maps street view.  Water high and worth the cold is a bit obvious.

I couldn't find a clear list of route names in my research.  I wanted to see if anything meek, wise, or wood related might appear.  The book lists all of the routes.  Almost 200 of them.  Many of them are themed from the South Park cartoon, meaning if you have certain beliefs about foul language, you'll find this place a bit discomforting.  My kids and I just laugh like juveniles who aren't supposed to be watching "that trash".  Of the 200 names, maybe 1 or 2 qualify for potential matches in the poem (Jesus is synonymous with meek and wise, and I suppose a Sh*thouse is made of wood), but I'm pretty well convinced now from this list of route names this place is also just coincidental.  It's just hard to imagine Mr. Fenn abseiling down an ice wall to hide a 10x10 inch box inside a finger crack, and then climbing back up with ice axes and crampons... twice.

And so I post it here.  It doesn't mean I won't stop there to have a look on my path to where I think it is now, one of 5 spots just reduced from 6.   The fifth spot will be my last place I will look.  I know a lot about Ouray now.  I've keenly searched the names of the trusts and landowners nearby from the free Ouray County Google Earth plot records.  I wondered if Mr. Fenn might have purchased a plot.  Not that I could tell.  Plus the town is known as "Switzerland of America".  How could I skip it?  I lived in Switzerland for a while and blogged about that experience, too.

Over-thinking

Using synonyms against node feature names matched to keywords I tagged from the poem (this is why the probabilities are running amuck), and grouped with WGS84 datum (I like decimal for easier proximity checks, sorry) within a defined proximity tolerance, clusters of features start to appear.

I've read a ton of blog posts of other searchers, and this approach seems to be the most common and intuitive human approach for interpreting the possibilities.  The math used to mine these results isn't a difficult task with the available data, and it seems proximity clusters can be visually cross-checked with other public sources like mapcarta.com or google maps.  Consequently, this interpretive approach also seems to be the way the poem's author suggests is "over-thinking" the solution.  Perhaps it is.  From the results I am seeing, it would seem that "warm waters halt", "too far to walk" and "worth the cold" would be the highest probable clues for over-thought synonyms, and these might contain the highest significance.  It is in these three clues where I will focus my attention in analyzing cluster results as their context seems to be oddly placed.

Here's an example of a cluster.  It isn't completely sequential, but it could be coincidental.  I thought "Sherwood" was a hilarious find with "brave=sure".

Clue	pc#352 - 67.77%
	Feature	N	W	Elevation
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	Frye Lake	42.7088	108.8775	8514
And take it in the canyon down,	Sinks Canyon	42.758	108.7965	6152
Not far, but too far to walk.	Walker's Ditch	42.7447	108.7862	6860
Put in below the home of Brown.	Browns Canyon	42.6977	108.7454	6663
From there it's no place for the meek,	Wolf Trail	42.711654	108.857243
The end is ever drawing nigh;	Fossil Hill	42.7144	108.8482	9039
There'll be no paddle up your creek,	Sawmill Creek	42.708044	108.839133
Just heavy loads and water high.
If you've been wise and found the blaze,	Weiser Knoll	42.6541	108.6184	6588
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.	Cold Spring	42.6759	108.7779	8084
If you are brave and in the wood	Sherwood Point	42.6186	108.826
I give you title to the gold.
Quote:  I said I hid it	Hidden Creek
Quote:  I think kids have an advantage	Young Mountain