Mr. Fenn, a former Air Force fighter pilot who runs a gallery in Santa Fe, hatched the idea for the hunt decades ago, after he learned he had kidney cancer. He has said that the treasure was hidden in the Rockies at 5,000 feet above sea level, hints that have sometimes led hunters into dangerous and remote stretches of wilderness. “Begin it where warm waters halt,” one clue reads, “and take it in the canyon down.”Tens of thousands of people have searched for the chest, according to Mr. Fenn. Mr. Fenn eventually specified that the valuables were not in an area that an octogenarian would find hard to reach. “People are coming from other states and other parts of the world to find this elusive treasure that may or may not exist, with very few clues,” Chief Kassetas said at the time.

Source: New York Times June 08, 2020 14:17 UTC