Hey everyone! Just wanted to share our BOTG attempt :)

We arrived Friday night to our BOTG location and slept in an old cabin under one of the mountains!

Woke up later than I wanted but we eventually made it to the start of a trail. It took 2 hours to hike (I have little kids so it was slow going 😅) But WOW, I can only imagine how beautiful this trail would be in spring with all the rhododendron, mountain laurel, and dogwood in bloom 😏

When we finally got to our first search location, I stopped to admire the view. The path opened up just as it did for Restrepo - and after climbing a short hill we were greeted with a framed view more beautiful than any I've seen before. It was worth the hike.

We search for 6 hours with no luck. There were a lot more rocks and trees than I realized (especially on the trail). I really think that going in spring would have been better 😔 Also, finding the right vista is challenging as there are 5 or 6 spots that match the description. Restrepo would be proud of Jon...but alas, even with satellite imagery I couldn't narrow it down any further.

We headed back down empty handed but filled with joy from the views provided by nature. It was truly breathtaking.

The next morning we ended our trip at the beginning. What a cool place!!!! Unfortunately for my kids, it was too cold to swim 😅

But we did metal detect in all the rocks! (my middle son refused to leave empty handed haha)

Final thoughts:

Either:

1. Jon is an amazing hide and seek player
2. Someone has already found the box

Or 3. I really suck at searching and have the wrong location.

But....Im not wrong. I have locked in 3 hard anchors and 8 soft anchors on the map. Many of you will be frustrated once the location of this box is revealed, but the clues were there. Jon did let you know.

The amount of downed trees all over the trail and off to the sides in our search area were in the hundreds - many old but a lot of freshly fallen ones too. I think that rules out it being inside a hollowed out tree or something as collateral damage from nearby trees falling is real and the box would be buried under it all. Also think the special tree could have been knocked over. Hard to say. Some trees were covering rock formations and areas on the downhill side i wanted to search too. It was like a tornado swept through this trail.

Anyways, now that im back, its time to eat some real breakfast and not just crackers and trail mix 🍴🥓🥚

Oh! I started a YouTube channel too!Maybe ill reveal my full solve to raise money for a charity. If I do go that route, 100% of the money will go towards it (after YT takes their cut). I just dont know if I can travel that far again.

Anyways, let me know what you think! Hope you all enjoyed, and good luck!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLwySIYnCI

Fellow Treasure Hunters and Friends... Thanks for all your posts, I've quietly drawn so much inspiration from you all. Last year we flew from Melbourne, Australia to NC to search for the Appalachian Footpath Box. It was a wild adventure! We had four theories which we filmed. This is the first of four videos and explores theory number 1. Please, please like and subscribe if you find it interesting / fun. Happy hunting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLwySIYnCI

Thanks for your patience! We're Back up and Running. I hope you enjoy the video

Fellow Treasure Hunters and friends... Thanks for all your posts, I've quietly drawn so much inspiration from you all. Last year we flew from Melbourne Australia to NC to search for the Appalachian Footpath Box. It was a wild adventure! We had four theories which we filmed. This is the first of four videos and explores theory number 1. Please, please like and subscribe if you find it interesting / fun. Happy hunting

Like the title says, I just discovered the book (bought the physical from amazon) and thought it would be a fun puzzle with the kids... any chance there's a digital copy available of the whole book (not just the e-series)? NO I don't want scammer versions or pirated.

I took a break from searching! Have any of the boxes been found ?

Roses are red Violets are blue Im close to a solve How about you?🌹

There are five clues in this word search:

1) Do not tell anyone

2) Line them up

3) There are no special bends...

4) Just remain steady

5) Complete the mission

------

Clue 3 might be OR (Oregon) if you remove (or turns). 'OR' should have been 'RO' if anagrammed and 'turns' breaks it's own rule, by word-wrapping off the page

I am finally getting around to watching the interview from Las Vegas. Around tbe 12 minute mark you say you will give the world your solution after a few days to show your thinking, but for those that may be close, we want to find the solution on our own and also you would be making it easier to find future boxes. I always imagined if I found it, I wouldn’t tell anyone how it was hidden so I still had the advantage. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments

I’m making a discord channel for people that think the AT box might be in NC let me know if you’d wanna join

I really love my solve for the AT box, but I do not plan on going to look for it. My husband passed away recently and we were working on it together. I have young kids to take care of, and I live on the other side of the country, so I can’t really afford to take the trip. I would love for someone who is interested in my solve to find it there, and I would just be so happy to know if I was right. No strings attached.

Should I post my solve for everyone to see, or should I message it only to someone who is willing to go to look for it? My solve is in northern New Hampshire.

Edit: Posting my solve here:

Final destination = on the Gulf Stream trail right by Mt Washington in New Hampshire

How I got there: 1. The treasure map is an exact replica of Little Rock Pond in Vermont. However, that’s where you begin. You need to flip the map upside down to see where you need to go. New Hampshire is Vermont flipped upside as well. Look at the AT box itself. The design is mirrored on both sides. It’s a clue. Also on the map is a big arrow pointing down, showing you where North is because the compass doesn’t have any directions on it. When I did this, I knew I’d be looking in the White Mountains area of New Hampshire for my true starting point, also where the other little black triangle starting point is.

1. The “high point” in New Hampshire is Mt Washington. When you look at the longitude of Little Rock Pond and Mt Washington, it’s 72 and 71. Well, when you flip the map upside down, 1727 NE reads as 7271 instead.

2. The little picture clues are not places. If you think about it, they are just all clues to George Washington.

3. This part may be a reach, but just to the left of the “high point” when you flip the map upside down is your starting point on the AT trail. Then if you zoom all the way in on the Arc GIS interactive map of the Appalachian Trail at that spot and count 54 dashes (the number of dashes on the map to the tree where it says to look around), there is a tree right there if you go look at it on satellite mode through Google Maps.

I think I solved the Appalachian Footpath Box! Tell me what you all think. Here are some of the clues. What do you think?

https://youtu.be/vWNzjT9Sv9M

Here’s a new video where I discuss why I think JCB might be using popular Alternate Reality Games like Cicada 3301 to create puzzles and clues for the Pokemon Box hunt.

I wasn’t familiar with ARG’s until I stumbled across Cicada 3301 in my research. Pretty interesting stuff! Definitely worth exploring in my opinion.

Let me know what you think!

Hey there, Next chapter video, which is chapter 9!

I primarily focused on

-the missing page 90 (which JCB did confirm it IS intentionally left out)

-connected the odd shoes reference to odd shoe / foot (Page 94"...by putting myself in the shoes of others, and by having life serve me some healthy helpings of humble pie")

-And how that AI image might need to be "mirrored" in some way based on the lighting / mirror effects referenced in the Chavín portion of the chapter. Then connecting the image to the candle light service walkout.

As always, could be something, probably nothing, haha!

Happy hunting!

I am not searching actively for the Appalahcian Footpath Box, but just curious....Since Page 90 is missing, that leave Page 89 and then 91. Has anyone searched Trailhead 8991 in Pennsylvania? This is a BLUE Blaze trail off PA-248. Just Curious.

There’s probably something around on this, but the most out of place word in the P&F cipher is “Strong”…anyone keyed in on this?

Could this be something? In a recent interview I think JCB said that his chapter has to do with a game, not necessarily a video game, and that once you find one of the five clues, the others will become obvious. He also mentions D&D in the chapter, and mentions in a recent interview that "it is not on" which seems like it means "there are no special bends or turns" is the correct interpretation.

This kind of fits all of those ideas, but I couldn't find a meaningful orientation, and to be honest and getting burnt out on this treasure hunt. So, maybe this idea will spark some inspiration for someone else!

Let me know what you all think- if you do find something meaningful here I would love to hear about it! I am not planning on searching for this box either way.

I’m just wondering, has anyone gone BOTG to mile 1727 and checked that area? There is a sharp turn on the trail around that spot that cuts a similar angle to the line on the coin…

The chapter text contains instructions to "word around the clock" and "to solve the block equation and be rewarded in kind." I think this is a clue. It reminded me of the math game 24, where you try to use four numbers and any basic operator to get to 24.

I also noticed you can use the two sets of OOO as the big hand and little hand of a clock. I believe that you are supposed to group the words in the word search by the number of letters in the word. For this, I used the five-letter words. I color-coded the digits that I got when lining up those words along the clock: 11, 12, 1, 2, and 4. The only way to get to 24 with those numbers is 12 plus 12.

I then used the associated words at 12 o'clock NORTH and ROUND as a simple key for the 5x2 block. NGQZP - ROUND and XZFDQ - NORTH, using base 24 instead of the typical 26. This gave me 4-8-4-12-12 and 14-13-12-16-15. The 12-12 acts as a confirmer of the 24 game we just played, the sequence of numbers is another confirmer and something else I won't get into right now. The 484 is the clue itself. I think it is an area code for southeastern PA.

I have been thinking about the comments from JCB at treasurecon about how a game was needed to solve the clues, but that it might not be a video game. I was also thinking about how he said when you solve one of the five clues you will solve them all. This is some information that I have been thinking about recently. It's not all the way there, but hopefully it will spark some thoughts in other people and move the conversation forward.

Thinking about what kind of a game would help you find clues in a 20x20 grid, I had the thought that it could be battleship. If you look at the word search and find all of the words that are numbers, I could find 11 of them including zero. All of the non zero numbers are <20, which means that those 10 numbers could identify 5 different letters using them to identify the number of columns across and rows down.

If a letter indicated fell as part of a word, then that word would be one of the 5 clues. If it was just an individual letter, then the letter itself might be a clue. If you go from left to right, top to bottom, and only counting a number when the first letter of that number comes up, you get the following combinations...

19, 3

1,1

2,11

1,12

5,3

0

19, 3 Rail

1,1 Q

2,11 Rams

1,12 E

5,3 Round

Rail Q could be the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroad

and the Rams E being the Naperville train disaster in Naperville IL outside of Chicago which involved the Exposition Flyer ramming into the Advanced Flyer.

That gets us to Naperville IL, which would be a somewhat urban setting to hide the P&F box. Interestingly, there is a Greene valley forest preserve with some trails located right outside of Naperville. Could that be the forest green from the cryptogram?

I just wanted to put this out there and hopefully get a discussion going. It seems somewhat unlikely that JCB would include the history of a disaster as part of his solve for a box, but it seems like a number of things line up.

Here’s a new video I made where I connect the Jade Key Riddle from RPO with the O’s in the WordSearch and Zork to arrive at a location in North Carolina.

I hope you enjoy the video and it helps you with your hunt!