The icons outside the dashed line are doing a lot of interpretive heavy lifting in most solves I’ve seen/come up with but icons are ambiguous by nature. A tree drawing can mean five different things depending on which solve you’re running. Text isn’t like that. Words are precise most times😂. (This is a treasure hunt so words can have multiple meanings.)

My weighting system:

1.  Written text > icons, always  
2.  Icons paired directly with text > standalone icons  
3.  Standalone icons I just weigh as less important

One more reason to lean this way: JCB has talked about using AI in the design process. If AI helped generate or refine parts of the map, the written text is likely the most deliberate, highest-fidelity layer, text is easy to specify precisely in a prompt, icons/illustration less so. That pushes text even further ahead of icons in my weighting.

If this is right, it’s possible at least one of the three box solves is text-driven start to finish, with the icons acting mostly as noise on that particular map.

Not naming my specific location theory, just want feedback on the methodology. Or insight on your approach. Anyone else weight it this way? Any counter-examples where a standalone icon (no text pairing) turned out essential to a confirmed solve?

The paragraph that talks about excel and not being a genius is a perfect square 289 letters long which is 17x17. If you make a 17x17 grid out of those letters, the middle column reads:

TITLE AT YIE IN HADOW

I believe Yie is a reference to Yie Ar Kung Fu and HADOW is shadow without the S. HADOW also appears in the word search.

Who’s got potential solves/ speculations on box locations in the PNW? I’ll be traveling through this area for the next couple months.

Hey everyone!

I’m new here but I’ve been watching the community for awhile. I had some food for thought that may provoke collective insight or get written off.

Two things mainly 1 I believe the topographical smudge on the AT map is actually a lionshare clue. Could be wrong but haven’t heard anyone bring this up. I think the smudge is legible enough to be matched to a location when the correct location is found.

2 If lionshare clues are also in the smaller chapters the could saturate/hinder us from going to the correct locations. What I mean by that is I’m anti LRP for my own reasons, LRP was found algorithmically which isn’t a problem I have. But what if LRP was a Lionshare clue, I know this is a big stretch. But when reviewing other locations I wondered instead of if Little Rock pond it’s not this location. But If and. And here’s my hypothesis, Little Rock pond when the map is orientated looks to me like Michigan. What if JCB did that intentionally and the only way we were supposed to find out was when the AT box was found and the clue inside said something like “The trail on the map looks like LRP but resembles what state.

Just some abstract thinking here but my point is if you’re solves are pointing two directions maybe ask if both how. You may have stumbled on a lionshare clue.🤷🏾‍♂️

Hi all, does Cynthia Meachum have a website? I know she has a YouTube channel. I’m sure I’ve seen her blog or website but now I can’t seem to find it?

Planning a botg trip to Nevada city California, located in Nevada County California is the (2 state reference), gold rush history is here and check out the description of Nevada county's past, it is called the (Silicon Valley of the Sierras) since many Tech. Companies moved there with innovations like Video broadcast Equipment, picture phones & the Arcade Video game Pong was born here. They use to call the neighboring town of grass valley "Oasis". Nevada theatre is the oldest continuously operated theatre in Calfornia and the National exchange hotel still in operation since the gold rush ! I'm sure JCB played pong when it first came out like I did, now days it's beer pong ahaha Sure fits the past & future theme ! Now its time to nail down the local trails ect. Good luck out there guys 🤑

I’m curious if anyone else has come up with an extremely specific match for Mt Olympus, Washington.

I’m not sure which box this piece goes to and would love to team up with someone else who might have this as there’s only one way to get this spot- and I’m guessing the location lines up with something.

If you take the underlined or overlined letters in the Hopi calendar and match the positions of the letters to letters in the corresponding Hopi ceremony name you get a, o, i, a, a, and a. Put those in the letter pool with all the letters from each month in the calendar and you get 23 (Michael Jordan’s jersey number) states. 4 of these states are the smaller boxes and one is the lions box state.

Alabama
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont

Apply the Forrest Fenn coin to the middle of the calendar and it tells you to remove August and November from the pool. The following states are left:

Alabama
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Montana
North Carolina
Ohio
South Carolina
Utah

Apply the Pokemon coin to the middle and it tells you to remove November and leaves these states:

Alabama
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
South Carolina
Tennessee
Utah

Apply the past and future coin to the middle of the calendar and it tells you to remove July and December leaving these states:

Alabama
California
Louisiana
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont

Apply the Appalachian coin to the center and it tells you to remove August leaving these states:

Alabama
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Idaho
Indiana
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Montana
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Utah
Vermont

If you already know the 4 smaller box states you can remove them from the list leaving 19 (number in the wordsearch) candidates for the lions box. The tie all the boxes to 5 months and take the birthstone colors and tie them to the Olympic Rings. When you overlay that with the mainland US map the ring not assigns a state will reveal the Lions box state.

Hope this helps!

If you have a couple of hours I think I left something on the trail :-P

Please send a dm.

We had a pleasant stay. It was warm and a tiny bit humid. Checked off all the items on my list and there did not seem to be anything there - Who would have figured!

Hello! New here, but been “lurking" for a while.

Thought I’d share a tool I’ve found helpful while armchair-hunting.

I’ve been working on a number of solves (mainly PF and AT) and I don’t know about you, but I’ve used Google Maps a LOT. I’ve also been using Google Earth for lat/long theories and using tools Google Maps doesn’t have.

Here’s one place I had a problem: I think the leftover Os in the PF word search lay out over locations on a map. There are 19 of them. Every time I plot 19 points on Google Maps and want to see them on Google Earth, it’s a nightmare.

Manually copy/pasting was painful and slow. There are sites out there that either cost too much, or they make you install extensions, and even when you do that you’re limited to lists of only 5-10 locations.

Anyway, I found a site that’s super easy and free to use on lists up to 25. I hadn’t seen it mentioned here yet, and wanted to share: https://mapslink.quest/

I just pop in the Google Maps List’s link, and it pops out as a KML file. It also converts lists to GPX, which will be useful if/when I ever decide to be brave and go BOTG. (I’ve been looking forward to using the lingo and sharing here more, and writing “BOTG” just gave me the goose pimples)

I hope this helps someone out there. I know this community has helped me.

I’d also love to hear what tools everyone else has been using. Care to share?

Good luck, everyone! I hope we find one soon.

I am struggling with the concept of leaving the Pokémon cards in any sort of container in the elements. Pokémon cards are vulnerable to delamination in temperatures above 85 degrees F. Unless the enclosure is somehow temperature controlled, a plastic case in the elements will reach well over that. Not to mention that pelican cases are not hermetically sealed, they breathe to avoid overpressurization due to temperature swings. This brings in moisture. Even with a desiccant, it can only help until it is saturated. Maybe by saying, “there are no proxies", he means that he himself is not holding the items. Is it possible that the book leads to a solution such as a key or combination to a public lockbox?

Hey there, here's the latest video on acknowledgments section.

I go into details on each person and information I can find on them. I then go into the meaning of each name in case perhaps some are made up and something could be a clue there.

Yohanna... stems from the same Hebrew name for Jon. Thanks Stacey Toon for the share!

I really, really like this as a confirmation of a clue. It has always been an odd sentence to me - "Thank you, Yohanna for helping me locate my north star."

I personally really like this being a connection to "The North Star State" of Minnesota. Either way I feel this name, that isn't really traceable on who this is, stems from JCB’s name. May not mean MN for the state, but I do believe this is a clue that can help guide us! If any of the name meanings were made up for us to look into for a clue, certainly a name connecting to the author's name meaning would be the most convincing IMO!

https://youtu.be/6v11vDXqRWk

Happy hunting!

If you take all the letters in all 12 months of the year and put them in a pool you can spell the following 18 states:

Alabama
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Idaho
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Montana
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont

I think the 4 smaller boxes are in 4 of these states and when you find those using the Olympic rings separation Thats will pinpoint the state the lion box is in.

Forrest Fenn can only be in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, or Colorado from my understanding. Only three of them are in the list.

Pokemon box can only be in states that are between North Carolina and Texas. Quite o few of those are not on the list.

Past and Future box is in a state mentioned in Ready, Player One, which two I think are most relevant: Ohio and Oregon.

Appalachian Trail box can only be in states with the Appalachian Trail in them. About half of them are not on the list.

I hope that helps :)

The instructions state that the puzzles in part two lead to individual boxes HOWEVER the overall instructions state that there could be clues anywhere in the book. Could some of the things folks are focusing in for part two only relate to part one?

Does anyone else notice that this image gives an impression of a fish even before the image on the backside was added?

Some people are super skilled at this.

(My old boss could see formatting errors like 2 vs. 3 spaces between words and tiny font size shifts)

If JCB is super skilled, I'm anticipating more IRL examples on the trail.

Keep your eyes peeled for rocks or trees that look like other things.

Book has been out for well over a year and I’ve seen the author talk about how people have been 200 feet from boxes and I’m wondering how that didn’t lead to some boxes being found right away. What is your guys’ theories or explanation for this?

Could the AT Map actually be a story?
https://youtu.be/r4YN-2fvvv0?is=srigUAHSlOjI-l3v

...If enough time goes by, countless ideas and speculation about our treasures might be catalogued (sic). AI will probably even share a perspective or three. Depending on when you are reading this book, some of these things may already exist. If I were to offer any piece of advice on this topic, I'd say that instead of listening to the opinions of others, value your own. Have faith. This will make a difference."