Article Written by Josh S. (aka GoldenChild on MW)

Last October I had the pleasure of becoming absolutely obsessed and a tad bit insane over the hunt for a Pony Express box with an unknown quantity of Silver Morgan dollars, gold nuggets and a Colt Peacemaker. It was a treasure hunt put on by Jeff Williams who has a youtube channel and patreon group dedicated to the prospecting and mining of gold.

He is a very successful gold miner who has a wealth of knowledge to share. I highly recommend his videos. He also has monthly giveaways of bags of paydirt from his drift mine that always has good, chunky gold and gives away a metal detector once a month.

He has another treasure hunt going on right now, hidden somewhere in Nevada, that has been going on for a month or two with no one discovering the chest so far. To get in on it you have to buy a map for around 500$. These are for serious treasure hunting addicts only. If you don’t think you have what it takes to travel to Nevada, explore rugged, remote, hostile areas….then this is probably not for you. These are NOT armchair treasure hunts but the real deal.

Last year I probably hiked around 20 miles a day, gridding the sides of mountains, ravines, and canyons. If you have a bad ticker or health problems, you might want to think twice. Last years hunt had 24 verbal clues that were released. You got a free clue for every month you had been a patreon member. If not they were for sale for 10 dollars a clue. Luckily, I had been a member for two years since the beginning so I received them all for free. These were the clues.

1) In the County of Lincoln this town you will find, named after a Frenchman and Silver they mined

2) A Historic Old Town with a Café to match, stop in for a meal that is made out of scratch.

3) Now back on the hunt but don’t be a mouse, your next stop is close to a famous Courthouse….after taking the tour and reading the signs, time to head North to the Old Silver Mines.

4) A Historical Marker you’ll find up ahead, where Jackrabbits live, at least that’s what’s said.

5) Stay on the pavement and North you should be, watch out for the deer’s that cross 93.

6) Keep an eye out it’s easy to do, for a mile marker sign, number 142

7) Start to slow down mail boxes you’ll see, take the dirt road and travel to the East.

8) A windmill with water for cattle to drink, continue your journey through the Lake Valley sink.

9) Squaw knoll you will see on the right as you go, say “ Hi “ to the guard that the cattle all know.

10) At the end of the road is a sign painted green, the name of the place Tom Hanks likes to scream.

11) Look for an Old Wagon with an unmarked grave, travel their route for the Silver they saved.

12) Horseshoes can be fun if that’s the game that you play, continue on up on this route you must stay.

13) Drive the Old Road that follows the line, until the road forks at the green Buckskin sign.

14) Drive straight on through but the road will get rough, eyes to the left for grey Volcanic Tuff.

15) Look for a rock that’s shaped like a Thumb, the creek should be dry so your feet won’t get numb.

16)Don’t get stuck in the Craw just hike up the hill, from behind that old thumb to pine trees that are still. ( this thumb rock was in Craw wash)

17) Look for Slim’s pick it will show you the way, stuck in a tall tree from back in the day.

18) On top of the ridge a bent tree to the right, a split in the rock a white outcropping in sight. (no picture but the ridge above here had a slender cut in it where you could shimmy sideways thru it and pop out on the other side of the ridge.)

19)Jasper and Agate all laying about, Rock changes to Red with white cropping out.

20) At this outcropping a small stump sits on top, it points the way straight through to the top.

21) Large outcropping of rock letter “ A “ down below, climb around to the left and to the top you must go. ( I kept looking for some kind of rock that starts with A, andesite etc. But it was a literal A shape on the side of the rock outcropping in the end.)

22) From on top of this rock and by the small tree, look for Slim’s Skillet it’s easy to see.

23) Now turn to your right and look down below, between two large rocks is where you must go.

24)Look for an Old Tag that’s nailed to a tree, the Treasure is Buried beneath the Big “ V “ 

The first clues I knew right away since I’ve been mining out near Pioche Nevada before. I’ve also spent time on Mt. Wilson Ranch before (the place that tom hanks screams).

They have around ten rooms they rent out. The Ranch backs up to BLM land and is a gateway to adventure. There are tons of artifacts hidden out in those hills. They even have their own 1800’s wild west style saloon that is absolutely amazing. And best of all, there is nothing for miles and miles in any direction.

Pioche is the nearest town and it’s 45 minutes away in a vehicle. Since I had been there before looking for gold, I vaguely remembered a rock outcropping that could be the “thumb rock”.  My first trip out there I traveled thru the night and got to the site about 3:30am in the morning. The verbal clues were just released two nights before. Since I was pretty sure I knew where to go BOTG, I booked a flight to Vegas from Seattle and got out there asap.

I pull up in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere….and there is someone already there! I couldn’t believe it. Who else is crazy enough to high tail it out there with no delay? It ended up being the infamous Thomas the Tank Tanaka. I met him before on an underground mining trip where we worked a lost gold mine from the 1800’s that had been covered up and sealed to time. Until the entrance was found, dug out, and access gained once again that is 🙂               

Right away we struck a deal to work together since we were the first people there. It is so remote and absolutely quiet out there so it’s impossible to really search the hill without giving away your location to anyone that might be out there.  (Several searchers that later showed up from across the country had no idea they were being watched by me, lurking in the tree’s and rock outcroppings)

Thomas and I had made some great headway by the time we ever saw another person out there. We were all the way thru the clues and just looking for the “big V” where the treasure was buried beneath. So when other searchers started showing up we had to basically put our detectors down so they wouldn’t hear us up on the mountain side gridding specific areas.

We secretly would observe them and make sure they weren’t getting too close to any of the markers that we had already found. We also had the chance to be the first ones on the hill and so got to see everything in its natural state.

There were crosses made out of rocks and sticks, rock cairns with sharp tipped pointer rocks pointing certain directions, all perfectly intact when we got there. After a couple months the whole mountain looked like a bombing range from all the digging people were doing. Obviously by people that didn’t think to bring metal detectors with them because we had detected that entire side of the mountain and we found every bullet and musket ball and there was zero metal left.

We knew the treasure was not near the other markers but had to be over the ridge somewhere farther away. I initially spent an entire trip out there one time hunting the next canyon over looking for that dang pick axe in a tree. Which is a cruel clue. Do you know how exhausting it is to have to go to every single tree in a wilderness area and look it over from bottom to top and all around? Very exhausting. It was a fairly large canyon and had been relatively untouched by modern man.

I found a worn foot path that looked like it hadn’t been used in a long while. I started following it and began to find rock cairns placed every so often along the trail. I thought for sure it was Jeff’s doing, so I kept following them. The trail ended up taking me deeper into the canyon and then up the head of the canyon. Along the way I would find chipping areas where the natives had made arrowheads out of the colorful jaspars there. I would also find these oddly derocked flat areas with these stone circles made into them (like the one above with my daughter hopping on the rocks).  I found several arrowheads near these sites. 

The trail eventually led me thru a few of these rock circle sights and finally led to a cave at the base of a tall cliff of limestone. The cave was amazing. The natives had carved out these bed size shelves along the side of the cave. The entire rock inside is white from the limestone so you could see the darkness on these shelves from the years of oily bodies lying on them. In the center of the cave, next to these shelves was a fire pit with logs of charred wood still there. The entire roof of the cave was black with soot. The floor was littered with colorful shards of Jaspars that stood out sharply against the all white rock floor.

This canyon honestly was the highlight of the treasure hunt for me…more so than finding the treasure. All the history sitting there untouched was truly amazing.  Not to mention I found a killer Chalcedony outcropping.  I filled up a back pack with botryoidal Chalcedony specimens that were amazing. It was the first time I’ve ever came across what could be a legit crystal mine, and be the first to find it. Amazing mantle pieces just sticking half out of the dirt. Finding just one of these pieces on its own would of been a great day crystal hunting.  But this spot you could pack your bag up to the brim and barely have to move 15 ft. And all plucked right from the surface.

I spent an entire trip hunting this canyon, and it ended up being wrong. Of course right before I leave from this trip to head back to Washington I happen to stumble across the pick axe in the tree which lead the way to the next clue. I had to fly home knowing I found the pick axe and didn’t have time or daylight to see where it led. So of course I flew right back the next weekend!

After finding the pick axe high up in the tree I made pretty quick work of the rest of the clues all the way to finding the V. We ended up finding odd things like this cross. Then we would spend an entire trip dedicated to working out what this cross was telling us. We’d follow the cross arms out in either direction a half mile or so, we’d go straight thru the cross, backwards from the cross. Then N, S, E, W, then NE NW etc etc. Always walking out the lines farther and farther metal detecting everything along the way.  I also learned that V’s are everywhere in nature. Trees, rocks, your imagination…there are V’s everywhere! Like these……

After awhile we had absolutely exhausted the entire mountainside and I was confident it was not on the mountain but farther away (everyone else thought I was mad btw and would not give up on that mountain). So i ended up sighting from marker to marker and running those lines out farther and farther. In the end it was a sighting from the frying pan to the copper tag in the tree that was the answer.

I followed that line down the hill, across a ravine, up and over the next ridge and into another river bed area. Swinging my detector the entire time. When I got down into the river bed area I found an area that all of a sudden had a lot of iron trash. Really old cans etc. It was definitely a camp at one point. I ended up getting two solid tones that sounded like silver, and lots of iron hits all in one spot. It was at the base of a big tree right in this old camp site. I dug it out and kicked out all kinds of rotten pieces of a can. I swung my detector over it again and the two high tones I had heard before were now three tones spread apart and out of the hole. I dug thru it and found three water worn nuggets of a silvery looking metal.

Maybe Platinum? They were obviously buried at some point in a can that had rotten away. I lost one out of my pocket before I got off the hill, lost another back at the ranch….but still have the third one at least. At that same site, I found a perfectly intact baking soda tin that was rusted completely shut. When I shook it, all you could hear was a ting ting ting. After finding the Pony express box I was in such a good mood I ended up giving it to Jeff Mcburnie, the owner of Mt. Wilson ranch. He practically has his own mining museum on the property from relics he’s found. Since he was so accommodating to me on my insane treasure mission I gave it to him unopened, as is, so he could have his own little treasure mystery also. I never found out what was in that tin but they sure did sound like more nuggets to me.

Just pass this camp, I found a V shaped tree with a huge screaming target at the base of it. I could see the raise in the dirt and leaves of the tree where the dirt was disturbed…..and it looked like a square about the size of a chest. I got all excited and thought I’d finally found it. I dug it out and it ended up being a round old pie pan. I thought it was a gold pan at first which would have been awesome. I knew I had to be close since a round object had a square hole. Obviously Jeff was messing with me and I had to be near the real deal. There was a fork in the road near this spot and a fork in the river also. I thought that this is the only “V” I haven’t checked with my detector.

Mainly because it was so choked out with thorny brush I just couldn’t penetrate it to detect. Belly crawling in was almost impossible at that. So out of desperation, I just started ramming my detector straight down thru the brush and into the creek bed. Almost right away I hit a huge target. And it was coming from under some old rotten logs on the side of the creek bed. After rolling the top log off I saw the top of the chest poking thru some dirt. After the fact, I noticed that there was an old iron spike sticking out of a tree maybe 30 feet away from the treasure pointing dead at it. I never noticed it until later.

It was about 15 minutes before losing all sunlight when I found it and I was due to head back to Vegas to fly home. And that was going to be my last trip because my wife had enough weekends alone with the kids while I was off playing Indiana Jones. So I literally found it right at the buzzer. I have to admit, instead of the expected emotions of joy, happiness etc. I just felt more relieved than anything. Finally, I could get it out of my head and stop obsessing over it. I had made a deal with Tanaka originally that if we found it he could keep the gun and I’d keep the chest since I was flying back and forth and he was driving from Los Angeles.

Flying with an unregistered firearm didn’t seem like a great idea. And then we would split the loot down the middle. It was definitely something on Tanaka and I’s bucket list to find a treasure in real life some time. We had a lot of time to talk about these things on the hill. I’m glad it happened the way it did, because Thomas passed away not long after this from a sudden and unexpected heart attack. It was an honor to play a part in one of his life goals.

So it can be done! Treasure can be found. But only by those that go looking for it!

So put your big boy boots on and get out there into the world and go find yours! Check out Ask Jeff Williams. Com if you want to get in on this years hunt. But you better do it quick because I plan on joining in myself here real soon! See ya on the hill!

Article Written by Josh aka “Goldenchild”

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