Este’s Quest #3 Found Treasure! On April 27th – 16 days after launch – the Gold Coin (valued over $3000) was found. Congrats to Indiana Holmes! (MW Discord Username) – and to Froggy (creator of the hunt) for a hunt well done!
Following are Six Questions with Indiana – which provide an excellent recap of the adventures and how he went about solving the hunt. I also had the pleasure of briefly chatting with Froggy – please see his comments at the end – and check out Este’s Quest YouTube channel where he talks about current hunts, wraps up Este’s Quest #3 (solution details), and will announce any future Este’s Quests that may launch!
Enjoy!
Six Questions with Indiana Holmes:
- 1Q) Congrats on finding the Gold Coin in Este’s Quest! What did you find appealing about the hunt that inspired you to join the quest?
Thanks, Jenny! I’ve been treasure hunting for a few years and am always on the lookout for new hunts. Este’s Quest was appealing because it was a very unique format. In a world where most modern hunts entail endless reading, a hunt that was video, picture, and puzzle-based was a breath of fresh air.
Also enticing was the notion of participating in a hunt that isn’t open-ended. As we know, some hunts continue for years, decades, or beyond. It was reassuring to know that somebody would be finding this treasure within 30 days.
Also the treasure itself was very attractive. 1 oz of gold is certainly nothing to sneeze at. It’s a beautiful coin and in seemingly mint condition.
- 2Q) Please share how you went about solving the clues of the hunt. What was your first ‘AHA’ moment and how did you uncover that – and others?
Regarding the clues in the videos, Froggy had left a comment on his first video hinting that we should “Listen to the words, maybe write down the sentences.” So I did, and discovered that some segments of the dialogue created acrostic messages that ruled out states. For instance, the acrostic message in one of the videos spelled out “NOT IN VIRGINIA.”
Since these early clues were pretty broad, I spent most of my time using the daily pictures and some scenes in the videos to try and identify the location directly. The first big “aha” moment was when he released a video with a scene of him standing at an overlook somewhere in the mountains. Using Google Lens (a very handy tool, that I highly recommend to any treasure hunter,) I was able to find the exact vista in a few minutes. That got me in the area.
One of his daily picture drops was a very aesthetic picture of a trail going off into the woods. I put Google Lens on the job again. And while this one was trickier to find, it eventually popped up in the results. And I now had the trail. This was really exciting because the clues in the videos were still giving very general information (like ruling out states,) so I felt like I was a head of the game at this point.
As more videos were released, it seemed clear that the clues were still pretty broad compared to knowing the trail (for instance, one video contained a Caesar cipher code that decrypted to “Cranberry Wilderness.”) So I kept my focus almost entirely on the daily images in the hopes that I could further narrow down the trail.
- 3Q) What resources did you use for the hunt? How much time did you spend solving clues? What was the most difficult clue to solve?
Google Lens was the real MVP of this hunt. The street view feature of Google Maps was also very handy, and allowed me to find or verify some of the other images he had dropped (the overlook, one of the signs, the sign at the trailhead, etc…) AllTrails.com was really helpful for getting eyes on the trail and knowing what to expect on-site, and DCode.fr made quick work of the Caesar Cipher. It was also helpful to review the previous Este’s Quest hunts to get an idea for the sequences of events and timeline.
Very roughly, I probably spent 10-12 hours at home watching videos, trying to solve his puzzles, and searching the web to narrow down the location. After finding the trail, I was mostly in a holding pattern for a few days hoping to see some trail images from him that would give me a smaller search area.
The most challenging clues for me were some of the word puzzles (looking at you “Quad Bikes for Sally.”) The puzzle he released that was a circle of letters and used the Spider-man comics as a key also had me stumped. But at that point I already knew the trail, and was assuming that he wasn’t yet releasing clues that would narrow it down closer than that, so I didn’t spend too much time on these puzzles.
- 4Q) When did you first decide to go BOTG? What was your plan once on location – were confident of an exact spot?
It was tricky deciding when to go BOTG. With a ticking-clock-style hunt like this, you really gotta thread the needle by going early enough to beat the crowds but not so early that you lack specific enough info to have a reasonable search area.
On the morning of Friday the 25th, Froggy dropped a censored image of the sign at the trailhead/parking lot. This got me nervous. In the Discord, it seemed like many searchers already knew the general area. And given that this sign can be pretty easily found via Google Maps street view, I figured people would soon be flocking to the trail.
I still didn’t have anything more specific than the trail and Froggy saying in an interview that it was no further than 2 miles from the road, but I didn’t want to be sitting on my hands knowing that weekend searchers could get lucky with a daily clue. Ultimately it was FOMO that got me out the door. I drove up that morning, hoping the next couple days would bring some more specific on-trail pictures.
Once on site, I hiked the full 2-mile stretch, to get the lay of the land. Many of the things Froggy had taken pictures of jumped right off the trail (namely, two different pictures of some very distinct rocks, and the picture of a trail going into the woods.) What I couldn’t find either on, or just-off the trail was a picture he had released of a tree covered in fungi (which me and other searchers dubbed “the mushroom tree.”) So at that point, the assumption became that this tree was “off the trail” (which aligned with one of his not-so-subtle hints in a video,) and that if I could find this tree, I would be in the zone.
On Saturday, he released a picture of another very distinctive tree. After hours of searching the trail, I again came up dry (as did other searchers who had arrived that day.) And so we all assumed the “mushroom tree” logic applied to this one as well; it would be off-trail and likely in the vicinity of the treasure.
What helped narrow down the area for the treasure was the vegetation in these two tree pictures. Most of the 2 mile stretch of trail was populated exclusively by pine trees, and the forest floor was covered in thick, green moss. Other stretches were thick with Rhododendron that couldn’t be walked through. But one small-ish stretch of the trail (maybe 100 yards of trail, if that) looked very much like the two tree pictures; it had multiple species of trees, and no green moss to be seen. So this area became my focus. I can’t say I was “confident,” but I can say it seemed like the most likely area.
Another assumption I and many other searchers made was that there would likely be some identifiable feature on the trail that Froggy would use as one of his picture drops to mark the spot where we are supposed to head off trail. So I was keeping an eye out for unique looking rocks or trees along the trail.
In my search area I found a very unique pair of trees that created almost a doorway over the trail. Thinking this could make a great “exit the trail here” marker, I headed off into the woods at this point, and just a couple minutes later I found one of the trees from Froggy’s picture about 100 feet from the trail.
After another 20 minutes or so of wandering this area (and hiding behind trees as other search parties passed by on the trail,) I spotted a prominent looking dead tree stump sticking up like a sore thumb (searchers all knew the treasure would be in a stump or a log, because the first closeup image of the coin showed it laying on mulch.) So I looked in the hollow of the stump, moved away some of the mulch, and voila! A small pelican case with a beautiful, shiny gold coin appeared.
- 5Q) What did you enjoy most about the hunt and adventures?
There’s so much to say about this hunt.
First of all, Froggy did an excellent job structuring this hunt. The ticking-clock format is just enough pressure to really focus your attention and keep you working. It forces you to be diligent, because if you drag your feet, somebody else is going to find it. Initially I assumed this would just make it stressful, but in reality it was a ton of fun. The built-in urgency of the hunt made it feel less like a casual pastime and more like a mission. It’s fun to wake up every morning with a mission.
I very much appreciated the decisiveness of the clues and puzzles. When you solved one, you knew it, with zero ambiguity. There were also multiple opportunities for decisive confirmation that one had the right area. This really alleviates much of the stress of planning a trip, because you don’t constantly have that monkey on your back whispering “is this a waste of time? Am I in the wrong area? I’ve been out here for two days, should I just accept my theory is wrong and go home?” Doubt is very distracting when searching. Being free of it allows one to just focus, get to work, and enjoy the process.
One thing I didn’t anticipate was running into so many awesome people on the trail or how much fun it would be to be around a crowd of searchers. On Friday and Saturday morning I had the trail to myself, but Saturday afternoon other searchers started rolling in. One might think it would be stressful being in the midst of many “competitors.” But it was the complete opposite. The dynamic felt much more like being on one big search team. People were warm, friendly, talkative, and really excited to be there. They were all genuinely good folks, and everybody clicked right away. With 15 or so searchers being on site that weekend, it became a surprisingly social event. It was really fun to meet searchers in the flesh and to talk about treasure not-through-a-screen for once.
Of course each party wanted to find the treasure themselves, but all of us were just excited at the idea of somebody finding it. And sure enough, once it was found, everybody was genuinely celebrating and were all smiles and congratulations. It wouldn’t have mattered which of us had found it, everybody on-site would have been ecstatic all the same. I didn’t leave the trail for another 2 hours after the find because we were all enjoying hanging out and talking so much. We even took group photos. It was an absolute blast.
Finally, finding the treasure was incredible. This is my first find. After fantasizing about finding treasure for years and working thousands of hours across various hunts with no success, you kind of get used to the fact that finding treasure is just a fantasy; some unrealistic fiction that only happens to other people or in movies.
The moment that yellow case popped into view, it was very surreal. In a split second, the unrealistic fantasy was actually happening. It really messes with your sense of reality for a couple minutes (in a good way.) It felt a bit dream-like, and the feelings of joy and catharsis were cranked to 11. Maybe this sounds melodramatic; it wasn’t a million-dollar treasure chest overflowing with pounds of gold, but in that moment, it may as well have been. Finding treasure is finding treasure. The rest is just numbers.
- 6Q) What other hunts are you enjoying? Can you offer any advice to others in search for treasures and how to go about finding them?
Currently I spend most of my time on (and am very much enjoying) There’s Treasure Inside. I have my second trip for the Appalachian Footpath Box coming up soon, and hopefully a trip for the Lion’s Share here in the next couple months. I’ve also been picking away at a few other hunts (Treasure Games: Wish Lamp, Beyond The Map’s Edge, The Hope Chest and TreasureFix.) Froggy’s hunt also has me excited about other ticking-clock style hunts, so I’m looking forward to The Veil #2 as well.
It’s hard to give advice having only found a single treasure, and since each hunt is unique, but there have been some general practices that have served me very well so far…
Probably the best piece of advice I have is to keep very well-organized notes, preferably in a digital format. For each hunt, I keep a folder of anywhere from 1-50 word documents of notes, sorted by chapter, themes, patterns, theories etc. This is extremely helpful for quickly finding and reviewing information or ideas, and it frees up gobs of mental bandwidth to use for more pressing things than trying to remember exactly why you thought mooses were a clue, or what the name of that creek was you were looking at three months ago. With so much information, so many potential clues, connections, oddities, theories etc.. it is extremely easy to go insane trying to keep track of everything mentally, and you’ll likely forget half of it.
I’d also advise that searchers not limit themselves to just the treasure hunt material and clues, but to use any and all available tools at their disposal. Namely ,digital ones. The internet is a powerful thing and is only getting more so. It’s amazing how much of the physical world, even wilderness, can be found or even viewed in the virtual world. And the proficiency and efficiency of things like online codebreakers, anagram solvers, AI engines, reverse image searches, and other tools cannot be overstated.
Lastly, when it comes to searching in the field, be gratuitous with your safety precautions and redundant in your safety gear. I learned the hard way during this hunt just how easy it is to get lost in the woods, even just 100 feet from the trail, when your GPS app decides to take a nap. I’ll never again leave a trail without an analog compass as backup. It’s far better to be overprepared than under. It’s just not worth risking injury, death, moments of panic, or even just losing precious time because you assumed everything would go smoothly. Optimism is not a protective.
Just want to say another huge thank you to Froggy for creating such an excellent hunt, and the opportunity for such memorable experiences. Thank you to all the searchers I met that helped make this such an enjoyable adventure. And thanks to Jenny for creating a platform where searchers can stay updated, engaged, and build a community.
Answer/comments from Froggy/Este’s Quest:
What did you enjoy most about the Quest and the successful conclusion?
I enjoyed seeing people share pictures of themselves hanging out (SEE IMAGE ABOVE!). Also almost everyone said they loved the location! I was so proud to have picked a good spot.
I enjoyed also hearing more and more people were able to solve at least half of the puzzles and clues. Solution Video on: Froggy’s YouTube: Este’s Quest
And lastly, I just want to thank the community for their support (many paid to join with no plan to go BOTG) and I just thank them for playing.