More and more armchair treasure hunts, both local and national, are happening each year. Mike and his team have been enjoying this hobby and has successfully found a few of these TREASURES! Their most recent find was this last weekend. They solved clues and discovered a treasure cache hidden by Will Mullis in East Fork Lake, Ohio. Following is a Question with Will, the creator of that hunt, and then other Questions with Mike about Will’s Hunt AND his other treasure finds.

Treasures are out there for you to discover! Let’s learn how they were found, so you might find the next one!

Six Questions on FOUND TREASURES:

First Question for Will Mullis, the creator of the most recent treasure hunt that Mike and team had found:

  • 1Q) Thank you, Will, for being part of this Six Questions. And congrats on hosting another successful hunt. MW always loves to share found treasure stories. Searchers can learn and be inspired a lot from them. For those unfamiliar, this wasn’t your first hidden treasure to hide and provide clues for from your Facebook Page. What is inspiring you to create treasure hunts and what do you enjoy most about it.

First of all I would like to thank everyone for participating in my treasure hunts over the past couple of years. I have made some friends, heard a lot of great stories about the times spent with family and friends while on the hunt. After the first treasure was found I was shocked with the amount of interest that seemed to be growing in getting outdoors with family. So at that point I was inspired to create more hunts.

What I liked most about creating my treasure hunts was that I began to see the joy and excitement on the faces of others, as they began to study the clues, make a plan, and then go afield. I have seen a diversity of treasure hunters from mothers out there with small babies, and elderly grandparents trooping along as well. I myself am a lifelong treasure hunter, so the idea of putting a plan together, whether an armchair or boots on the ground, creates a sense of excitement / entertainment that you just can’t get from TV or a Computer, in my opinion. 

Treasure hunters whether they find the treasure or not all have one thing in common, and that is the smile on their face, joy in their heart, and an appreciation of the thrill of the chase! 

Now, let’s hear from Mike (‘Auggie’), who with a team, found not only the latest of Will’s hidden treasures, but others! 

  • 2Q) Congrats on recently finding the hidden treasure of Will’s Treasure Hunt. Will you share how you heard about the hunt and a bit of your journey in solving the clues and finding it? What’s your favorite item from the found treasure cache?

I woke up, randomly opened Facebook on my phone, and just happened to see Will’s hunt posted in The Treasure Hunt Group—to be honest, I didn’t even know I was in that Facebook group! My girlfriend Kel and I are always down for a hunt, so when we saw that this was nearby at East Fork Lake, we literally sprinted to the car. A few years ago, she hiked the East Fork Lake perimeter trail, but we weren’t terribly familiar with the area, so we spent several hours trying out a bunch of failed approaches before leaving for the day. We re-examined our approach that evening and headed right back out early the following morning. After around 8 hours of hiking and searching, Kel’s dad Rob (the third member of our core team) finally managed to pull it out of the stump. The hunt had quite a few twists and turns (and admittedly we tried to see if we could shortcut some steps, to no avail), but once we went back to the beginning and worked through step by step, we ended up at the only place we could reasonably be.

The cache of gold coins is great, but I love the box the most. This is our third find in 2 years, and (even as a minimalist) I love that the boxes from each hunt serve as a great reminder of the experience even after the winnings might be gone.

  • 3Q) When did you first get involved in the hobby of treasure hunting and solving puzzles? What do you enjoy most about it? Do you remember your first treasure ever found?

I’ve been deep into the games space for a long time: spent several years on the Pro Tour for a competitive card game, done tons of game design and testing, and am an all-around gamer through and through. When I first heard about escape rooms there weren’t any here in the midwest, so I started making my own. Same thing with alternate-reality games—I launched my first ARG in Cincinnati with a large grant, and most recently launched my latest (out of a vending machine) in January.

As for treasure hunting, I remember getting David Blaine’s Mysterious Stranger and being enthralled. It contained an armchair treasure hunt that I was super excited to dig into, but quickly faced the harsh reality that while the treasure was somewhere in the US … I did not exactly have the means to be running across the country. I think the next attempt at a treasure actually came with the Cincinnati Mission: Treasure hunt in 2020. In the midwest, we’re usually a little behind the times on big events, so when we heard there was a $25K hunt that was local, we couldn’t pass it up. Since then the last two years have been a whirlwind of bouncing from hunt to hunt, with hopefully many more to come! If anyone’s looking to sponsor a professional treasure hunting team, holla! 😀

  • 4Q) Congrats as well on finding the $25,000 treasure of the Mission: Treasure.com’s hunt in November, 2020. This one seemed to be over relatively quick for such a large cash prize. Was that expected? Had you and your team found the clues all fell into place or what do you feel led your team to being successful in that hunt? What were some ‘aha’ moments? Can you describe how you felt when finding the prize?

Thanks! This hunt was very hyped locally (that’s a big purse for a city-specific event!), but we honestly didn’t know what to expect. Kel and I, along with our friend John, are well-versed puzzlers, but hadn’t ventured into the treasure-hunt waters before. When we received our first clues for the Mission Treasure Hunt, we were delighted to see indicators of some of the codes and ciphers we were already familiar with. As new clues were released throughout the week, we started to get the feeling that we were pretty far ahead of the expected timeline. We had the final solve a few days before the last clues dropped, we just needed the final clue to plug our answer into to find the treasure site. One of the interesting things about local hunts is that with such a large prize, I think a lot of people approached the entry fee like a lottery ticket, where everyone who entered had an equal chance of winning. But we felt studied and geared up for a high-stakes test of skill. The hosts said they kind of expected the hunt to last up to a year, but by the time the final bits of information dropped we were at the treasure site within 30 minutes. We came home empty handed that night (the park had a closing time), but we spent the entire night honing in on our spot, and were back at the park the instant they opened in the morning. This time, we brought our best BOTG teammate, Kel’s dad Rob. We had the treasure in our hands before sunrise.

The hunt utilized a variety of codes and ciphers hidden in faux historical letters, as well as a good bit of local history. There were also a handful of images that were heavily extracted from local buildings, but having created a variety of scavenger hunts and ARGs in the area over the last few years proved to be invaluable. Some of those moments (like Kel recognizing a window from the top of a specific habitat in the zoo, where we spend a lot of time) felt incredible. 

That kind of prize would get anyone excited, but especially for it being our first real hunt we were ecstatic! We did our best to remain calm and collected on the way back to the car with the box hidden in her dad’s jacket, but once we got back to the house we were absolutely giddy. Nothing like celebrating a $25K prize with a $5 bottle of champagne!

  • 5Q) And another congrats finding Fort Wayne’s Escape Room treasure of 2021! From reading the Solution writeup, it was an impressive solve! Can you share some highlights and challenges of that treasure hunt? 

To date, this might be our favorite hunt we’ve done. It was Kel’s birthday and this was what she wanted to do, so we traveled up to Fort Wayne bright and early. We had also assembled a team of friends from across the country (including John, Rich, Wei-Hwa, and Dan) to research and celebrate the birthday through Discord, with Kel and I as BOTG. We started the day by printing the 1-page map a FedEx, and then solved like mad, driving circles across the area. 

The hunt focused on the history of the area and involved some deep research, as well as some incredibly well-thought-out views at several locations. We had to scour streets, parks, high-rises, basements, and more. At one point we drove 45 minutes and hiked all over a public farm area, but just couldn’t come up with one of our final solves we needed. Dejected, we drove back toward home base, and randomly ended up spotting the information we needed on a roadside plaque just a few streets over from where we started …

This hunt was so great because it was so varied in its puzzles, and allowed each of us to draw on our unique specialties to make up for not being familiar with the area. By the time we got to the end, we were running past joggers on a park trail to find the box underneath a bridge—and afterward Fort Wayne Escape Room was even kind enough to host us for a few escape rooms. We made a detailed writeup of the solve if anyone’s interested, but fair warning, it clocks in at a whopping 45 pages!

  • 6Q) With a few found treasures now under your belt, what do you feel is the most important aspect in solving clues and finding treasures? What advice would you give others on taking down a treasure hunt? What treasures are you working on solving clues for now?

The approaches that I’d say are the most important would be to stay determined, think both literally and laterally, and get your hands dirty. Kel is incredibly focused, and an absolute master at spreadsheeting—without her, we’d be off chasing after shiny objects. I’m a sponge for information, and being able to both relate and synthesize even the most obfuscated info with an open mind is necessary when you’re looking at what can amount to nothing more than squiggles on a page. And Rob is always willing to go a step further than the both of us (for example, blindly going shoulder-deep into a tree trunk). We call Rob the closer, because he’s the master of BOTG and he’s not afraid to reach his hand into any crevice. Our strengths are spread all across our team, and we trust in each other’s abilities. If you’re looking for a great way to get started on hunting, it’s reaching beyond yourself.

We’re currently working on too many things. I’m working on the next chapter for my ARG, and we’re pretty focused on The Incredible Hunt at the moment. Will also suggested another hunt that we’re going to dig into next … but the most elusive for us has been The Tribute Hunt for the 13th Casque. We’ve been working on The Tribute hunt for a while now, and although we’re fairly confident in our theory, we believe it’s in a spot where it’s illegal to dig. But that casque sure would make one fine addition to the rest of these treasure boxes!