Justin Posey Map Eliminations! Justin eliminates two states: Colorado and Oregon – from his search area at Seekers Summit. This was intentional.

However, it seems he also eliminated other areas. Those south of Santa Fe, New Mexico by 75 miles. Here’s how. (Join discussions on the MW Discord!)

In the Q/A with Justin on March 28, 2026 – Justin was asked the following question:

  • Q)Is the location where you hid your treasure within 75 miles of a place where you searched for the Forrest Fen chest?
  • A)I searched a lot of places, guys. Uh, so yeah, I mean it’s true to say that at some point I had searched for the Fenn treasure within that 75 mile radius. Yeah.

He later wanted to clarify (most likely because he realized he unintentionally eliminated a larger swath of land than he wanted)

  • Uh, and I also want to make sure that people understand the answer that I gave in the prior question because when I first heard about the Fenn treasure, I had a question for Forest in terms of he said it was hidden in the Rocky Mountains. And my question was, is it any Rocky Mountain or is it the official Rocky Mountains? And so that led me down a whole other rabbit hole and thinking that – my gosh, it might not actually be in the Rocky Mountains. Uh so I guess what I’m saying is I don’t want someone to get the impression that necessarily I’ve, you know, eliminated a bunch of states or something like that. So yeah.

This is all good – however Forrest’s treasure was always known to be ‘Somewhere in the mountains North of Santa Fe’.   

Justin’s a smart guy – while debate may still arise whether it’s the Rocky Mountains or any mountains with rocks – they still have to be north of Santa Fe – so anything south can be definitely eliminated with his answer.   That includes locations mentioned in the book – Tucson AZ, and Cloudcroft NM, for examples.

Initially, Forrest Fenn’s search area did include a wider area than the map shown below. It was questioned what did ‘in the mountains north of Santa Fe, NM include exactly. Did they even go beyond NM? Forrest answered this by saying the Rocky Mountains, which included states like Idaho and Utah.

And in 2013 the area for where the FF treasure was hidden consisted of only 4 states in the Rocky Mountains: New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

thrill of the chase treasure hunt map
Poem and Treasure Map

Justin said he searched areas beyond the map above – however, overall, the majority of his searchers were in the 4 search states of Forrest Fenn – and definitely NORTH of Santa Fe, NM.

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