THE HINTS- VITAL TO SUCCESS

[fundamental design]

I wanted to copy and paste below a little discussion that is interesting on the Why Warm Waters thread...

Any concern about Denver or Arizona (in relation to this treasure hunt)
is a waste of time (rabbit hole) for anyone trying to solve the poem;
both "ogries" know this.

I have to disagree Andrew. This is Forrest's book, and he would never allow that line about the Denver Museum to be put in the foreword, unless it had merit.

Doug Preston either was told by Forrest to include that line, or Doug himself knows what the final 9th clue is. And may I say, knowing the 9th clue...is not knowing where the treasure is. For example, clues lead you down in brown canyon, then up a small creek, where there is a hollowed out stump to the south of a blaze marker on the edge of a cliff ledge. The ninth clue for example, is brave and in the wood.

Now, if Doug knew it was in a hollowed out stump and wrote in the foreword that it the final clue was in the parking lot of Denver Museum, that does not mean he knows the location of the chest... just what the final clue is. You go look at the parking lot and scan around to find a hollowed out stump by the side of the building(as a hypothetical example.)

My guess is back when he made the comment of the parking lot of North Arizona University, if you googled that... you'd get a shot of what the ninth clue is. Then so many years later... a google search will not show that anymore. So they needed to find an alternate location that showed the 9th clue in present time.

Of course that's just all theory until I can prove it.

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Iron Will, I never said the Denver/Arizona thing didn't have merit. But
at best, it's only a hint, and can only help to confirm that one has
correctly solved a clue (then may proceed to work on the next clue).

Here's a hypothetical example: If one of the clues is Lake Tahoe,
there might be a hint that mentions a piece of emerald that was
carved into the shape of a wolf baying at the moon. (Get it? Emerald
Bay is at one end of the lake.) But you'd never think of Emerald Bay
unless you already suspected that Lake Tahoe was the solution to the
clue.

Only when the poem is sufficiently well-solved ALREADY, will a hint --
such as what Doug Preston said about any parking spot(s) -- help to confirm one or more clues.

If you or anyone pursues the D/A thing, it really, really, genuinely is a
waste of time. Solve the poem, then you will see DOZENS of hints in
Forrest's writings. But the hints WON'T help you solve ANY clue,
except, perhaps, by indicating that "you have gotten some clue(s)
correctly solved; now it's time to proceed with solving the subsequent
one(s).

Hints, as far as I'm concerned, are mostly just little teases from FF. He
doesn't provide them to be mean to anyone. It's more like he is trying to encourage someone by showing them that they are on the right path.

As much as I don't want you (or anyone else) to find the hidey place
before I do, I do want to help you (and others) enjoy the hunt, and
make (some) progress in solving the poem . . . even if it takes several
BOTG search trips. I've done 3 of these so far, and am financially very
poor. But it's been stimulating and fun, adding purpose to my life. I
plan to "stay at it" until I know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the
TC has been found by someone other than Forrest Fenn.

I don’t agree with what you are saying that only when the poem is sufficiently well-solved ALREADY, will a hint help to confirm one or more clues. It could happen that way but I don’t think one can rule out that a hint or hints can not be ascertained before figuring out the clue associated with the hint(s).

An example would be finding something in ttotc that trips up in your mind. I’ve mentioned before f’s words in the book that say if Robert Redford wrote a book that he could do it better than...and many searchers know that Robert Redford actually wrote a book, the title of the book, the locations travelled in that book and that some of those locations are in the Rocky Mountains.

If a searcher figures out another hint that also has an explorer going to multiple locations in the Rocky Mountains, then if those places cross (put an X on a map) in only one location that’s possibly one way hints can be figured out before figuring out the corresponding clue first.