u/Adorable-Buffalo-169

To my fellow searchers,

I’ve been searching for the BTME treasure since April 2025, after being introduced to the hunt shortly after the release of G&G.

In the past 15 months, I’ve spent countless hours toying with the poem at home, and have gone BOTG three separate times. As an east coast resident, this has meant three separate roundtrip flights out west to search my location of interest.

It’s been a helluva ride trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together, and I’ve learned a lot about myself along the way of doing so. I’ve also gained a deep respect and gratitude for this community, without whom this experience wouldn’t be nearly as worthwhile or impactful.

In recognition of that respect, I’m sharing with you, my fellow searchers, the bulk of my solve.

I offer my findings in hopes that it might bolster other likeminded searchers who are toying with similar trains of thought. Of course, like any theory, this is purely my assumption. (And you know what they say about assuming.) Bearing that in mind, I submit for your consideration what I understand are purely my beliefs for the solution to poem.

As far as I can tell, the solution to the poem acts as a lock and key. I believe I’ve come far enough in the solving the poem to have identified these two elements.

The Lock. This is the physical or tangible element of the hunt, which you more or less solve by going BOTG. This is the “map waiting to be drawn”. Specifically, this is a 30-60-90 degree triangle formed by following a string of clues posed by Stanzas 3 and 4 (once you decode Stanza 2 to take you to the general area where the three marker points of the triangle reside).

The Key. This is the conceptual element of the hunt which you can solve from home. This is a hidden message within the text of the poem itself, revealed to those who read the words “just right”— as posed in Stanza 1 — something which I’ve privately dubbed “The Goldilock’s Riddle”. The method for reading the poem “just right” is an almost mathematical formula for reading the poem, involving a stopwatch, beats per minute, a compass, and other key elements. The specifics of this method I’ll keep to myself, lest I ruin the fun of solving it for anyone else. But mentions of Tucker in the book should provide sufficient guidance. This hidden message, I believe, is: “the Hole of three, reach of steady”.

Here though, at Stanza 5, I find myself more than a bit stumped. Once the searcher has identified both the Lock and Key, then what? My assumption is that the final directive will take the searcher quite literally “Beyond the Map’s Edge”, meaning beyond the edge of the triangular “map” that the searcher has drawn by way of solving the poem.

It’s also my assumption that if someone else should get as far as I have, then that person will be in a similar predicament of which direction to go in from here. Should someone find themselves there, please let me know. Perhaps I could save you some time.

Of course, whether this all amounts to trash or treasure, remains to be seen. If the later, then let this Reddit post stand as a stake in the ground to say that “I was there.”

After my third (and final) BOTG last month, I visited a specific area within my location of interest which, I had thought, lined up all my clues perfectly. Key inserted into Lock. Riddle and puzzle combined.

I had decided that the final directive was to stand at the centroid of the triangle (“the Hole of three”) and turn to face a bearing of 60 degrees (“reach of steady”) — a bearing which has prominence in the aforementioned method of decoding The Goldilock’s Riddle.

Coincidentally, from this vantage point, the searcher faces a visible “Hole”, a storm drainage system passing underneath a nearby trail. Once “past the Hole” (on the far end of this drain), I deduced, the searcher would then “cast your pole”, which I theorized as hiking 42 standard pole lengths (or 693 feet). All this together I had convinced myself was the answer to “What you seek, you already know.” A revisitation of earlier lines of the poem but now with newfound wisdom.

So that’s just what I did. Past the Hole I cast my pole.

Several hundred feet off the trail my search took me into lush back-country, “in a northeasterly direction”. A perfect place to get lost.

Here, I turned around again and again, traversing my “kitchen-sized target area” as I tried to identify any potential hints of the treasure. It was an experience definitely outside of my comfort zone, especially given recently reported animal attacks in the area.

But there were no hints. No checkpoint. No trinkets.

Somewhere in there I had to do what countless other searchers have no doubt had to do during their many unsuccessful search attempts: I had to sit down and face reality. I had to tell myself that my solution was not correct, and that I had to turn back. Back to the trail. Back to the car. Back to the airport, and, ultimately, back home to the east coast.

Since then I’ve been progressively putting the hunt out of sight and mind. Realistically it’s not financially practical for me to entertain this solution any further. I’ve also eaten enough humble pie to keep myself full for a very long time.

It’s been difficult to depart from this hunt, almost like breaking up a relationship. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but one that’s sweetened a bit by reminding myself of what this hunt has been about from the start: invoking a sense of play, curiosity, and childlike wonder. To that end, I’ve found something more precious than gold. Thanks to this hunt, I’ve connected with a part of myself that is genuine, imaginative, and pure. Most of all, I found a wonder-filled experience which, without the catalyst of this hunt, may have laid dormant forever.

Thank you Justin for helping me unearth that.

To my fellow hunters, may your search be fruitful in experience, and may you never loose sight of the treasure hunt that is your own life.

Deep bows,

🦬

Part of my solve features this storm drain, which I'm weighing could be considered "the Hole". Would you agree or have I gone completely insane?

I figure the odds are either I'm crazy and I'm wrong, or crazy and I'm right.

🦬