Chelsea Gotta of Pella, Iowa, poses with the trunk of cash she discovered off Mueller Park Path within the mountains east of Bountiful on Sunday, July 16, 2023. Gotta has been in Utah a number of instances over the previous weeks to seek for the hidden treasure. Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
The contents of a small trunk that Chelsea Gotta of Pella, Iowa, discovered off Mueller Park Path within the mountains east of Bountiful on Sunday, July 16, 2023. Gotta has been in Utah a number of instances over the previous weeks to seek for the hidden treasure. Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
Chelsea Gotta of Pella, Iowa, walks again to her automotive after posing with the trunk of cash she discovered off Mueller Park Path within the mountains east of Bountiful on Sunday, July 16, 2023. Gotta has been in Utah a number of instances over the previous weeks to seek for the hidden treasure. Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
Fifty-one days. That’s how lengthy it took for Chelsea Gotta of Pella, Iowa, to search out the treasure chest containing $25,000 that two Utahns hid within the state’s nice outside for the fourth yr in a row.
The chest was masked beneath heaps of pine cone mud on the base of a tree off Mueller Park Path in Bountiful. Gotta virtually gave up earlier than she discovered it. Within the midst of her third journey to Utah for the hunt, she knew she wanted to start out her 16-hour drive again house quickly to make work on Tuesday.
“My time was working out. I used to be getting annoyed, I used to be crying,” she stated. “I’m like ‘I’ve wasted all this time. That is ridiculous. What am I doing?’”
Moments away from heading house, Gotta determined to look one final time. She stood up, brushed across the tree she was sitting at and felt the highest of the chest. Gotta, lined head to toe in filth, instantly fell over and cried. She is the primary out-of-state winner.
“Everyone at work thinks I’m loopy, all people at house thinks I’m loopy,” Gotta stated. “I simply began texting folks from work, ‘I informed you.’”
The contents of a small trunk that Chelsea Gotta of Pella, Iowa, discovered off Mueller Park Path within the mountains east of Bountiful on Sunday, July 16, 2023. Gotta has been in Utah a number of instances over the previous weeks to seek for the hidden treasure.
Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
The journey to $25,000 started one morning when Gotta was laying in mattress and noticed one thing in regards to the treasure hunt on Fb.
“It crossed my thoughts to return out right here, however I used to be like, ‘Eh, it’s too far-off.’”
Thankfully for her, that quickly modified. Gotta started following the hunt’s masterminds John Maxim and David Cline on social media and noticed different folks put up their very own makes an attempt at discovering the treasure. She thought to herself, “It might probably’t be that arduous,” and commenced researching.
Gotta discovered most of Maxim and Cline’s clues again house, however knew she was particularly shut after zooming out on Google Maps and seeing that Mueller Park Path kinds a church steeple the wrong way up from afar, a reference to a line within the treasure hunt poem that learn “What factors towards Heaven however is the wrong way up.” Gotta saved getting nearer and nearer till she settled on a clearing about 60 ft off the shoulder of the path. It took a short while, however she discovered the X that marked the spot.
Now, she plans to throw her personal treasure hunt with the cash.
“After the primary time I used to be out right here, I did a small treasure hunt within the city I stay in and folks went loopy over it, so I’ll most likely throw many of the cash (towards that) and get children exterior once more the remainder of the summer season,” she stated.
However earlier than she leaves Utah, Gotta is looking for the household of three little boys who scoured Ensign Peak together with her throughout an earlier search. The children wished simply $200 from the chest. Gotta is ensuring they get it.
“It’s simply in my coronary heart to do it.”
A record-breaking hunt
The Fourth Annual Treasure Hunt was the longest within the occasion’s historical past, resulting in a number of lengthy nights for fortune seekers.
“I acquired about two and a half hours of sleep the opposite evening,” one treasure hunter informed the Deseret Information.
After final yr’s search resulted in simply eight days, Maxim and Cline knew they wanted to step up their sport. They started work on the 12-line poem round Valentine’s Day, and it took them almost three months to finish, in line with Cline.
“Each phrase in there was debated and thought out,” he stated. “We did our homework up entrance, and it’s paying off.”
Clues have been launched each Friday and adventurers have been urged to observe “Again to the Future”and brush up on their Utah historical past. Maxim and Cline stated they are going to launch a breakdown of how the poem was meant to be solved shortly.
However though the hunt is now over, the 2 organizers don't have any plans to cease anytime quickly. A day earlier than the treasure was discovered, the search briefly subsided for just a few hours as dozens of treasure hunters got here collectively in downtown Salt Lake Metropolis to flip a home. Folks labored on the roof, knocked down partitions and did all the pieces in between to lift cash for future treasure hunts, as a result of Maxim and Cline don’t need to ever make individuals pay to play.
“It’s not an actual treasure hunt if you need to pay for it,” Maxim stated. “You must have the ability to get up in the future and go discover it.”
The scene was a testomony to how a lot the Utah treasure hunts have grown and, extra importantly, introduced folks collectively within the three years because the first treasure hunt was staged in the course of the 2020 pandemic. That chest contained simply $5,000 and was present in 4 days.
Oh, how issues have modified.
Maxim and Cline have turn into native — and perhaps even nationwide — celebrities. Cline was just lately stopped by just a few folks at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport in New York Metropolis, and media retailers all around the nation starting from The New York Submit to the Miami Herald have lined the story.
Cline and Maxim now have sponsors and a public relations specialist. The primary hunt, the place individuals relied on a poem to search out the chest, has morphed into varied different kinds. Cline and Maxim launched a QR code-based hunt in 2021 and junior treasure hunts for youths. On account of well-liked demand, they’ve even began organizing treasure journeys all around the world. Subsequent up, Zion Nationwide Park in August and Costa Rica in January.
Chelsea Gotta of Pella, Iowa, walks again to her automotive after posing with the trunk of cash she discovered off Mueller Park Path within the mountains east of Bountiful on Sunday, July 16, 2023. Gotta has been in Utah a number of instances over the previous weeks to seek for the hidden treasure.
Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
The way it all started
Cline had the preliminary concept for a treasure hunt whereas in Vietnam and commenced brainstorming potential companions he thought is likely to be loopy sufficient to get on board. He settled on his actual property buddy, John Maxim, to whom Cline offered a home the primary time they met. Maxim’s childhood love for “Indiana Jones” and “The Goonies” had by no means pale, and he stated sure with out hesitation.
“‘That’s the best concept I’ve ever heard,’ I feel have been my precise phrases,” he stated.
And so there they have been hiding a chest at Rocky Mouth Path, the place Cline used to take his Friday evening dates, for the First Annual Treasure Hunt.
“We joked that in just a few months we’d have to return again and get it ourselves as a result of nobody would care,” Cline stated.
They have been unsuitable. Cameron Brunt, the inaugural winner, informed Maxim and Cline that the complete space was flooded with treasure hunters. No parking spots have been in sight. And for Brunt, who was laid off in the course of the pandemic, the $5,000 allowed him to acquire his actual property license, in line with ABC4.
Nevertheless, the impression of Maxim and Cline’s treasure hunts goes past the cash. It’s as a lot in regards to the journey as the ultimate consequence. Numerous individuals have messaged Maxim on Instagram to specific their gratitude, and he usually posts them on his tales.
That included somebody who overcame despair via leaving the home and making buddies on the hunt, and one other who give up his job and began a enterprise after his shallowness rose by fixing Maxim and Cline’s clues. Tales like these are what Maxim calls “the actual treasure.”
Lisa Stanworth and her 5 children have performed each junior treasure hunt and are available near successful a number of instances. However for her, household bonding time is extra vital.
“I might completely like to get the treasure, however we’ve made so many reminiscences.”
Eric Jensen, nicknamed “Dr. Know” due to his encyclopedic data of previous treasure hunts, is one other staple of the treasure looking group.
“He remembers greater than I do about (the hunts),” Cline stated. “Anytime I've any questions on any element, I'm going again, I’m like ‘Hey what was the protected mixture in 2020 with this one factor,’ and he’s acquired it.”
Along with his sister, Jensen “will get his ‘Indiana Jones’ repair” by trying to find treasure. Why does he do it? As a result of it’s enjoyable, easy as that.
Associates Abby Sondreal and Chrissy Dixon introduced the hunt to the office, the place they initially met, and their co-workers usually ask them about their present theories. And the hunt welcomes newcomers too. This was Amy Abel’s first yr concerned within the occasion. She likes how practical it's.
“I admire the obscure clues,” she stated. “The explanation why is in the event you look again on the outdated treasure hunter days, like Oak Island, they didn’t have somebody say, ‘Oh, go to Second and Essential and the treasure goes to be there.’ It’s virtually like you need to determine what it means. It's a must to take a look at a map, and you need to resolve that drawback as a way to get that treasure.”
Abel’s quest has additionally helped her be taught the historical past of her house state and uncover new locations she by no means knew existed.
“It’s made me admire the state that I stay in.”
When Maxim and Cline put $5,000 of their very own cash in that treasure chest three years in the past, they by no means knew what number of lives they’d contact. And to them, that's priceless.