Fenn is a warrior, artist, author, and outdoorsman. Maybe it's a hoax and maybe it isn't. I have believed and doubted and have come to the conclusion that it is an art project that can mean whatever you want it to mean. Regardless of whether or not it is real you can learn a lot from his stories. The key I think is being kind to people and good things will happen in life. Sure there are things that may not be factual but there isn't a single person in the world without err in life. You can look at this as a half glass full or glass half empty.
People who know Fenn well say he is the kind of guy that would actually hide it for a stranger to find so maybe it is out there. If so he says the clues are straight forward and he hasn't intended to mislead people but he also says you must find where warm waters halt so maybe people aren't searching in the first step closely enough. The most obvious place where he began would be at the old fishing bridge campground on Yellowstone Lake where he and his family used to camp. Osborne Russell camped near there and maybe Fenn found things Osborne Russell left behind when he was attacked by natives near pelican creek. I have looked in that area but just walked it. If you look on aerial photos you can see where the fishing bridge campground used to be and the parks service has moved it. This is often done to protect historic areas so perhaps this is where Fenn started collecting artifacts and the parks service moved the campground to protect artifacts there. Today's trash is tomorrow's treasures so it could be right there in the sand by the lake. If not I am guessing it is to the north of Yellowstone National Park in Montana where you can legally search with a metal detector in most places on public land. The clues would be straight forward in that case and may lead up gold prize creek outside of Gardiner, Mt or even in the petrified national forest there. It's hard to know where it is but he said people over complicate it and the answer is simple so the clues in that case have to be Yellowstone lake, the Grand canyon of the Yellowstone, and on up to Gardiner. There is a petrified national forest there too. It could be he just picked up things left behind by Osborne Russell and he is intending people to pick up things he left behind at places mentioned in his books. It had to go somewhere. Gardiner is an old gold mining town and there are some gold mines in the area so if you can't find the treasure maybe you can find something else in the area. Montana means mountains in Spanish so it could be in Montana. It's no fun doubting, I've been there, so why not believe and have fun if you like this sort of stuff. He made a lot of money in the art business so people could also go that route and do what he did, writing books about stuff you like and selling those items with the press helping launch your business. The guy is incredibly smart and a lot can be learned from his life. I spent a lot of time trying to find Osborne Russell's caves and couldn't locate either of them, maybe he made those stories up or maybe the terrain changed, or maybe the maps are all wrong because even cartographers at the time argued about what rivers they were on so maybe I wasn't looking in the right area. I also imagined maybe Russell's caves were near the Lewis falls, on the east side of the headwaters below the falls where there is an F-like swamp water with all kinds of frogs. There could be a cave in the woods there that nobody has found yet. I searched for caves in that region since it kind of lines up with Osborne Russell's book but searched on the other side of the river where it looked like a cave was. Maybe he just bought artifacts from Indian reservations and from people who obtained them and then wrote stories to sell them and didn't actually dig up many himself. Nobody knows for sure but him. There are all kinds of undiscovered artifacts out there, used to be 100 million or so natives in the USA at one point so you can find stuff all over the place if you like that sort of stuff. I have even found ruins listed on old maps in national forest areas outside of West Yellowstone that are no longer on current maps. National monuments are created to protect artifacts and I could easily find them at national monuments in the search area but wouldn't advise it since the federal penalties are unreasonably strict from what I have read. I sure wish the laws would change to allow people to dig up artifacts on public lands because that would be a great hobby, they could preserve some places and allow hobby excavating in others. It's unfortunate that so many public areas are becoming off limits for the public for various reasons.
I learned a lot about history in the area when I searched and saw a lot of neat stuff so there is no harm in believing. Just be safe and smart and ideally legal. I was followed around a lot even though I was obeying the law which was frustrating because I really think people should be allowed to search for this without being bugged by the feds.