Art collector says someone finished treasure hunt

After 10 years, a chase for hidden treasure in the Rocky Mountains has come to an end.

Forrest Fenn, a New Mexico art collector who created the treasure hunt, announced recently that someone had found the bronze chest that he had buried in the mountains, filled with gold nuggets, coins, sapphires, diamonds, pre-Columbian artifacts and other items. He has estimated the hoard is worth $2 million.

“It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago,” Fenn, 89, said on his website. He did not elaborate on the exact location.

“I do not know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot,” said Fenn, who lives in Santa Fe.

A man who did not want to be named found the chest, Fenn told a local newspaper, The Santa Fe New Mexican. Fenn said that the chest’s discovery was confirmed through a photograph the man had sent him. He had previously told the newspaper that the bronze chest alone weighed 20 pounds, and its contents another 22.

He announced the quest to the world in a self-published 2010 memoir, “The Thrill of the Chase,” and provided clues to the location in 24 cryptic verses of a poem.

Though the person who found the chest might remain anonymous, even to Fenn, the discovery might still come with some strings attached. Anyone who finds and keeps property that has been lost or abandoned, such as a treasure trove, will also find it “taxable to you at its fair market value in the first year it’s your undisputed possession,” according to the IRS.