About Cloaked Treasure LLC

The idea of searching for treasure is innate to the human experience. The excitement of riches and the adventures that go along with those riches permeate literature, film, and reality. Countless movies, books, and documentaries on the subject continue to be some of the most popular additions to our culture. Whether it is Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 book Treasure Island or the 1980’s hit movies Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Goonies, we have had treasure hunting as a part of our culture for decades, if not centuries.

In 2010, Forrest Fenn published his Thrill of the Chase memoire, which promised to reveal approximately two million dollars of treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Fenn’s goal was to leave a legacy that inspired people to get outside and explore the world.

I heard about the Forrest Fenn treasure from a radio interview he did some years after publishing his memoire. As someone who was an avid backpacker and had explored some remote areas of the western United States, I was intrigued by the idea of hundreds of thousands of people joining this hunt. But I also witnessed years pass with no appreciable progress.

That inspired me to think about how I would do things differently if I had two million dollars to leave in the mountains. My conclusion was that people craved the story that accompanied the quest as much as the reward. Explorers can follow a single poem through a succession of landmarks to a final prize. But that isn’t quite the same as Indiana Jones finding an amulet, attaching it to a rod of a specific length, locating a map room, and watching the focused sunlight point to the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.

We started to build the idea of a set of successive clues and riddles hidden across the country in 2016. The first clues were hidden in 2018 and the completed outline of the entire quest was finalized in 2019. However, we had no means of funding a prize that would garner enough interest to warrant following the trail of breadcrumbs across nine or ten states as originally planned.

In 2020, Covid hit the world, which led to people’s blossoming interest in finding creative ways to connect outdoors. Numerous treasure hunts, such as Jonnystreasurequest.com, Utahtreasurehunt.com, and others were spawned.

Over a few backpacking trips, several of us debated the idea of the original plan with friends, family, respected colleagues, and even a few pets. While the dogs seemed interested, most everyone else believed that a nation wide treasure hunt was too ambitious to create and fund.

However, a few of us were still intrigued enough by the idea to continue pursuing it. What grew out of those discussions was the creation of Cloaked Treasure LLC.

Our initial goal was less ambitious than a national hunt. We wanted to create a treasure hunt consisting of a sequence of clues and prizes in a smaller geographic location that lead to a grand prize.

Our first hunt was made up of ten prizes to be earned across our home state of Michigan (i.e. the Mitten). Each prize could be found by solving puzzles and using deductive reasoning. Some clues were provided electronically over email, social media or this website, while others are embedded directly into the earlier prizes.

The 2025 hunt challenged intellects and allowed seekers to experience and explore some of the great places in Michigan. And while we paid out more than we brought in, we want to continue to grow the game and community. Who knows, eventually we may have enough to put two million dollars somewhere in the mountains and send you off on a journey worthy of your own movie.

We sincerely hope you enjoy the journey and wish you the best of luck in our hunts.