Begin it near Madison Junction and take it (the Madison River) down the canyon about 15 miles past the old West Yellowstone Dump, Brown’s Camp, and Baker’s hole over the bridge and turn left on Rainbow Road below the home of Brown. Stay left onto Horse Butte Road and go down to last stop at Edwards Peninsula. Note that the old bitty from the book is my blaze. She can be seen on Google Earth on Edwards Island as an exact mirror image. The image also looks like a white blaze on the face of a cow. Bessie from the book? The South Fork of the Madison comes into the lake here as cold water.
We found two old fishing boats here buried halfway in the ground. the words “don’t dig” came quickly to mind so we did not dig but I wanted to dig believe me.
Looking west to Edwards Inland.
Richard’s spring well is around here and that could be the cold we are looking for along with white aspen trees and wise owls. I really was excited to look there but all I found was that the fishing is great due to the addition of cold South Fork of the Madison water. The view alone was worth the trip.
I won’t bore you with the rest of my solve as I have moved on to a much better solve. Next time the best solve yet and the greatest people I have had the pleasure to party with at the Fennborrie in West Yellowstone. Oh and to my friend in West Virginia I sent Larry to look on your creek as I could not get there these last two trips. It has been a wonderful and hectic journey which gave me no time to go there but it has been covered and I will try to go myself in the next two weeks. I will not forget.
the boats were old 1950’s fishing boats. There seems to have been an old road and maybe some corrals out on the tip of the island. We saw plenty of wildlife but no bears. The best encounter was with four bison three of which had calves and the fourth was calving as we watched.
In my mind I could imagine how Forrest might pretend he was Capt. Kidd on Gardiner Inland swash buckling his way through the trees swimming in the lake and catching some amazing stringers of rainbow and brown. If Mr Fenn didn’t look for arrow heads and semiprecious stones here then he miss out as it is just across the way from the above picture of Hebgen Lake and across from his mom’s RV park.
My best find in all the years I have been looking was the time I shared at the meetup in West Yellowstone. Everyone showed respect for each other and almost everyone shared their ideas. The searcher were some of the most interesting people I have ever met. They came form Germany, Canada, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana and Idaho. These people where active, bright, movers and shakers. Food was good company amazing and the hole thing was up beat. Thank you guys so much! Forrest Fenn bought all that attended a drink and we all toasted Forrest and a searcher from Florida bought my table dinner. Wow, what a treasure the meetup was.
Now I have to wait for rivers to settle so I have a couple of weeks, but instead of waiting here in Boise I plan to attend the meetup in Santa Fe. They have their work cut out for them if they hope to compete with the warm welcoming experience I had in West Yellowstone and I hope for the best.
Well as always I hope you find something helpful to your search; be safe, take bear spray, and don’t pet the bison.
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