My take on the solution.

[indigojones]

Sad news today that the treasure has been found, I was waiting for the chance to get back out to the site from Greece where I live at present.

The solution I discovered was based on the word 'RAINBOW' it was the first word I concentrated on from the start five years ago. We had to discover the end of Forrest's rainbow in order to find the treasure. Rainbows are connected with color and only one state of the four connects with color and that is 'Colorado' since it has 'Color' in its name.

The two Omegas represent two ends, a rainbow has two ends a beginning and an end (Alpha and Omega) link. Rainbow research led me to Isaac Newton whose experiments were based on light, and to do this he used a PRISM. You need just three points on a map to form one.
Two rainbow colors are significant as they provide angles of geometry, RED is 42 degrees and BLUE is 40 degrees. In the poem there are two words 'warm' and 'cold' which introduce us to temperature. We all know that on water taps or faucets RED is HOT and BLUE is COLD. The poem says "Your effort will be worth the cold" so if we go back to the color angles of geometry we know that the BLUE angle is the COLD one, so we use the angle of 40 degrees. This is how we discover the first clue location in Verse 2, "Where warm waters halt". Where to begin to use this angle I got from the mention of NAU parking lot and later the Museum of Nature and science in Denver. Plotting these two on the map showed me that linking them together by a line it went right through 'Four Corners Monument'. Only two states in the search area are referenced by this and they are New Mexico and Colorado. But the clue is in 4 Corners. When Forrest mentioned "get back in the box" there are only two pure box states in the USA they are 'Wyoming and Colorado' and because 'Colorado' has rainbow connections you use this box.

Trying the projection of 40 degrees from this state's corners revealed only one corner to project from the Southeast one. I will leave you to try this and see if you can discover the elusive first clue which is "Begin it where warm waters halt" this will be the beginning of your Prism which you must construct by drawing on the map. I will post my continuing solution a little later. Indigo

[indigojones]

Using this 40 degree angle you should arrive at 'Colorado Springs' precisely, this is where warm waters halt, Location clue 1."And take it in the canyon down" is Location clue 2 'Canon City' notice there is a tilde mark above the first 'n' which changes the pronunciation to sound like Canyon.
Location clue 3 "Put in below the home of Brown" is 'Pueblo' as pueblo homes are brown earth. Drawing these three places together produces the Prism you need.  "Not far, but too far to walk is not a location" dispense with it.

Clue 4 location in Verse 3 applies to one location only, the general location of the treasure. "From there it's no place for the meek, The end is ever drawing nigh, There'll be no paddle up your creek, Just heavy loads and water high"
To find this general location you need to project 40 degrees "from there" which is Pueblo" Remember the BLUE angle is the cold angle of the rainbow and notice that the word 'blue' is mixed up in the middle of the word 'Pueblo'.

It would be appropriate at this stage to reveal that the state name 'COLORADO' has the means to tell you what you are looking for and also where to look. We know that the 40 degree angle is the cold, "Your effort will be worth the cold" then notice that within the word of 'COLORADO' there is the word 'COLD' which leaves the name 'ORA' (think of ORA Mae the school janitor)
The name 'ORA' means 'LIGHT' this leaves us with a solitary 'O' which is a circle, therefore 'COLORADO' gives us:
'COLD LIGHT CIRCLE'. and this is what you are to look for.  Furthermore COLORADO is the only even lettered word of the four states which means it can be broken into two groups of four thus COLO/RADO and if you anagram both these groups you will get 'LOCO ROAD'

So the word tells us what to look for and where we should look. 'COLD LIGHT CIRCLE, LOCO ROAD' can you find that location using 40 degrees of angle from Pueblo? More to follow.

[indigojones]

If you project 40 degrees "from there" which is Pueblo, you will arrive at 'Adelaide' along 'Phantom Canyon Road' and its number is 67 which is concealed within the syllable counts of lines 2 and 3 of Verse 1, a confirmation of sorts. 
Verse 4 begins "If you've been WisE and found the blaze" The blaze is the circular CISTERN here. Forrest uses the word 'CISTERN' on Page 106 of his book and on the facing page is a photo of his two young daughters who resemble 'TWINS' He connects the word cistern to 'IDEAS AND OPPORTUNITIES' which suggests we use it in order to find the treasure.
The word 'WisE' is a clue to 'West is East' and I believe it relates to the Zodiac wheel which does run anti clockwise and the Cardinal points of the compass are reversed. The suggestion of 'TWINS' relates to 'GEMINI' which appears in the Zodiac wheel as sign 3.
'GEMINI' is the only one of the 12 signs that begins and ends with letters that reduce to single numbers in the alphabet. G is 7 and I is 9 giving us 79 the atomic number for Gold. This leaves the letters 'EMIN' which give the word 'MINE', not as in Gold mine but rather the understanding that 'MINE' means relating to me or better still 'MY GOLD' but we are also looking for the bronze chest. Cleverly Forrest realised that 'BRONZE' being made of two metals, namely Copper with atomic number 29 and Tin atomic number 50, 29 + 50 = 79. So 'GEMINI' gives us 'MY GOLD MY BRONZE'.

Each Zodiac sign emanates from the very centre of the Zodiac, and if we compare this to a clockface it is the place where all the lines cross. Forrest relates to 'TIME' in his book as a clue to using the clockface also in this puzzle. I used the Zodiac teaching wheel which shows the correct alignment of the Zodiac. In it sign 1 is on the left and sign 7 is on the right. If we go clockwise from 1 to 7 you can write the word 'RAINBOW' around this arc of 180 degrees. The beginning and the end of 'RainboW' are the letters R and W. The letter 'R' is 18 in the alphabet and the letter 'W' is 23.
18 + 23 = 41 which is the real "Where warm waters halt" because if RED is HOT at 42 degrees and BLUE is COLD at 40 degrees then 41 degrees falls between the two as warm does it not? Furthermore if the letter 'R' is in sign 1 then 18 + 1 becomes 19 on the left if 'W' is 23 in sign 7 we get 23 + 7 =30 and 1930 is the year Forrest Fenn was born. Remember he has said "I am almost umbilically attached to the spot" well of course he is through BIRTH. He is a 'LEO' sign 5 a FIRE sign and his sign too emanates from the centre of the Zodiac, hence the chapter 'ME IN THE MIDDLE. I will continue this solution.

[indigojones]

I believed that the end of Forrest Fenns's rainbow was the letter 'W' because of the aberration in line 3 of Verse 1 which is asking a question, and yet there is no question mark, he uses one in line 2 of Verse 5 so why not this line. I believe he left it off because it was to be read in such a way that it did not require one, such as:

"I can keep my secret 'W' here" the here being within the Zodiac itself. I have used the top half of the Zodiac to write 'RAINBOW' around the arc, that leaves the bottom half to build the 'W' on. You begin at the middle of sign 1 Aries then draw to the middle of 'Gemini' the twins, then to the middle of the Zodiac and then to the middle of 'Leo' Forrest's sign and end on the middle of sign 7 Libra. This is the secret 'W' and is constructed going anti clockwise from 1 to 7. The sign numbers it touches on add to 16. Now go to the clock face and construct the 'W' going clockwise from 3 to 5 to the middle of the face then from there to 7 and on to 9. Notice the first two numbers give us 35 and Page 35 in the book is the chapter called 'ME IN THE MIDDLE' the final two numbers are 79 the atomic number for Gold and by manipulation Bronze also.

It is not coincidence that 'Rainbow' is 7 letters and 'Treasures' is 9 letters. 'Rainbow Treasures' could be the title to the Gold or the poem's title. In the Zodiac we have the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Water is an inverted triangle linking Pisces to Cancer and then Scorpio the water signs, this triangle inverted represents the Earth signs of Taurus, Capricorn and Virgo. From Taurus to Virgo going clockwise you can write the word 'TREASURES' this element represents the Logo of Benchmark Maps. The letters of 'Treasures' at its three points are T S S. T is 20 in the alphabet, S is 19 at its apex and S is 19 at the end. 20+ 19+ 19 = 58 the age of Forrest when he contracted Cancer. In the 'Epilogue' of the book we have the numbers referencing William Marvin Fenn's burial site as 'Row 4 Block 23. Now look at what number lies between the feet of the 'W' it is sign 4 Cancer between the feet of the 'W' which is 23. Does this not reveal why Forrest gave these details to us because they would manifest themselves in the final solution as they appear to do. More to follow on the Pirate solution.

[indigojones]

Before moving on notice that if you find the centre of the Earth triangle it falls in the centre of the Zodiac and becomes the Benchmark Maps logo entirely.

A PIRATE SOLUTION.
Forrest's mention of his dream of Captain Kidd was very odd coming after the poem the way it did. For some reason I was drawn to Forrest's missing ball of string and it never having been retrieved. It made me think of things missing within the poem and the stories. We know there is no X in the poem. In the chapter 'Important Literature' Forrest mentions throwing 'Catcher in the Rye' in the trash where it landed on top of a TIME' Magazine, but later he retrieves it.
So no X in the poem and in the stories every color of the rainbow is mentioned barring Indigo and Violet. Now let's apply this to Time and in particular the clock face. 'X' is 10 as a Roman numeral on a clock face and the initial letters for Indigo and Violet are 'IV' also a Roman numeral for 4.  Notice that 10 and 4 oppose each other on the clock, effectively halving the clock face. Nothing particularly startling in that but what if we had to quarter the clock? Did Forrest not say once "ever underestimate the power of a quarter"? In order to quarter the clock we would have to use 1 and 7.
When Forrest mentions J.D Salinger who he says he had never heard of don't you think it strange that from then on he refers to him very personally as JD. So don't you think it strange that J is 10 in the alphabet and D is 4 the numbers which oppose each other on the clock face, I do. So what of 1 and 7, well they relate to A and G and AG are the letters  for SILVER in the periodic table. The fact that Forrest does not use the surname 'Salinger' may be to suggest that 'SILVER' is the surname we are after, however J and D do not fit with this surname, but if we relate the clock face to the Zodiac you will see that where 10 was on the clock is now 12 on the Zodiac and 12 in the alphabet is 'L' and that 4 on the clock is now 6 on the Zodiac and 4 and 6 are 10 which is 'J' in the alphabet, giving us the initials L.J. Putting this all together gives us L. J. SILVER as 'LONG JOHN SILVER' of Treasure Island fame. Does the way the clock face is arranged not suggest to you an 'X' as 'X marks the spot' in old Pirate maps? Is this the 'X' on a map that Forrest related to? Created imagination wise upon the circular cistern blaze at 'Adelaide'. There is much more can be gleaned from this amazing puzzle by Forrest but I think I have said enough to have arrived at what I believe was the location of the treasure. If I am wrong then I have been wrong in a spectacular way and have created my very own puzzle lol.
Indigo.

[nkown]

man we should have all shared this stuff... because I too feel like I could be spectacularly wrong.... see my USAFA thread. So much more... that's just a fraction of the SB stuff.

[firesnake]

Your method of using a prism and angles of color is one of the best things I've seen for this hunt yet.

I agree about us all sharing and as we all know and have seen, human nature and self-preservation take over, mainly because of the value of the treasure. We might have solved it months and not years.

[indigojones]

Jun 7, 2020 15:26:49 GMT -5 firesnake said:

Your method of using a prism and angles of color is one of the best things I've seen for this hunt yet.

I agree about us all sharing and as we all know and have seen, human nature and self-preservation take over, mainly because of the value of the treasure. We might have solved it months and not years.

Thanks firesnake I appreciate your comment.

One extra point I would like to add is this: On the Colorado Google map if you draw from the small ring under Pueblo to the red pin fix for Adelaide and back to the small ring at Canon City you will end up with a long slender triangle. It is the small constellation called 'Triangulum' discovered by Ptolemy in the second century AD. It is a precise fit when overlaid on the star constellation photo itself, I would not consider that coincidence, Forrest had to have seen this within the geometry and it had to be a clue to the Zodiac. Within the list of 88 known constellations 'Triangulum' is 80. Ptolemy discovered and named all the 12 constellations of the Zodiac.
So my point is: If the treasure was buried in the centre of the cistern at Adelaide which we are meant to envisage as the Zodiac wheel overlaid upon it then it would have been found under a canopy of stars, wouldn't it. I visited the cistern in late September 2019. The cistern is full of trash and Fenn threw Time magazine in the trash. He did say "You will be surprised when you find out where it was" (Paraphrasing)