FARMINGTON—In record time, Kaysville resident Bobby Smalley solved the Utah Treasure Hunt 2026 when he found the $25,000 prize hidden in a box in the mountains above Farmington. Smalley solved the puzzle just three weeks into the contest. Real estate entrepreneurs and hunt organizers David Cline and John Maxim said typically they expect it to be closer to six.

It’s the seventh annual Utah Treasure Hunt that the pair created for people to use their skills to search for a hidden treasure. Treasure hunters are given a poem containing clues as to where it is located then off they go.

This is Smalley’s first year to make the attempt. “Actually my daughter and her husband have mentioned it to me a couple of times and we kind of tinkered with some of the clues and some of the poems,” he said. “I haven’t actually gone out and tried to find them before. So this was my first time digging into it.”

Smalley said he signed up for the Treasure Hunt’s email. “I was excited to get the email. I started to look at it (poem) and it’s interesting because really the very first thought that came to my mind was up above Farmington but I found out I was wrong. I was way off. When I got up there I realized the clues I thought I was associating with were wrong.”

The landmarks were in different places, said Smalley. “After that I was like, well there’s no way it’s in Farmington. So I kind of started over from that point. But then last Friday night (June 12) I was contemplating some things and about 11:30 at night started digging into it again and things kind of started lining up so I went after it again. I actually pulled out an old map of Farmington trails that I had and I started doing a little research on some of the points of interest on there and some of them I knew but not many of them I didn’t.”’

Smalley said he’s been hiking up there a lot. “There was one called Patsy’s Mine and the way that story unfolded really is what got me going. I really figured that it filled two pieces of the puzzle which was the stranger as well as the man who kneels to stone or something like that.”

Right above Patsy’s Mine is Flag Rock which could easily be the place where the wind is never alone, because the flag is up there all the time, he said. “When those three things kind of fell into place I felt like maybe I had something and so that’s when I got pretty excited.”

Smalley said he was ready to go then in the middle of the night. “But my wife made me go to bed. It was more the excitement of the hunt. I was just excited to go see if I was right.”

Flag Rock was maybe a little more than the halfway point, he said. “But that was a very key clue. Then beyond there I went east up the mountain on the Centennial Trail. Another indicator that Farmington might have been the spot is that it talked about the Phoenix and standing there at Flag Rock you can clearly see Farmington High School and their mascot is the Phoenix.”

So that fell into place, said Smalley. “Then it said to go into the trees where the trail is hard or becomes hard or something like that. The clue on Friday mentioned that it didn’t mean it was a hard surface, it was a strenuous hike, which fits the bill there.”

The next clue was about Hermione's Galleons, he said. “I guess that’s from one of the books. There’s a lot of trails that are marked with the bottom of an aluminum can. That’s done quite often where they cut the bottom of an aluminum can off and then they hammer it to the trees.”

Smalley said when he went up Centennial Trail there was a fork in the road. “One of them had cans on both sides. The trail that continued up the trail did not have that. So going on a hunch I was hoping that would be the galleons and I followed that.”

The rock hole where the treasure box was found. Courtesy photo

 The next clue was to find the dragon that was guarding the treasure, he said. “So I went on that trail which was the 03 Fire Trail and so it went from Centennial Trail to the 03 Fire Trail and I followed that quite a ways.”

There were several places that looked like they could be called a dragon, said Smalley. “There were several places where I stopped and looked at it pretty strenuously. I even got frustrated and went all the way back to Centennial Trail and started going east again.”

After doing that for a little bit, Smalley said he just had this feeling that it just wasn't right. “I thought it just had to be back on that other trail so I just kept following it. Every time I saw a rock that made sense I would stop and look but there was a point where there was a tall rock just off the west side of the trail and it lined up perfectly with the Colossus Fire Dragon at Lagoon.”

Then it lined up perfectly with the peak at Antelope Island which was in the very first clue, he said. “Antelope Island was part of the whole thing. Those three things lining up really made me kind of excited. But I didn’t find it right there. I found it further down the trail but from my line of sight, the Colossus was almost exactly below me.”

From that point it was just luck, said Smalley. “I just happened to look in the right place.”

Smalley said he doesn’t know yet what he’s going to do with the money. “There are some people in my life that could use some help and so I plan to do that but I would also very much like to try to invest some of it and then maybe take a modest vacation with the family.”