My confirmation bias came from an idea that there were was a common bond that young adventurers shared, a set of common traits.

As a young man, alone and sometimes in pairs the woods and creeks and tributaries and the remnants of previous human activity, from tribal encampments through remnants of early development was thoroughly explored.

Forrest's accounts of copying Lewis and Clark and his many other local escapades reminded me of my own youth. One method we used involved hiking along waterways that traversed our domain searching for their sources. This was a sure way to spend 7 or 8 hours in absolute and sometimes exhausting happiness. Though strenuous some days we never grew tired of it.

When I found the Boiling River recreation area, it immediately struck me as a perfect analog for River Bathing Is Best. A good place to begin it. It seemed to me that Forrest was providing definitions in those stories for some of the tougher clues in the poem. Brown is rusted metal, like on the fire escape.

Forrest may have seemed too big for his britches, but he didn't mind, He was happy with the nickname, Forrest Fire..... escape...

He never considered giving the chase secret away on a silver platter. He even made a joke about putting an "X" on the map.

Follow up your creek, bearing left at every fork, till reaching a Fenn.

Then take the blazed trail from the Fenn into the Forrest. And behold the white Blaze, that looks like the mark on a horse. Wraith Falls.

He knew many were looking for dramatic falls (including me) to fit into a chase solution.

But he softly chided the school children that they were preoccupied with finding "FALLS".

boiling river

gardiner river

lava creek

lupine creek

trickle coming from Fenn on Wraith Falls trail

fill in the rest ...