Utah couple speaks after winning 2025 Treasure Hunt

AMERICAN FORK, Utah (ABC4) — The winners of the 2025 Utah Treasure Hunt are speaking out the day after finding the treasure on the Temple Quarry Trail in Sandy.

The winners of this year’s treasure hunt are a married couple out of American Fork named Hunter and Corinne. In an interview with ABC4, Hunter explains how he was able to link the music references in the first hint to The Beatles, whose original name was “The Quarrymen.”

“It was all in the first two lines of the poem that was referencing standing stairs,” Hunter said. “And if you know anything about The Beatles’ discography, the first studio album was ‘Please Please Me,’ and it’s a picture of them standing on a staircase, all four of them.”

This was not the first treasure hunt for Hunter and Corinne. Hunter first started with the 2021 Treasure Hunt, while his wife has joined him for the last few hunts.

“I feel like, year after year, there’s a bit of familarity with the poem itself and how they lay it out,” Hunter said. “This year, we knew it was going to be a music theme, and that really helped out.”

In terms of the search, Hunter says there was only one other trail they checked south of the Temple Quarry Trail before they found the treasure. Once on the Little Cottonwood Trail, he says they hiked the trail four or five times before they found the spot of the treasure.

“The more we hiked it [the trail], the more it felt like it [the poem] lined up,” Hunter said. “These incremental things were really lining up and giving us confidence. And by the time we hiked it three times, we were like, ‘This is the trail, we just need to figure out when to get off and where to look.'”

Hunter says he and Corinne were actually searching in different areas when he spotted the stones, which was the last line of the poem. He says he could see the top of the treasure chest when he looked behind the stones.

“I was like, ‘There’s no way I actually found it!'” Hunter said. “I called David and John right away after I found it, then called my wife. It was surreal, for sure.”

As for what they will do with the $25,000, Hunter says he and Corinne are moving across the country for a graduate school program, and the money will help with the move and the program.

“It’s a big weight off of our shoulders,” Hunter said.