Member areas and equipment allowed Options

[stan in colo]

Hi all,I have a few questions regarding membership.
1. If I am a member,can I take a friend to one of your prospecting sites,or does the friend have to be a member also.And what about family?
2. Do you allow powered equipment on your sites.or just sluicing.
3.Distance is a factor in my prospecting,in generality (I dont want an exact location,)can you give
an approximate location,of the member sites. It is at least a 3 hour drive to get to Fairplay.
any further would require,for me,a 2 day trip.Especially to get any good digs in.
I have been up to Fairplay,and have had some good digs and some bad ones as well.Just thinking
of joining your club,probably will in very near future...thanks all Stan

[CP]

Hi Stan and you are very welcome.
The one thing the Colorado Prospector club does not have is any location claims held for members use, we just won't do that.
However, we will show club members who would like to know, how to duplicate and reuse not only the researched information we have compiled, but also how to compile your own on any specific spot you'd like to research on FS or BLM lands....... That could be any of the 19 states where we can still file mining claims in. In Colorado alone there are millions of acres that do not have mining claims on them at this time..........what's there? is it a viable deposit? Great questions and we all as citizens have the right to explore and develop those deposits.

Motorized equipment is fine on FS and BLM lands, there is no law saying you can not use those. As a matter of fact the FS manual even states that "any hand carried prospecting equipment needs no special authorization".
Not that the FS can regulate mining anyway, (they can not), but they can and do regulate recreational surface uses.

I think the confusion comes from the over exposure the Arkansas headwater recreational area gets, or clubs own restrictions on club claims.
The Arkansas river headwater specially designated area (by congress) has been withdrawn and does have many extra regulations in place like no motors without permits and only in specific places. Those extra regulations are only for that specific area on and adjacent to the river though and do not apply to FS or BLM lands outside of the recreational headwater area's actual withdrawls.

To add to the confusion, there are also claimants filing all over the area (many even over filing each other) and some aren't even marked/staked in the field when filed but yet come up listed for sale within 6 months. Not sure how a claim is filed and listed for sale without markers being placed on site? But then again, claim owners who don't mark their claims for 2 years after filing wonder how they got over filed on too.

So you have multiple uses in a recreational area that is withdrawn from claiming, along with claiming going on anyway while the recreational regulations both prospecting related and other uses are all thrown in a soup and this is what we get out of it.
That's also why we have never concentrated on this area for research, there are too many other places we can all prospect out there.

Pick your spot everyone, let's dig in! It's YOUR right!

CP