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]

I guess I am still a little cloudy on the above matter.I was looking at filing on a claim,by Leadville,
so I called the BLM.And they told me no motorized equipment.While "prospecting a new claim" They told me a sluice box,or metal detector,or possibly if small enough a mini highbanker (recirculating type).To cover all holes dug.And be sure to mark the discovery point.
Did I miss something??? Confused Stan

Hi Stan,

Actually I believe the BLM officer who answered the phone may have missed something.
Remember, they have to deal with the recreational area/visitors as well as address actual bonafide prospector and miners working the field outside the rec area but yet still in their field offices jurisdiction. Special rules (like the Ark river rec) are exclusively applied only to that designated area.....not the whole of that field offices jurisdiction/oversight acreage.

Let me see if I can break this down and explain....... Not sure which office you called but I'm guessing the Royal Gorge field office.
Here is a bit I pulled of the BLM's mining faqs page.

Casual use: No notification to the BLM is required but you must reclaim any casual use disturbance that you create. Casual use generally includes:

the collection of geo-chemical, rock, soil, or mineral specimens using hand tools
hand panning; or non-motorized sluicing

Casual use does not include:

use of mechanized earthmoving equipment
truck mounted drilling equipment
motorized vehicles in areas when designated as closed to "off road vehicles''
chemicals, or explosives
It also does not include "occupancy'' as defined in Sec. 3715.0-5 of this title or operations in areas where the cumulative effects of the activities result in more than negligible disturbance. In some field offices, suction dredging and high banking are not classified as casual use because of this reason. For information about dredging and recreational placer mining click here.

Notice Level: Generally notice level activity applies to exploration. Exploration means creating surface disturbance greater than casual use that includes sampling, drilling, or developing surface or underground workings to evaluate the type, extent, quantity, or quality of mineral values present. Exploration does not include activities where material is extracted for commercial use or sale. In the Royal Gorge Field Office, suction dredging and high banking are classified as notice level activities.

Notice level activity is generally categorized as prospecting under the State Division of Minerals and Geology.

Ok, the bolded parts we need to take note of.......
use of mechanized earthmoving equipment is as close as the "does not include" list gets to dredges and highbankers......are they earth moving equipment catagory or truck mounted? Not hardly.....by law that would state "such as bulldozers or backhoes".

Then further down we start to get the tid bit about only SOME FIELD OFFICES and the Royal Gorge office is one that does call dredging and highbanking "notice level" work. Again, the Arkansas headwater recreational area only does this apply, outside of the headwater rec area this is not the case on BLM lands.
In fact for other areas on BLM lands outside of that area, you'll see they refer to the Colorado state guidelines on dredging and you can find those here in the Colorado Prospector forums thread titled "state permits" in the laws, regulations, and guidelines section. I just updated the CDMG and the Arkansas river info in April so it's very up to date. Down load a copy for your references today everyone, it's good stuff to know! You'll be suprised at the threshold a permit to prospect is deemed required by CDMG.

Hope this helps clear things up a bit and I'd bet that there is land within the Royal Gorge field office that is not included in the "rec area" too, but most of the time they are asked these questions by folks who just want to head out for the weekend and find some color, not prospectors who wish to explore open lands.......Don't know why the BLM person on the phone would have answered that way if you had already stated that though.

CP