Mineral and Gem mining and prospecting, What is the first step Options

[zziipp]

I am having trouble getting a straight answer from the officials in Colorado. Can someone please tell me how to obtain permits or stake a claim on Mt. Antero. What is my first step

[Rocket]

The great members of CP can walk you through actually filing the claim and the responsibilities that go with it. Before you can do that, you will need to do some research to know both active claims in the area of interest (from the BLM) and land status (ownership, from the county assessor's office).

The BLM website: http://www.blm.gov/lr2000/ Read the instructions, change your internet settings (directions on their website) if needed, then click on Run Report. Click on Pub MC Geo Report. The easiest/fastest method is run a report for the entire county. Otherwise the info you enter has to be extremely accurate and can be exasperating. Save it as a PDF to save yourself a ream of paper if there are a lot of claims in the area. To get the exact location of any claim you will need to visit the BLM office in Lakewood and provide the CMC number to get the claimant's map with detail of location markers.

The Chaffe County Assessors records:index - qPublic qpublic.net/co/chaffee/.

There is a really nice feature on this website that lets you view the parcels in Google Earth so you can see their location outline on the mountain. These are private property parcels.

From the USGS website www.usgs/gov you can download Topo maps in PDF for free. I made my own enlarged maps from these (lots of rubber cement and clear duck tape on the back) so I could make notes on them, highlight parcels not open to prospecting, and who owns the roads for access to your claim. Remember to check PLSS on your topo Map Frame to get the Section Township and Range printed on the map. Decide how many terrain features you want so your map isn't too messy. I like going with just shaded relief. Once you get the maps from the BLM you can draw them on your personal topo.

Google Earth is the only location I've found that offers Latitude and Longitude with the mouse movement - maybe someone else has found something better. You can prospect by computer using Google Earth and coordinate it with the claim map details from the BLM files.

Seems it's more about where NOT to prospect, and the rest of the mountain is yours to explore.

What did I leave out, Colorado Prospectors?

Rocket