Can a claim owner use a cabin that is on his claim

[et1955]

What is the rights of a claim owner to use a cabin on his claim, it is not a historical building, also how do you deal with old vehicles on the claim, for more info the cabin has a steel roof. Thanks for your consideration on this.

 

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[Hefty1]

Or burn old cabins down. I worked for the forest circus in an earlier life. And spent some time lighting old cabins on fire in the Trinity Alps.


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What in the hell was the reason for it?

 

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[goldenIrishman]

What else hefty? PUBLIC SAFETY!!!! I don't know about you guys, but I'm sick and tired of being told by the government what is and isn't safe for me.

 

[azblackbird]

What else hefty? PUBLIC SAFETY!!!! I don't know about you guys, but I'm sick and tired of being told by the government what is and isn't safe for me.

Unfortunately there are those in society that need "safety labels" and babysitting. As Forest Gump once said... "stupid is as stupid does". I can't even begin to count how many so-called historical landmarks have been torched, bulldozed, or reclamated by the FS or BLM just in my own backyard for "safety" reasons. Just recently they bulldozed and graded an entire mill site here in the Bradshaws that was a well known stopping point for those returning from Crown King. Buildings, leach pits, everything, was dozed and graded. Unless you knew what was there before, there is no trace of what once was. Seems anytime some nut job outdoor newbie with his newly acquired UTV/ATV pulls a bonehead move that kills himself, his friends, or his family, the FS or BLM have to put in gates, barriers, fences, or tear down what was the perceived cause of said accident(s) to mitigate their liability. That's just the way the life is... not much we can do about it.

 

[Plumbata]

Interesting discussion!

I have some questions related to building on one's mineral claims, if y'all don't mind. I had read that it is (or was) permissible to utilize non-mineral surface resources like trees and common stone in the construction of buildings relevant to the mining activities on the claim. So couldn't you build a miner's cabin to sleep in and store tools, etc.? To extend further, could one argue that utilizing some of the surface land to maintain a garden would be relevant to mining activities, seeing how the miner needs to eat?

And if there were preexisting structures on one's claim that were originally used to streamline the pursuit of the claimed minerals, why couldn't you fix it up and continue to use it as property specific to mining activities, off-limits to hikers or others passing through the land?

Is there anywhere I can read about these specifics? I'm looking to stake a claim or two this spring (not for metals, but special stone) and my quarrying activities would be made much easier if I could slap together some simple structures.

 

[azblackbird]

Is there anywhere I can read about these specifics? I'm looking to stake a claim or two this spring (not for metals, but special stone) and my quarrying activities would be made much easier if I could slap together some simple structures.

Contrary to what many here believe... most mining related FS and BLM personnel don't bite. I'd say that more than 95% of them are willing to help you out as much as possible with any questions you may have regarding what you can and can't do on your claim. All it takes is a simple phone call.

 

[Hefty1]

Originally Posted by Maxlfty
Or burn old cabins down. I worked for the forest circus in an earlier life. And spent some time lighting old cabins on fire in the Trinity Alps.

I want to hear it from the one that actually done it while workin for them....What was the reason for it ? Maxlfty?

 

[Maxlfty]

Well the Trinities are a wilderness area and we were told that the cabins were not natural. Also liability. They were old and not very well made.
Some of the older more complete cabins were left standing. Such as Hodges cabin.
But it's mostly driven by liability issues. No one wants to get sued. That's the main reason SPI doesn't allow firewood cutting on their land.


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[Hefty1]

Well the Trinities are a wilderness area and we were told that the cabins were not natural. Also liability. They were old and not very well made.
Some of the older more complete cabins were left standing. Such as Hodges cabin.
But it's mostly driven by liability issues. No one wants to get sued. That's the main reason SPI doesn't allow firewood cutting on their land.


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Thank you. They USFS, BLM were afraid of being sued by someone using those old cabins?

 

[fowledup]

Chaffs my hide. They will burn down or doze old historical dwellings and townsites in the name of restoration while at the same time going out of their way to preserve the "devastating moonscape look" of the hydraulic sites those buildings and towns supported and served. All part of the negative mining legacy they have chosen to embrace, nurture, and propagate.
There used to be a guy on youtube who travelled around filming these old cabins and stuff before they destroyed them. Even filmed a couple being burned down -sad to watch. It's real easy when looking at these old cabins to envision families getting together enjoying eachothers company, or picture an individual following a dream, doing his best to scrape out a living. What was that Dick Cavett show and song -"Remember When" I think it was.

 

[Maxlfty]

Sometimes the powers that be make decisions no one understands.
The USFS is in a tough position. Jammed up against those who believe they should be done away with and the Government shouldn't own property.
Then the fish and feather people who would prefer that the land isn't used at all and everyone should stay away.
I went to a fire down at Lytle creek on the San Bernadino NF. What a pit trash and shell casings everywhere. Then there are " miners" who tear up creek side vegetation and never fill their holes.
I have no answers, just a suggestion.
Ask and be courteous. In my dealings with the USFS and BLM Rangers.
They have always been more than friendly.


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[goldenIrishman]

As far as building a cabin on your claim goes, it can be done, but you have to have the claim perfected, POO in place and it has to be temporary in nature. Clay and I were discussing just that only last week. As most of you know, I'm getting ready to file several claims in the Kingman area and I'd like to be able to bring in a shipping container to store equipment in and have an office area. Clay informed me that until I have proven the value of the claim and gotten the POO filed and approved I can't do it. And this is just for a cargo container for storage. I also looked into filing for a millsite claim so I'd have a place to store stuff and do processing but since they want the same amount in fees for a 5 acre millsite as a regular 20 acre claim I said forget it.

Azblackbird is right in that there are some people that just do STUPID stuff that causes the rest of us to loose out because the government is trying to prevent lawsuits against them. So the government thinks it has to protect us from ourselves instead of just blocking candidates for the Darwin Awards from getting our tax dollars for being stupid.

 

[Hefty1]

I have no answers, just a suggestion.
Ask and be courteous. In my dealings with the USFS and BLM Rangers.
They have always been more than friendly.


I would take your suggestion...20 years ago...
You can ask but they don't know, I have to tell them...
They don't know there own cfrs or what authority they come from...
They all have the John Wayne syndrome ever since they get to carry guns...
I am tired of their " I am better than thou " attitude...
They don't understand that they work for us...
I understand that there are bad miners out there that dont care what they do...
I am not one of those, so why am i treated as one.

 

[Reed Lukens]

Well the Trinities are a wilderness area and we were told that the cabins were not natural. Also liability. They were old and not very well made.
Some of the older more complete cabins were left standing. Such as Hodges cabin.
But it's mostly driven by liability issues. No one wants to get sued. That's the main reason SPI doesn't allow firewood cutting on their land.


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Actually the main reason SPI doesn't allow people to cut wood anymore is because an employee was cutting wood at one of the mills and then the chainsaw slipped and he cut up his leg. Then he sued and then SPI said no more wood cutting for anyone, even employees. I worked for and retired from SPI

Back in the 60's the fs got a bad name because they were coming in and burning down or bulldozing homes that were generations old. Many of them still had the same families in them that had been there since the beginning, way before the lands were claimed by the government when the fs was born and decided that they wanted it for themselves. So at that time generations of families were being thrown off their lands by the fs and the rangers were way out of line. This was during the same time that my old friend Barney was burned out and he had a nice cabin that was built by his family generations before. If the fs had done it properly, they would have notified the people who actually lived there and given the people time to move, but they took it on themselves to post a watch to wait for the people to leave, for the kids to go to school, etc. and then they would come in knowing how long the people were usually gone and they burned everything they had, leaving them homeless, with no clothes or cars if they had left a car there that day. What I am saying is that the fs burned everything. Many rangers ended up dead because of their actions back then but you don't hear about the rangers that disappeared and were never seen again. Just like with Barney, the people got mad and many a ranger ended up dead in the bottom of an old abandoned mine shaft. At least this is the story that my dad and Barney told me. Some of the missing rangers were long time friends of ours, so the people didn't just kill the bad ones. It was sad times that were caused by rogue fs rangers, just like today. The few bad ones make all of them look bad.
They want to tell you it was liability? No, it was them butting in to someone else's business and being complete dicks about it. Back then they were no better then horse thieves and that's what I was told by Barney, and that's were I learned about right and wrong. When a ranger saw him after the incident, that ranger stayed at least 10 feet away or turned around and got out of there. Yes there are plenty of good fs rangers but then there are plenty of bad ones that ruin the reputation of the good rangers that are truly there to help us.
Now they carry guns and act like swat teams in the woods wearing full camo and they come up on you in packs with guns drawn for no reason, while carrying anti-terrorist weapons on their gun belts and acting like the land belongs to them alone.



You want to see how the fs really feels? then watch this playlist


By Ryan Lenz and Evelyn Schlatter
DOLORES, Colo. — Douglas Maxwell spun on his heels and opened the creaky door of his dusty, two-tone Ford F-150 to rifle through a stack of papers. Months after beginning his daily protest outside the Public Lands Office, the angry taxidermist was armed and ready to pick a fight.

"They think they can intimidate the American people? They can go to hell," he said, tugging on the bill of a "U.S. Border Guard" baseball cap. "Just the other day I told a forest ranger, ‘Do you want another Ruby Ridge or Waco?' Because that's the way this is heading."

Lying there in the cab of his truck, as if to underline his seriousness, were a .357-caliber Magnum and a .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol.

Douglas Maxwell
Army of one: Douglas Maxwell, who has led local protests against the closure of national forest roads, says the conflict could lead to violence.
Each day at sunrise, Maxwell sets up signs on sandwich boards and on the side of his truck that warn of the death of the San Juan National Forest and paint the forest rangers who work there as donkey's asses. An ever-changing cast of supporters stops to exchange bits of intelligence about the federal government's latest maneuvers and its pending "crackdown" on dissidents. Humvees, the stories go, are quietly lining the roads outside Las Vegas in preparation for martial law — and concertina-wired prison camps are rising up in the surrounding deserts.

Ever since the U.S. Forest Service issued a draft plan last year to sharply limit motor-vehicle access to the 2.5 million acres of the San Juan forest, Maxwell and growing numbers of like-minded Westerners have been organizing against a government they see as tyrannical. In Dolores County, Maxwell's compatriots have threatened to "arrest" federal officials. They've hanged Smokey Bear in effigy and demanded the return of "liberty."

What is happening in this sparsely populated and economically depressed southwest corner of Colorado is a reprise of other Western land-use uprisings of the past 40 years, including the "Sagebrush Rebellion" and the "Wise Use" and "County Supremacy" movements. But in a more immediate way, it is a part of the second wave of the antigovernment "Patriot" movement that roiled America and spawned much violence in the 1990s. And like that movement, it has blended issues of genuine concern, such as the federal management of Western public lands, with a staggering dose of radical-right conspiracy theories.

The rebellion is finding allies in local elected officials, some of whom argue — against well-established law — that they have a legitimate right to defy federal laws and regulations. In Montezuma County, the recently elected sheriff, who takes four-hour classes from a local "constitutionalist," appeared on a white supremacist radio show in February to assert that county sheriffs are "the ultimate law enforcement authority."

Douglas Maxwell's truck
Bristling with images of weaponry, Douglas Maxwell’s truck is the most visible sign of a resurgent antigovernment “Patriot” movement in the West. As in the past, the movement blends issues of genuine concern, such as use of public lands, with a wealth of bizarre conspiracy theories.
Joining him in opposing the Forest Service's proposed road closures are a legion of self-described Patriots — people who have subscribed to the idea that the government is leveraging Colorado's public lands against U.S. debt to China, or preparing the way for foreign troops to help impose martial law, or taking the first steps toward implementing a global socialistic government to be known as the New World Order. Others see the evil hand of the United Nations behind the move to close off public lands. That fear harkens to the 1990s, when Patriots commonly believed the U.N. was working to depopulate the United States in order to create an idyllic "biosphere" for animals.

Similar conflicts have sprung up in recent months in Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and elsewhere. They are arising as the Patriot movement enjoys a powerful renaissance. The Southern Poverty Law Center documented 824 Patriot groups, including armed militias, operating across the country in 2010. That's a startling 576% increase from the 149 groups active in 2008. It's also the most since the height of the first Patriot movement in 1996, when there were 858.

The land-use battles exemplified by the struggle in Dolores and Montezuma counties have led to political violence in the past. The 1990s were marked by attacks in the West on the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and similar agencies with oversight over federal lands. And Dolores is just 10 miles from the town of Cortez, where three extremists stole a water truck in 1998 and murdered a police officer who tried to stop them. They fled into the wilderness, where they were found dead, each a suspected suicide, months and years later. The armed vigil outside the Public Lands Office in Dolores is in many ways reminiscent of that dark and violent period.

Every so often, as Maxwell leaned heavily over the side of his pickup, a motorist from one of the surrounding communities would show support with a honk — all the validation Maxwell needs to support his resistance.

"They're raping us all," Maxwell growled. "So God bless America, and **** the *******s. If they push violence on us, it'll come back on them. Guaranteed."

Patriot with a Badge
Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell is an unlikely figure at the forefront of the Patriot groundswell in Colorado. He was elected last year on a platform that romanticized him as an ironclad patriot ready to fight any federal effort seen by the radical right as an offense to the Constitution.

Montezuma County (Colorado) Sheriff Dennis Spruell
Montezuma County (Colo.) Sheriff Dennis Spruell, who takes weekly classes from a local “constitutionalist,” is one of many speaking out against the federal government in Colorado.
"Warning: Sheriff Spruell reads the constitution," one election placard stacked neatly against a wall in his office reads. Another says, "Our modern day Knight" and depicts the sheriff as a burly medieval warrior. The signs are more than campaign rhetoric; with Spruell's election last year, the Patriot movement found a career lawman willing to champion its beliefs.

"I didn't give myself the constitutionalist title, but I wear it proudly," Spruell told the Intelligence Report. "I am standing up to the federal government because I think they are wrong. … I love this country, and I don't want to see bureaucrats destroy it."

In many regards, Spruell is the epitome of a small-town Western sheriff. Affable, with folksy charm, he knows how to wear a smile. In his office, the mounted head of a 10-point buck competes for prominence alongside pictures of K-9 dogs named Zolton, Lobo and Justice — dogs Spruell used when he was a narcotics officer in the Cortez Police Department.

But the depth of his rage against the "incursion" of the federal government sets Spruell apart from his fellow law enforcement officers. He eagerly recounts the story of how he felt after seeing a bulldozed road during a hunting trip in the San Juan. Bulldozing roads is a technique used by the Forest Service to return forestland to a more natural state. But each destroyed road represents a bit more of the forest that is harder for hunters like Spruell to reach. "They accomplished nothing, except destroying Mother Earth, and that aggravated me," Spruell said. "And then I started hearing from all of my constituents, and I knew the fight was going to be on."

Forest Service protestor with Gadsden flag

That was all it took for Spruell to embrace the idea of county supremacy, the belief that the county is the highest government authority. This idea originated with the Posse Comitatus – a violent, anti-Semitic and white supremacist movement that sprang up in the early 1970s and provided much of the ideological underpinning for today's Patriot movement — although there's no evidence at all that the sheriff has any idea of its origins or any affinity for racist sentiments.

Now, every other Saturday, Spruell sits for a class on the "principles" of the Constitution with Michael Gaddy, former president of the New Mexico chapter of the Minuteman Project, one of the first of the anti-immigrant groups to patrol the Mexican border in Arizona beginning in 2005.

"He knows more about the Constitution than I'll ever know," Spruell said one Saturday, after having just returned from the Western States Sheriffs' Association annual convention in Las Vegas, where the authority of sheriffs was a hot topic. "He's opened my eyes."

Spruell's enlightenment was on full display when he and Gaddy in February appeared on "The Political Cesspool," an unabashedly racist radio show that is hosted by James Edwards and features a Who's Who of the radical right as guests. (Spruell later said he was unaware of Edwards' white nationalist views.)

Young Forest Service protestor

During the interview, Spruell threatened to arrest any federal agent in his county who, in his view, violates the Constitution. "The sheriff, he's the ultimate law enforcement authority because he's elected by the ultimate power, and that's the people," Spruell told Edwards. "If the federal government comes in and violates the law, it's my responsibility to see that it stops." He later told the Durango Herald that such violations could include closing or blocking forest roads.

Gaddy regaled Edwards' listeners with a hefty inventory of conspiracy theories that have long provided the kindling that ignites the Patriot movement. He claimed that federal land-use policies in the West are part of an orchestrated effort to hide the fact that mineral rights on public lands are being transferred to China.

When Edwards asked if he believed those ideas, too, Spruell said, "I'm not a conspiracy guy. … But I wonder if that's not what they're trying to do to us."

Roads to Nowhere
Under the Forest Service's new rules for the San Juan, some 155 miles of roads are tagged for permanent closure. The agency also is erecting earthen berms and moving large boulders into place to block unauthorized trails, cutting off access to large swaths of backcountry used by hunters on all-terrain vehicles. The actions are intended to encourage the revegetation of damaged forestland and to protect wildlife habitat and the forest's streams. But residents of communities that have relied on the forest say they are being denied the resources, including food from game, that have long helped sustain them.

In the wake of those changes, a growing number of radical thinkers have emerged with claims that the federal government authority is limited by legal precedents related to an obscure, 145-year-old federal law called Revised Statute 2477. (The law was intended to promote the development of public lands in the West by granting, without federal review, rights-of-way across federal lands for road construction.) They come armed with binders of news clippings, government filings and antiquated interpretations of historical documents like the Magna Carta and the Constitution.

Ron Heaton in Dove Creek, Colo., and Dennis Atwater in Cortez, both retired, have done the lion's share of spreading the idea the federal government has insidious reasons for the land-use changes.

"We view our public lands differently than the rest of the nation," Atwater explained. "The lands are a way of life, and we depend on this land not only for our livelihood but also our happiness." (Atwater also told the Intelligence Report that he suspects a building in Durango is an outpost for a nascent one-world government led by the United Nations.)

These pseudo-intellectuals have looked to an increasingly broad body of modern polemics, including Statehood: The Territorial Imperative by William Redd and William Howell, published in 2005, and War on Rural America by Fred Kelly Grant. The books promote an idea that the federal government has vastly overreached by imposing its will on local governments.

During a town hall meeting earlier this year, about 200 concerned citizens filled the Dolores Community Center to listen to Howell and Redd, a former San Juan County, Utah, commissioner, give a four-hour lecture on the "first principles" of the Constitution and the "entitled sovereignty" of American citizens. They heard a rant about a loss of freedom and an evil government in their back yards.

"They want the West to be cleared of population," Redd yelled into a microphone, adding that the government has "some international treaties in place that will do it."

Dolores County Commission Chairwoman Julie Kibel, who has distributed Kelly's book and similar literature, said the public has a right to be informed. "We're not trying to incite a revolt; we're trying to prevent one. Our hope is that as we work through the issues, we're not giving the OK to take up arms."

Forest Service protest march
Public anger over actions of the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management has been growing across the West, a reprise of earlier antigovernment movements.
The Rhetoric of Resistance
With all its bravado, the current resurgent movement in the West, at times, calls up memories of its own violent history. In 1994, a county commissioner in Nevada who likened the struggle over public lands to "a second Civil War" took a bulldozer to a forest road and refused to stop for two rangers who fled his approach. In the next two years, some extremists took a guerrilla-style approach in Nevada, bombing the Forest Service office in Carson City and the Bureau of Land Management office in Reno.

These acts of violence stand as testament to the threat posed when the rhetoric of war and resistance to federal authority reaches a crescendo and either a lone Patriot or a group takes the message to heart. While no violence has yet occurred in Colorado, with armed citizens sitting on a street corner threatening forest rangers by name, it's easy to imagine what could come.

The Forest Service and others in the community are increasingly aware that the current struggle in Colorado continues to heat up dangerously. "The difficult thing is to get by the heated rhetoric and feelings right now," said Mark Stiles, director of the San Juan National Forest. "There is definitely a segment of the community that is concerned about a loss of liberty."

Temperatures are rising over this specific grievance just as some of the most outspoken and prominent leaders of the nationwide Patriot movement are calling outright for violence and insurrection.

Sonny Frazier, the town manager in Dolores County's Dove Creek, said the "arrogance" of forest rangers working as law enforcement officers, dressed in flak vests and carrying tactical weapons, has left many feeling as if they already live in a police state where communities are slowly being robbed of their liberties.

The endgame is simple, Frazier said, before offering an ominous warning. "If you dress up like you're wanting a war, you're gonna get a war."

 

[Reed Lukens]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcAJzGCJ3Q7y_BNMdfeJG_VMHTU-RRTBZ

 

[Asmbandits]

I was just watching that show but they were after poachers, its new to me but I couldnt help but think that I bet there would be episodes with mining and then today I see this.. Notice how they use the same few clips of dying fish in each episode, such bs...

Its sad, really a hard situation.. I can see where enforcement is needed, especially in the transient areas where there mainly living there and polluting the land, I guess it all comes down to the person that gets to make the call, and the actual legitimacy of the situation.. I think the worst part about it is even if you do follow all the rules there is still a good chance that FS can make you go through a bunch of unnecessary drama at there will.. Knowing that just buy using land that is designated for that purpose, you pose the risk of being labeled a target for harassment has me constantly second guessing legitimate prospecting outings. Out of all the things that can go wrong while prospecting, here I am worried mostly about deliverance style run ins with the FS and where im not being rapped but kinda feels like it?

 

[russau]

Not knowing whos lock is currently on the gate , If you want to use that cable gate. don't cut the current lock! instead cut the cable to shorten it up and make a new loop of cable and weld the nuts when redoing this and THEN install your lock inbetween the current lock and the new loop of cable. now it is a workable cable gate! If ,after you find who placed that lock on the cable gate, if they aren't some gubermint agencys lock or ? the remove it permanatly!

 

[jog]

I was just watching that show but they were after poachers, its new to me but I couldnt help but think that I bet there would be episodes with mining and then today I see this.. Notice how they use the same few clips of dying fish in each episode, such bs...

Its sad, really a hard situation.. I can see where enforcement is needed, especially in the transient areas where there mainly living there and polluting the land, I guess it all comes down to the person that gets to make the call, and the actual legitimacy of the situation.. I think the worst part about it is even if you do follow all the rules there is still a good chance that FS can make you go through a bunch of unnecessary drama at there will.. Knowing that just buy using land that is designated for that purpose, you pose the risk of being labeled a target for harassment has me constantly second guessing legitimate prospecting outings. Out of all the things that can go wrong while prospecting, here I am worried mostly about deliverance style run ins with the FS and where im not being rapped but kinda feels like it?

It sounds like they have done exactly what they set out to do, they put the fear of god into you and thats what they wanted. That's what all the Feds want, makes it easy for them to come in to your mining spot and tell you what you should do or fine you for some bogus law that you will just pay because your scared.Know your rights and fight like hell.......

 

[et1955]

Thanks russau, that has always been what I was going to do.

 

[Asmbandits]

It sounds like they have done exactly what they set out to do, they put the fear of god into you and thats what they wanted. That's what all the Feds want, makes it easy for them to come in to your mining spot and tell you what you should do or fine you for some bogus law that you will just pay because your scared.Know your rights and fight like hell.......

Lol, yes I carry my folder with me and know my rights, and if I am fined for something still or worse better believe im taking it to court.. Ive had too many ridiculous brush ins that have ended up in court only to be dismissed. fear of god not so much, Im more afraid of my own actions if put into the wrong situation where Im not doing anything wrong other defending my most basic constitutional rights.

 

[maurice19]

Reed,

Your post #33 says exactly what I referred to in my first post. I never knew the extent they went to when they destroyed those buildings.
Yankee Jims comes in mind in the 70`s.

Maurice