Your post raised 2 questions. Regarding access:
From Colorado Central Magazine:
RS-2477: Old roads and new controversies | Colorado Central Magazine | Colorado news, stories, essays, history and more!
Read the above article and you will find info such as:
"In Colorado, a valid RS-2477 claim has to cover the exact route, according to Rikki Santarelli, who’s been around this block a few times. He’s currently the Chaffee County attorney, and he has served as a county commissioner and as the county attorney in Gunnison County"
OR
"Her research naturally put her in contact with federal land personnel, among them John Lancelot, Colorado realty access specialist with the BLM.
Lancelot has worked with counties all over the state, and notes that there are some common problems. Many county roads exist by “prescriptive use,” and have never been formally surveyed. Nor did the Post Office issue many formal descriptions when it established “post roads” for carrying mail between settlements. Nobody seems to be sure whether a “stock driveway” is a public highway. And counties do vacate roads, which means a lot of searching in the records to be sure a possible RS-2477 claim was not vacated at some point in the past century or so.
“But if we can find the documentation, we’ll help support an RS-2477 claim,” Lancelot said."
RS 2477 Roads & Rights-of-Way (Summary) - ICMJ's Prospecting and Mining Journal
Also this may be of assistance:
United States Court of Appeals,Ninth Circuit.
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Steve A. HICKS, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 01-30146.
D.C. No. CR-00-00001-DWM.
Argued and Submitted Nov. 5, 2002.
Decided Nov. 14, 2002.
Corporate employee was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Donald W. Molloy, Chief Judge, of operating motorcycle in area of National Forest closed to motor vehicles by Forest Service closure order, and he appealed. The Court of Appeals held that employee of corporation that owned subsurface mineral rights in national forest was not subject to Forest Service closure order that exempted landowners.
Reversed and remanded.
In this case it seems the motorcyclist was let off because the Forest Service's own law (rule or whatever) was written to exempt the landowner. The motorcyclist's innocence had little to do with the mining grant other than the motorcyclist was an employee of the company and considered a part of it as a landowner (claim owner).
The Forest Service has no power to write laws. They are however bound by the law. Steve Hicks did not win this case because the Forest Service Regulations left a loophole, he won the case because the Forest Service had no right to prevent his ingress and egress to the private property (mining claim). The Forest Service has no right to make a regulation, ruling or order that violates private property rights. The Forest Service violated the law and violated Steve Hicks right to the peaceable enjoyment of his private property right. Specifically this law among others:
CHAPTER 2 SUBCHAPTER I Section 478" style="vertical-align: text-bottom;" alt="Originally posted by U.S.C. TITLE 16 CHAPTER 2 SUBCHAPTER I Section 478" src="forum_images/quote_box.png" U.S.C. TITLE 16 > CHAPTER 2 > SUBCHAPTER I > Section 478 wrote:
Section 478. Egress or ingress of actual settlers; prospecting
Nothing in sections 473 to 478, 479 to 482 and 551 of this title shall be construed as prohibiting the egress or ingress of actual settlers residing within the boundaries of national forests, or from crossing the same to and from their property or homes; and such wagon roads and other improvements may be constructed thereon as may be necessary to reach their homes and to utilize their property under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of Agriculture. Nor shall anything in such sections prohibit any person from entering upon such national forests for all proper and lawful purposes, including that of prospecting, locating, and developing the mineral resources thereof. Such persons must comply with the rules and regulations covering such national forests.
Bejay
