Plotting a claim dimensions

[whisperer]

I haven’t made a claim of my own for more than 20 years and even then it was a placer claim on almost flat ground.

I am now going to make a lode claim on a fairly steep hillside.

How do I find the corners? Lode claims are 600 x 1500 feet, but do I plot it by measuring on the surface of the ground, or can I just GPS the corners? I just truely don’t remember and can’t seem to find this information on the BLM info or definitively online.

Thanks.

 

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[Clay Diggins]

Lode claims are located by this method:

1. Discover a valuable mineral deposit in place on land open to location (this is the hard part).
2. Discover the compass direction the vein is best located along. This is known as the "strike" of the deposit.
3. Determine the best 1500 feet of the strike. Erect monument posts at each end centered on the strike.
4. At right angles to the strike set monuments at 300 foot from your center monuments. The short end lines must be parallel to one another if you want extralateral mineral rights. You now have four corners and your center monuments. Some states require additional stakes on the sidelines or at the point of discovery and in some states you must make an excavation. Check your state location requirements.
5. Describe your new lode claim on your location notice by compass direction and distance between each monument (metes and bounds) as well as indicating a tie point to a known permanent object like a section corner marker.
6. Record your location notice with the County Recorder in the county where the claim is located and file a copy with the BLM state office. The BLM filing is due within 90 days of your location. The time limit to record at the County varies by state. Check your state location requirements.

Although you may include additional claim location descriptions like latitude and longitude the actual location notice must include the metes and bounds description for your claim to pass BLM adjudication.

Good luck with your new discovery!

Heavy Pans

 

[whisperer]

Thanks much for the reply.

I understand metes and bounds measuring and basic descriptions. So to apply that to my situation I will just need to measure off the distances on the ground without consideration to where those corners will fall on a map? Okay.

Any further info would be welcome.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Thanks much for the reply.

I understand metes and bounds measuring and basic descriptions. So to apply that to my situation I will just need to measure off the distances on the ground without consideration to where those corners will fall on a map? Okay.

Any further info would be welcome.

I'm not sure I understand your question whisperer.

You don't have to follow the PLSS (impossible and counterproductive with a lode claim).
You do have to make a map for your location notice.

Heavy Pans

 

[Duckshot]

I'm not sure I understand your question whisperer.

You don't have to follow the PLSS (impossible and counterproductive with a lode claim).
You do have to make a map for your location notice.

Heavy Pans

I think I understand the question but I don't know the answer.

The question, I believe, -

Since 1500 feet at a slope of forty-five degrees would cover less lateral length than a level measurement of area such as on flat ground, is the measurement made along the slope or by assuming a level plane at mean elevation such as a g.p.s. would provide? Or, maybe something else?

I think that's what Whisper was getting at, anyhow.

 

[Clay Diggins]

You are right. You should not measure distances following the slope or your claim will be short. Actual ground measurement doesn't count.

Measurements are taken on the horizontal. Here is an example of how that's done in real life.



Heavy Pans

 

[Duckshot]

So a person could mark what they think is the heart of the lode deposit, find the slope in rise and run, maybe use a four foot level carpenter's level and a ruler at about the average slope, and using a bit of Pythagorean Therum figure out the length of the claim measuring along the hypotenuse. Then just measure uphill and down hill from center of lode deposit.

But I'm just a dumb carpenter. There may be easier ways.

 

[Clay Diggins]

So a person could mark what they think is the heart of the lode deposit, find the slope in rise and run, maybe use a four foot level carpenter's level and a ruler at about the average slope, and using a bit of Pythagorean Therum figure out the length of the claim measuring along the hypotenuse. Then just measure uphill and down hill from center of lode deposit.

But I'm just a dumb carpenter. There may be easier ways.

There's not many dumb carpenters that succeed. Takes a lot more brains to build things than to carry hod (personal experience speaking). If it's an even slope that method will certainly work within a few feet if you are careful. A tall marked stick, chain and a transit work even better but that takes two people.

In my experience valuable mineral deposits rarely cooperate with an even slope along the strike of greatest mineralization.
I hear dairy cows like a nice even slope. Hard to make a living mining cows though. Not a lot of big EUREKA!!! moments with cows either.

This isn't a new problem. I've seen a lot of surveyed claims that run short because the locators measured along the ground. Being a miner isn't simple. Lot's of stuff to know to be good at it.

Heavy Pans

 

[Duckshot]

Shoot, all you gotta know to layout anything is that triangles are friends.

The square root of (three squared plus four squarerd) will always equal five - Pythagoras. A triangle with sides measuring 3'-4'-5' is always a right triangle. Even the dumb carpenters know this. If you got a rise of three feet over a run of four feet, then you could short yourself 375' in a 1500' run if you only measured along the slope. With a 45 degree slope you could really short yourself. The sqaure root of (1^2 + 1^2) is equal to the square root of two, or about 1.414. So, at a 1500' run and 1500' rise the length along the slope is 2121'!

 

[whisperer]

Thanks all for chiming in on this. I was hoping for your experience here.

Claydiggings;
“You should not measure distances following the slope or your claim will be short. Actual ground measurement doesn't count.

Measurements are taken on the horizontal.”

That was really the definitive answer to my probably poorly asked question.

Yes, this ground is a steep and uneven hillside with a rounded hill top in it. Measuring over the surface of the ground will give me a much distorted shape with short measurements when viewed on a “map” view. That was my dilemma. So if my measurements are done by finding the corners and way points on a GPS when laid out in map view I will have a proper looking claim.

Arguments or clarifications are still welcome here!