You can pan for gold in the hotel parking lot or better yet on the river
A broken leg handicapped me when I tried but I hope to go back one day
Posted on 07/28/2014 10:54:48 AM PDT by george76
Despite an eleventh hour interjection from the U.S. Forest Service, the Ouray County Commissioners made history this week, unanimously voting to adopt a new county road map that brings it into the 21st century.
The last time an official county road map was prepared in Ouray County was in 1961.
Proposed revisions to this 1961 iteration of the map took place over the past five years, first through the work of the collaborative, multi-jurisdictional Public Access Group and later through two years of intensive work by Ouray County IT/GIS Manager Jeff Bockes, who integrated modern computerized mapping techniques (including GoogleEarth) and historical information on public roads going all the way back into the 1800s.
The process of adopting the revised map turned out to be quite lengthy. Commissioners first held a public hearing on June 25 to consider its adoption. This hearing was continued to July 1 on the request of Commissioner Don Batchelder to receive legal advice as to what kind of legal exposure the county may face upon map adoption.
...
Ouray District Ranger Tammy Randall-Parker of the U.S. Forest Service ...
Such underlying ownership is not depicted on the new map; an accompanying resolution asserts that the roads and trails depicted on the map are open to the public (and shall not be closed unless formally vacated by the county), and that all numbered, primary roads on the map are under county jurisdiction.
Randall-Parker took exception to this, asserting in a letter dated July 18 that “all the roads within Ouray County and within the Uncompahgre National Forest are National Forest System Roads, not Ouray County roads.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thewatchmedia.com ...
We’ve been fighting this battle up here north of Ouray in the Grand Valley, too. The Public Lands Access Association is doing an amazing job, and is currently working on opening 12-15 previously closed roads under the same statute. Glad to hear Ouray County is standing up as well. I like the response - these are Federal roads! HA! No such thing. These roads belong to the State & County and the Feds have very little jurisdiction!
RS 2477 is a simple and straightforward law. Congress specifically and clearly reaffirmed the validity and intent of RS 2477 in 1976.
http://www.icmj.com/more_page.php?id=5&keywords=RS_2477_Roads_&_Rights-of-Way_(Summary)
I used to live in Montrose. Have many fond memories of Ouray and environs, including a hair-raising trip over Imogene Pass in a Ford Expedition. I’m glad to see the County is telling the Feds where to pound it.
I was just there this past week at a cabin in Ridgway. It IS the Switzerland of America.
family did Imogene Pass in a jeep grand Cherokee.
Crazy but waaaaay kool.
UN Agenda 21 is going to get real ugly.
I’m familiar with the area, but not the politics. Does this have to do with the ‘jeep trails” around the ghost towns? Does this mean they will get county maintenance? IMO, if that happened, it would be a real estate gold mine that the 1% would scarf up toot suite.
The feds and America haters ( peta, alf, elf, eco nuts, and others ) want to close all the public roads, trails, and all public land to the US public.
They have succeeded in closing many public lands, ending historical uses ( like grazing cattle = remember Bundy ? ), ending historical access, and more already.
Hooray for Ouray
IIRC, Ouray was where a bunch of hippies moved to and got into positions of power (mayor, dog catcher, etc.) back in the 70’s?? The Feds infiltrated them and brought the whole thing down (drug charges, etc.). Years ago I had thought that was a good idea, to give the town back to the people that had lived there.
Now - not so much. What Conservatives need to do is take the general distrust of a powerful central government and use it to form political policy and campaign material. BOTH sides of the aisle are getting fed up with big government - and many times on the same issues.
Beautiful country up there.
But did you come across any color? =D My stepdad keeps bugging me to go down there with him, east of Ridgway and up the river for some prospecting.
Ouray was Galt’s Gulch in Ayn Ryan’s book ?
Kinda looks like it
Telluride without the ski area
I can see that. But, there IS a parking spot in downtown Grand Junction (we're about 3 hours north of Ouray) that has a "reserved for John Galt" sign on it. True story. I have a pic of it here somewhere.
We went to an old mine on the side of US 550 and walked through some tailings. We found several samples with “color”- galena, sphalerite, covellite, and the dreaded pyrite. There appears to be some elemental silver in some of the samples and maybe some of the color is gold but I need to use my microscope at work to determine so. My eyes are too bad to see if they are cubic crystals or not. My sons developed a case of gold fever. If we would have had more time, I would have liked to have panned. When I was a kid, we did some near Pagosa Springs and my dad still has a little jar with some gold in it.
You can pan for gold in the hotel parking lot or better yet on the river
A broken leg handicapped me when I tried but I hope to go back one day
The Yukon. I’ll need more vacation time. How much have you found in the past?
I found none...... My broken ankle was in a “boot” and the act of panning was painful. I forced my self to have at it but I just couldn’t do it.
It is truly a col place.
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