Saturday's Corner

Left out the Best Part

That's all nice, but you've omitted the answer to the most pressing question, which is: "What were the distances (to the nearest 0.1 ft.) from the corner as rehabilitated to the wire fences on either side of it?" Thanks in advance.

Left out the Best Part

I didn't measure to the fences. It's an old stock trial. They didn't locate it by any survey. They just built it (way back when) to herd the cows and sheep to the mountains. It's like a county road right of way for livestock. It just happens that the section corner is in the trail at this point.

I got to go back tomorrow and measure the corner point. I could topo the fences on each side and draw up a little map but I probably won't. If someone wants to see where the point is they can KML the coordinate into Google Earth and see the fences. It's tied out directly under it.

Left out the Best Part

> I didn't measure to the fences.

Oh, so what you're saying is they're just fences? Makes perfect sense. :>

Left out the Best Part

Some fences lead to corners and some don't. These don't.

Here is the Google Earth image.

Actually these fences have established the location of the stock trail ROW. It's been there at least a hundred years. I can witness it for at least 50 years. Dad used to own some land on both sides of the trail near the highway.

Left out the Best Part

> Actually these fences have established the location of the stock trail ROW.

Okay, so knowin' that the fences were the ESTABLISHED lines, what were you doin' messin' around with that stone that the adjoinin' owners apparently aren't recognizin'? I hope that you're not tryin' to nullify their rights to establish their lines wherever Google Earth allows. Who knows what that might lead to. It would require surveyors, I'm thinkin'.

From readin' all the Utah posts over the years, I would have assumed that the *correct* way to determine the line was to measure off the fences and not worry about any PI's that ended up in the result.

Left out the Best Part

I really like your effort to perpetuate the corner point. However I see it so many times with confusing monumentation. There is only one corner one point! The next surveyor to come along has a perplexing problem of pincushioning at it's extreme. What does a surveyor accept? The stone or your attempt to perpetuate? If I was to come along in a retracement your corner would be driven down to below ground as a memorial and the true corner point would be referenced i.e. the stone. Learn the definition of terms in PLSSIA and leave one corner one point.

Pablo B-)

Great post.

I love my job!

Left out the Best Part

All I'm doing is a perpetuation of the corner for the county. I set a county marker at the corner and file a corner record. I don't know where the boundary lines are, I wasn't looking for them only the section lines. I do know that the fences would be the bounds per a statue for the stock trial. I think this one is an easement. After ten years of use by the public it becomes a county right of way, same as a county road. So if someone gets all wound out about where the right of way for the stock trail is just look at the fences that have been used for about a hundred years. If you want to know where the section lines are they go from corner to corner.

A get a few bucks every year for doing some of these. Unless they expand the funding substantially, I'll need to live to be about 200 to get them all done.

Left out the Best Part

The corner record narrative will describe how I set the county marker where the stone was found and that the stone was then left in the mound on the south side of the new corner marker. Hopefully anyone doing a retracement survey would get a copy of the corner record and not tear out the county corner marker and use the buried stone which I left so that the next surveyor could view the original evidence if they want. I put the pictures in the record also. I'm not sure what else I could do.

Sometimes I hate to remove the original stone but that is what the county wants done and pays for.

Left out the Best Part

Sometimes I hate to remove the original stone but that is what the county wants done and pays for.

I guess I would have far more of a problem with that concept.

Left out the Best Part

It's what the BLM does. The important thing is the record, that there is a record. Then the fact of the corner position is perpetuated. The stone is still there in the mound and my record will tell the next surveyor where if they want to examine it.

The stones are great and served the purpose. It takes a trained eye to spot them many times. This mound has a steel bar set in it and that record doesn't mention finding the marked stone, just the mound. So even some surveyors can't see them. I think maybe I've missed a few and screwed up a few corners. The metal markers are easier to recognize, say Section Corner on them and Unlawful to Disturb. They are a lot easier to find and I think their chances of survival are better. I've been to a lot more corners that are marked by a post a and cap and were still there than stones. In my experience the percentage that still exist is much higher for metal.

The wood posts and mounds set around here in 1855-56. I've never seen or found even ONE. So we have a half dozen townships down the valley where all the development has occurred and no original corners in existence. It's a mess made worse just about ever time a survey is done. Some alternate method other than putting back section corners and breaking down the sections from there will need to be applied if they ever hope to get it all straightened out. Doesn't stop some from trying though.

Left out the Best Part

> This mound has a steel bar set in it and that record doesn't mention finding the marked stone, just the mound. So even some surveyors can't see them.

Whoa, hold the phone! You say that you knowingly disregarded an actual steel bar that probably represented one of those "established" corners that we read so much about (that they must be worth a fortune on eBay). You actually *found* that established corner and you decided to set another survey marker right near by ????

Doesn't this send the message to the establishment surveyors (already a fairly shaky bunch) that an original corner will always trump some *established corner*? I'm sure that you had what you *felt* to be a good reason for doing this. What was it, might one ask?

Didn't leave out anything

Well, you would get a slightly different measurement to the fences. I just left the bar as it is. But that wouldn't change the location of the stock trail. We could ask them if they want to move the fences but I'm sure that's a non starter. But if you want to come up here and extend the math out a half mile in each direction you are certainly welcome.

BUT, the really interesting one is a bar and cap with section numbers stamped into it by a deceased surveyor I found at 108.5 feet 247 23' azimuth. I'm not doing a boundary survey but it probably would be interesting if I was. I don't think this guy found the corner, so he needed one and set one. The stone lines up with stones found to the north, matches the notes and such. I'm not sure what lines up with this bar/cap but there probably is more lurking. You know, where there is smoke there is fire. The boundary establishment law comes from the Utah Supreme Court, not the BLM Manual so you might need to shift the transmission a few times to sort it all out.

If you want to come up to Utah we can go look into it. See if any boundaries been established from these points or not. No famous barbeques here but I'll cook you a stake! If broiled wood ain't your style we could go get some fresh trout out of the pond and bake em. Got some real grass fed beef from the farm in the freezer also. My son-in-law has a gas grill we could borrow or better yet, make him cook it.

I like it; nice marked stone, replace with 3-1/4" aluminum cap on pipe at found position and buried stone alongside. Only thing the BLM would do differently would be to set a stainless pipe and brass cap cap flush with the ground so you will spend 15 minutes scratching around the pile looking for it-if you didn't have a metal detector with you;-)

> Only thing the BLM would do differently would be to set a stainless pipe and brass cap cap flush with the ground so you will spend 15 minutes scratching around the pile looking for it-if you didn't have a metal detector with you.

I trust that you've used a pocket compass as a metal detector in those situations, just moving the compass over the area where the magnetic object is and watching for a deflection of the needle.

Left out the Best Part

ALL fences are boundary lines?? ALL fences run down someone's property line? Really?
Fences overrule monumentation?

Due to budget issues the county changed to aluminum from stainless and brass a few years back. I generally set them deeper if I can dig. This one hit some really hard stuff so I had to leave it up and build up the mound around it. Plenty of rock around.

Left out the Best Part

> ALL fences are boundary lines?? ALL fences run down someone's property line? Really?
> Fences overrule monumentation?

Absolutely. I didn't believe it myself until I read it on the internet.

Saturday's Corner Kent

I think Mr. Day is riding a slippery slope by making generalizations about the hundreds of land
surveyor that have worked for the BLM.

I do not think all the surveyors in the PLSS like Alabama and Indiana think the same way.
That is obvious because Lucas and Gary Kent would not be on the seminar route trying
to convince surveyors that their own methods are correct. You might get a different perspective
at the TSPS convention from Lucas and Gary Kent. From what I have heard and read, these
two are really short on the concept of statute of limitations. Mr. Day also does not respect
fences either. A famous surveyor in Texas named Darrell Shine said, 'Do not be proud when
you use or set a monument that disagrees with an old fence.'

ACSM had an article about using the word encroachment. A surveyor set his monument and
noted that an old building encroached. The court ruled the building was on the line and the
surveyor was liable for court costs and damages.