FALLFEST 2025

SAVE THE DATE!

Fallfest 2025

October 9-12, 2025

Time to register!

We always fill up quickly so don’t procrastinate and get left out! Registration closes as soon as it fills up, no later than Oct. 2.

FALLFEST Mining education and BBQ potluck time is here again at the LDMA Duisenberg property! Bigger and better than ever! Fun times with great folks! Take home some gold and great memories. Camping at Duisenberg Thursday through Saturday night is included in your registration.

Thursday October 9 through Sunday October 12, 2025

Four action packed days of Mining, Prospecting and Learning: how to do it safely, responsibly and environmentally friendly. There will be a variety of prospecting and mining classes, including a hard rock & a ladies prospecting class by Miner Ma!

Jerry, Roger and other experts will be there sharing their expertise with various aspects of mining and prospecting-fine gold recovery, metal detectors – Bring your questions and try to stump the experts! We plan to have an XRF on site so bring your rocks to see what they are made out of while you are at Fallfest. It’s an instant assay- hi tech fun.

Back by popular demand, we will be hosting the Historical Rand Mining District and Owl Museum tour by Historian Dan Stanton – No fee to participate, but you are encouraged to donate generously to the Owl Museum in Red Mountain when the tour stops there.

There will be a spaghetti dinner at the clubhouse for $10 on Friday night and Antelope Valley Prospectors will be serving breakfast and lunch Saturday and Sunday for $10. There will be a meal sign up sheet sent with your registration confirmation email.

We will have the delicious BBQ Potluck where PLP will bring the BBQ, sourdough bread and drinks, please bring a salad, side dish or dessert.

The 2025 Grand Raffle is going to be held Saturday evening, and we’ve got some really big prizes this year, including a Mad Mining 12v Puffer Drywasher, an AXIOM Detector, a week at SKOOKUM Gold Camp in Alaska and of course, or should we say COARSE gold Nuggets, high dollar paydirt Gold Bags, silver bullion and much more!

Bring your surplus mining and prospecting gear for the miner’s swap meet near the registration area.

LDMA tractor scoops of Paydirt can be purchased from LDMA and dropped off near your camp, plus PLP will have some paydirt available in a designated area available for attendees at no charge.

The Adult detector hunt is still only $20! Details at check-in along with published schedule of events. Lots of 100+- year old coins like buffalo nickels and plenty of silver coins from dimes to silver dollars will be in this hunt along with real gold nuggets!

FREE Kids metal detecting hunt is back! The kids really enjoy honing their metal detecting skills in the area prepared just for them. The smiles on their faces showed that they sure liked what they found!

Once again, we have a hard rock mining class presented by a hard rock miners. They will be sharing their knowledge with you, how they got started, etc. Come and learn how to get started hard rock mining or take your hard rock mining knowledge to the next level!

Gold Panning Championship will be underway during the weekend. The winner will be announced Saturday night! Will last year’s champion retain the title of “Fastest Panner in the West”? We’ll see…

Also back is Marcia Betz with at least one special ladies craft event, maybe more! It is a favorite activity of the ladies! She always comes up with such creative crafts!

We plan to have a group campfire every night in the main meeting area next to the clubhouse. We plan to have entertainment Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. PLP will be updating you on our activities such as Reclamation Dredging and our legislation progress at the campfire gatherings. Please bring firewood to donate if you are able. Campfire mining talk with fiddle music, juggling and maybe a tall tale or two is always a great time!

Back by popular demand, from Disney’s Frontier Town, is famous Fiddlin’ Farley! He has more talent packed in that fiddle than should be legal! Brad Allen the World Class Juggler performing at the campfire in the evenings. Remember the knives and fire juggling? The bowling pins that light up in wild patterns and colors? Well come back and see the latest juggling skills! Brad’s skill is amazing!

Thanks again to the Leppers, the Betz’, Susie, The Good and Bad Rogers (we still need an ugly Roger), Kim Holmes, Jeff, Laura, Thomas, Sean, Cory, Walt, Myrl, Dorothy and many, many others who have consistently volunteered to help make this a successful event. We couldn’t do it without you! We really appreciate you!

All attendees will get a new PLP membership, and existing members get their membership extended another year. Each paid attendee receives a dozen GRAND RAFFLE tickets towards our annual raffle, free common dig, all the classes and Sat. night BBQ/ potluck!

Cost for all 4 days is only $75 per person, Families $75 plus $20 per person after the first one, kids under 12 are always FREE! Bring your kids and your kid’s friends, so they can learn to pan, drywash, PLUS the kids even have their own free metal detecting area!

SIGN UP here: https://www.publiclandsforthepeople.org/fallfest-2025-registration/

We will be gathering on the Lost Dutchman private patented mining claim “Duisenberg” just north of Randsburg, CA. To get to the LDMA property, go north past Red Mountain until you come to the railroad tracks in the bottom of the valley several miles north of Red Mountain. Turn east on the dirt road just north of the railroad tracks. The road stays on the north side of the tracks for about a mile until you arrive at the LDMA claim., about a mile east from Highway 395. Follow the PLP logo signs on wood stakes. The claim has good RV access, and tent camping is allowed almost anywhere except the main area around the clubhouse where we will be hosting the potluck dinner, classes, panning contest area, and group campfire.

The PLP registration table will be near the entrance to the LDMA Duisenberg property. PLP volunteers will be wearing bright yellow PLP Volunteer shirts and vests. Flag one of us down if you have any questions.

Bring your metal detector and drywasher and keep all the GOLD you find! It is a dry, high desert claim with ample area for dry camping. Be aware there is wildlife living out there, we are visiting their home (in the part of the desert that the claim is in, we’ve seen foxes, coyotes, snakes, lizards, jack rabbits, etc.). Do not dig near their homes. We have clean porta-potties on site, extra drinking water and a group campfire every evening and Saturday is the potluck dinner and raffle. We exercise our First Amendment rights at Miner’s Church and Fellowship Sunday morning at 8:30 am to about 9:30 or 10.

For Potluck, please bring your own camp chairs and a folding table if you want to eat on a table, we have a limited number of tables and will be using ours for serving the Saturday potluck/ BBQ dinner and for hosting the big raffle. Please bring your favorite main course, salad, side dish or dessert to share with the group! We typically need more side or main dishes and are heavy on desserts. PLP will be providing the main course of smoked BBQ and sourdough bread/butter/jam and drinks.

After dinner we’ll once again update you on what PLP has been working on regarding the PROVEN ways you can now exercise your legal right to mine and perform dredge reclamation. We will also be handing out our new and very useful PLP Forest Service green cards specifically designed to keep the Forest Service working within their actual jurisdiction and not overstepping onto your legal mining rights.

You can check in beginning at 9 am Thursday and stay until Sunday afternoon. Be sure and show off the gold you find, we all enjoy seeing that freshly dug gold! Volunteers get to come in a day early and stay a day after Fallfest ends.

We want this to be fun and educational for experienced prospectors and newbies too. We’ll have lots of classes. Great teachers will be on hand to share tips and tricks to improve your prospecting and mining skills.

If you are new and need help learning how to set up and run your equipment, we’ve got you covered. Need gear? The mining community is always willing to share. We will have some loaner equipment available, and there will be experienced folks willing to help you, but the best option is to join the common dig (learn how a drywasher works and pan concentrates). Reach out to one of our volunteers on site. There will also be a panning station set up to use anytime.

Another HUGE shout out and thank you to all those who volunteered last year, some for many years!! You all made it a successful outing! We are ever so grateful! If you would like to volunteer to help us with anything, please email or call us, we could use your help- we appreciate you! Many hands make for a fun outing for everyone.

Your PLP Board of Directors are looking forward to seeing our old friends and making new friends at our big gathering. Remember, we are still committed to “Exercising our granted Rights while we Make Mining, Reclamation and Multiple Use on Public Land Great Again!”

Registration closes as soon as it fills up, no later than October 2nd, 2025

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