FALLFEST 2026

Public Lands for the People’s FALLFEST 2026!

We always fill up quickly, so don’t procrastinate and get left out! Sign up by October 2nd, 2026. Here are some details:

FALLFEST Mining education and Potluck Banquet time is here again at the LDMA Duisenberg property! 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, Oct. 8 at 9 am through Sunday, Oct 11, 2026

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 Mr. Gold Cube, Mike Pung!

Mike Pung, Cash Best, Jerry Marquez, Walt Evens, and other experts will be there to share their knowledge on various aspects of mining and prospecting, including fine gold recovery and metal detectors. Bring your questions and try to stump the experts!

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

There will be a spaghetti dinner at the clubhouse for $15 on Friday night, and Antelope Valley Prospectors will be serving breakfast and lunch Saturday and Sunday for $10. A meal sign-up sheet will be sent with your registration confirmation email.

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

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

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

The 2026 Grand Raffle is going to be held Saturday evening, and we’ve got some really nice prizes, including a large Gold Specimen, a Garrett Goldmaster 24K Gold Detector with Z-Lynk Wireless system, a week at SKOOKUM Gold Camp in Alaska, a 4-stack Gold Cube, A Riverdance Gold Jig, and of course, or should we say COARSE gold Nuggets, high-dollar paydirt Gold Bags, and much more!

The 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!

The Metal Detector hunt is still only $20! Kids are FREE! Details are available at check-in, along with the event schedule. 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!

We plan to have a group campfire every night in the main meeting area next to the clubhouse. PLP will update 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.

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 will have their membership extended for another year. Each paid attendee receives a dozen GRAND RAFFLE tickets toward our annual raffle, free common dig, all the classes, and Saturday night potluck dinner!

The 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 kids’ friends, so they can learn to prospect!

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 of 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, and 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 the Potluck, please bring your own camp chairs and a folding table if you want to eat at a table; we have a limited number of tables and will be using ours for serving the Saturday Potluck dinner and 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 tend to have plenty of desserts. PLP will provide the main course, 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, designed to keep the Forest Service working within its 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 to 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 alike. 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 experienced folks will be willing to help, 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 is 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 2, 2026!