This article was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Forty miles as the crow flies west of Blanding, Utah, just up the road from the former uranium boomtown of Fry Canyon and a dirt airstrip, is a parcel of federal land historically valued for its radioactive metal and other hardrock minerals.

The tracks of mule deer and cattle criss-cross a maze of red rock, cacti and parched-looking shrubs. The only signs of human life are the contrails from airlines overhead and the sound of an occasional car buzzing along State Route 95.

Here is where I decided to stake my claim, the first step a prospector takes to mine public lands.

For a year, this remote and magnificent desert landscape was part ofValley of the Gods that uranium miners staked in 1984 and abandoned less than four months later; another, which appeared to be a gold claim, staked in 1984 in the Manti-La Sal National Forest and forfeited five years later; and a parcel out near Fry Canyon — the one I ultimately settled on — where numerous parties, mostly uranium mining companies, had staked dozens of claims between 1948 and 2007.

And then it was off to southern Utah.

It was a little before noon on a sunny day in late March when I met up with freelance photographer Kim Raff outside Blanding’s quaint little visitor’s center. After a last-minute supply run to the local hardware store, we piled gear into a rental SUV.

The one-hour drive to the claim site, which