SAN JUAN COUNTY, Utah 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 of Bears Ears National Monument and off-limits to new mining claims. That changed in December when President Donald Trump reduced the 1.35 million-acre monument by 85 percent. The more stringent protections the Obama-era monument designation afforded officially lifted in early February , leaving sites like this once again open for business. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) braced for a potential influx of new claims .