To Accept or Not to Accept

I'm working on a boundary survey in the east Sandia Mountains - being the NW 1/4NW 1/4NW1/4, S34 (Approximately 10 acres). The terrain is quite rough and very wooded. Turns out the county road isn't along the section line like it is supposed to be.

That's not too much of an issue (from a survey standpoint) - it is clearly not along the section line - Oops.

The preceding plat corner monuments are waayyyy out.

These will simply be rejected - they're just plain bad.

The fences (lines of occupation) in some places are right on, others are way off...

The terrain is so rough here that I really can rely on the fence/occupation as decent evidence. The fences predate the BLM survey in 1976, but the BLM apparently didn't put much weight on the fence line/occupation line.

There are some other monuments that are fairly close on.

These pose a bit of a problem. Are they acceptable? In terms of the terrain - probably so, but the section line is the section line. I really can't introduce an angle point in that line where it does not exist. The monument pictured here is not called for anywhere. In NM it's against the law to remove a property corner, so my option is to reject the point and set a new one (about 0.7' away) or to accept the old monument which is reasonable for when it was set, but not so hot for today's day and age. Thus the dilemma....

Fence Hopping

Regardless of your views on illegal aliens/illegal border crossing, I would think that everyone could agree that there are negative impacts involved with the ease of crossing the border. We've had survey crews working along the Columbus, NM port of entry area directly across the border from Puerto Palomas, Mexico. There are issues with the drug trade here and I'm sure with any border crossing locations, the drug lord activity south of the border here is flowing over into the US side of the border. (See my post from several days ago about Kevlar vests).



This photo shows the U.S.A. / Mexico border, a nicely kept barbed wire fence. My guess is that someone frequently crossing the border, most likely involved with drug traffic, was spotted by Border Patrol and was quickly leaving jurisdiction by crossing back over into Mexico. Problem was that there was a mud puddle at this particular location and he lost his shoe in mid stride over the border. Dilemma: to cross back into America to get his shoe and risk being tied up in the bureaucracy of being deported or leave the shoe. Apparently the shoe lost out...