jlbraun said:
Now there's a nice new fence blocking that area off
Agree completely.
This is an on-going problem here in CO, and I assume elsewhere. I've lived all over the CO Front Range, and every area is plagued with these problems.
My wife and I consider ourselves to be somewhat environmentalist-like. We recycle, believe in sustainable agriculture, support the protection of wilderness (within reason), etc. We spend a lot of our free time hiking, climbing, backpacking, etc (heck, we even met in a mountaineering club). So, I've always been angered when I see these scenes! After all, these spots were not set aside as 'national shooting ranges/national landfills'. I love to shoot, and do most of my shooting on public lands. As a matter of personal policy, I always leave with more than I brought to the area (my brass and trash, plus an extra bag or two of someone else's). Ultimately, we can all see why these spots end up closed... but, where do I go to shoot now?
When I lived in Pueblo we'd shoot at Rampart Range, along Rampart Range Road... Awesome spot for a shooting range, really the best I've ever seen. But, it was trashed, worse than even in those pictures... One time I went there and found a deer that had been poached right by the backstop. The shooter didn't even harvest the meat; just killed it because it was there, and left it to rot in the sun. Of course, the talk for years down that way was that the range was going to be eventually shut down because of this kind of stuff, and for all I know it may have been since I moved (I haven't lived down there in nearly five years, so I don't really know).
I then lived in Fort Collins, and shot out on the Pawnee Grasslands. A national grassland preserve, and it was treated like a landfill. I saw refrigerators, hot water heaters, tires, batteries, and anything else people thought of shooting at... Those pictures, while valuable to this point, hardly do it justice! I think that might be the same area I used to shoot at too.
Then I moved to Denver. Lefthand Canyon was said to be the most accessible spot to shoot, and it was closed just last week because of irresponsible morons (or so I saw in the paper).
By the way, do any of you know if all of the grasslands up there have been closed to shooting, or just the one spot? The wife and I were thinking of heading up that way in the next couple of weeks... But, there may be no point in it now
sad.