North Site CLOSED!!!!

[brass-meister]

Well put BoulderLaw. I see this type of closure activity all through this area. The old Left Hand site and more recently the 4wd access trail in Castle Gulch, just south of Jamestown. There wasn't any explanation to that access closure, but I bet a dollar to a donut it was the a$$ hat that lives across the street from trail entrance. I stopped there in the fall of 2008 to photograph an old gold milling site that is adjacent to the access, and 5 minutes hadn't passed and he was over questioning me if I was shooting in the area (someone was, maybe a 1/4 mile in or so by the report) and was bitching how he disliked "shooters" in the area. "this is my home and I shouldn't have to put up with this" he says. 2 weeks later there were metal stakes pounded in the ground right at the edge of the road so you couldn't even pull over off the asphalt. Then "mysteriously" large boulders show up conveniently in the MIDDLE of the trail and "no public access" signs show up nailed to trees. The final nail in the coffin shows up a few weeks ago as "official" Forest Service closure signs are installed. How does this happen? I understood if these trails have been in use for X numbers of years they just can't be randomly closed. How do people in who live in a NATIONAL FOREST get access closed to other citizens?

The shooting rule is you must be at a minimum, 150 yards from a road or structure, not shoot across a road and have a safe backstop to shoot in to. I'd like buy a range finder and visit the neighboring areas that have closed from complaints to exercise MY rights...
Is this passive-aggressive?... my x would probably think so.

[jh308]

. I'd like buy a range finder and visit the neighboring areas that have closed from complaints to exercise MY rights...

I think this is a great idea. If they force us w/in a 150 yards of them, maybe they'll leave us alone if we're next time we're a couple of miles away.

[Ed_S]

The shooting rule is you must be at a minimum, 150 yards from a road or structure, not shoot across a road and have a safe backstop to shoot in to. I'd like buy a range finder and visit the neighboring areas that have closed from complaints to exercise MY rights...
Is this passive-aggressive?... my x would probably think so.[/quote]

You also can't shoot across a river or within 150 yards of a trail.

[palepainter]

Just read about this. Major bummer. I enjoyed the occasional Fri morning up there shooting at my steel spinner. I hate left hand canyon. I find it hard to believe that Left Hand hasn't been shut down before North Site.

[cfortune]

I went up there on Sunday when they were boarding it up. I talked to the forest ranger and some parks people. They said it was because of complaints from local residents. Specifically regarding rounds landing on private property. The week before I was up and there were targets someone left at the top of the hill to the left (I was the only one there). I've don't know where any homes are around there but I'm sure those shots at the top of the hill travel pretty far.

They gave me a map of the area and I found somewhere small to go for the day but it definitely wasn't as fun.

It is temporary until they can decide whether it is safe to shoot there. Gave me some paper work regarding the closure and where to call / go if you wanted to state your case I guess. I don't know how you can justify other people being stupid though. You can't ban stupid people from an area unfortunately.

[cfortune]

I really shouldn't click reply on at the end of page 1 on 5 page posts... broken record over here.

[gnihcraes]

if you use google satellite maps you can see a couple of houses beyond and to the left of the burm... so I can guess that someone is just slinging rounds or shooting at items on top of that burm and they are getting up into the private land.

roughly looks like 1300 feet from the google map. (roughly)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=lyons+colorad o&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=51.576045,67.236328&ie=UTF8&hq=&hne ar=Lyons,+Boulder,+Colorado&ll=40.171266,-105.458837&spn=0.012264,0.02459&t=h&z=16&layer=t%3 E

[Ed_S]

I'm hopefully going to try out a new area this weekend.

I'll let you know how it works out.

[Obiwan]

Well I was stupid and made the trip this morning...

I was really tempted to shoot the sign in frustration but I guess that is how we got here

According to the sign the homes are 1/2 to 1 mile away

It basically tells you to go find somewhere else, but my problem is this

The instructions for where to shoot make this site legal in every way

It is 150 yds from stuff

It has a great backstop

So WTF???

The notice basically tells you to go anywhere but here

[roberth]

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense from a legal standpoint. All the points on the National Forest shooting rules are met, plus the rangers knew where we were. Now they'll have to go looking for us in the back country.