There were some well-aged elk steaks available at the upper pit.




I ran into some members of SnoJammers club of Puyallup who were cleaning along the roadway.

Great news: A full time NFS law enforcement officer (LEO) will be dedicated to the Hwy 410 corridor working out of the Enumclaw office starting this December.

Thanks to all who participated on another big clean-up day this year of the 3 large shooting sites (FS 7013, FS 70 Pit, FS 72 Pit). I noticed 5 local folks and at least 5 NFS employees also doing clean-up. I'm sure NFS is spending more this year than ever on bad behaving shooter trash / destruction. More clean-up dumpsters than last year, more signs, more abandoned shot up vehicles hauled out, purchase and placement of large boulders, berms, replacing and positioning large tree / vegetation debris to attempt blocking unsafe shooting, etc. WaGuns signs posted Saturday are appreciated.

Notes from 10/3 Saturday shooting sites tour: 11 problem sites visited within 5 miles of our communities. 11 is small number of the 60+ problem sites. As mentioned in a previous member post, our tour encountered and intervened on a group illegally shooting. We audibly heard an illegal target explosion and saw a fraction of the number of shot destroyed and fallen trees. All sites toured had obvious trigger trash except 2. The 2 out of 7 high risk sites are where bullets have been fired into our communities. This year, a bi-weekly effort continues by a few of us locals to clean-up all trigger trash from the 7 high risk community sites including posting a variety of signs. No shoot / warning signs typically last less than 60 days whether supplied by NFS or our local support group.

During the tour, there was discussion and agreement that recreational sport shooters need education. I believe most WaGuns registered users are responsible shooters. What education actions and content will WaGuns provide? How will WaGuns connect with bad behaving shooters? Will WaGuns lead and provide education content that other groups can use / publish, e.g. NRA, SeattleGuns.net, Hunting-Washington.com, WashingtonArmsCollectors.org, etc.? Can WaGuns members pull together and work on funding avenues to pay for the now routine trigger trash clean-up?

That's awesome news and will really make a difference up there. I am surprised they were able to allocate that so quickly.


There is nothing to fund, a couple times a year we (as a community) schedule a cleanup and tackle it.

Other National Forest Service activity users, e.g. hunters, campers, hikers, anglers, climbers, snowmobilers, a Christmas tree cutter all pay fees and often an additional permit charge to do their activity. Why should NFS tax payer money, WaGuns responsible shooters, local residents, NFS personnel and many others do clean-up and pay for the destructive mess the bad behaving target shooters cause? Is WaGuns only satisfied with trigger trashed site clean-up events?

I never said or implied we we're only interested in anything. I nearly implied that as a community we do a great job of coming together and tacking the problems in front of us.

Is WaGuns interested in spearheading a federal revenue generating fee system to shoot on NFS property? No, we are not.

What we are, are a large group of volunteers. Nobody here gets paid. We do what we do because we love it, and we want to support our community.

There is recreational shooting all across the state. Hundreds of thousands of acres, not just FS-70 and the surrounding area.

We are here to support where we can, how we can. We are not the people damaging the forests, yet still get clumped in with them and end up being guilt by association.

Swen you sound upset. We do pay. Every box of ammo every gun you buy is taxed. That money can only go back to the land we use and conservation of animals. Even though we don't see it we pay more they any 2 or 3 of those groups combined. The snowmobilers we do our thing to contribute too you don't see it. But we have to our areas clean or the government takes them away from us.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Having a full time LEO off 410 is very great news to hear. Lack of enforcement is what caused this issue to begin with and now we can make headway on reducing the "bad behavior". I won't comment about the politics of the matter; i'm done with that.

We did good work on saturday and will continue to do so in the future. I believe the next course of action is to create new signs with different language and install them in the areas of concern. I didn't notice any signs other than in the main shooting areas. Once those are in place and re-installed if shot up; there will be no excuse when the new LEO comes by and sees someone shooting in those areas.

Also i hope we can get both the upper pit and the forest clearing rearranged for safer shooting by next spring when target shooting is at it's high. I know one of the guys who works for NFS said he would be glad to do it if he can get his hands on the necessary equipment.

Fantastic news! Lets get this new LEO (or is it Jeff?) briefed on the trouble areas. We definitely saw some eye opening behavior/shooting areas last Saturday on the tour.

I remember Marty, I believe her name was, mentioning something about a map in the works with the location of the current and a few new shooting spots. Did anything ever come of this?

Yes, Martie (The District Ranger) has a final version of this map ready, and they are working to publish it to their site shortly. I've seen a copy, but not sure if it is okay to share yet, so just waiting to hear back from her.

I talked to a guy from FS today.. They are making some commercials and short videos to help demonstrate responsible shooters, safe backstops, 'leave no trace' etc. They want WaGuns to be involved in it, providing the eye candy for some B-Roll shooting footage as well as some face time on camera.

You have seen most of us right?

I nominate Steve for face time.....But let's leave the Cake eating out of the footage, ok?

Looks like WaGuns will be represented by MadPick and DGM33!

I got that call from him as well but I haven't talked to him yet. The first thing I thought is that no one wants to see me on camera and if they see what I drive it would look bad for all of us