Western Washington Shooters Lose Public Shooting Area

There’s really nothing like being able to shoot outdoors. There are times where target retrievers and benches are nice, but other times it feels great to shoot tin cans outdoors without feeling walls around you. For shooters that live in the city, these types of outdoor shooting areas can be extremely difficult to find. Even when a place is found, it may take a long time to get there and back. More driving time means less shooting time!

For quite a while, shooters have driven from the greater Seattle area to an area off the I-90 highway up towards Snoqualmie pass in order to shoot outdoors. Up in the hills off Tinkham road is a shooting pit called “Hansen Creek Gravel Pit”. This shooting area has been a popular destination because it is relatively close for many people, and is close to the highway.

Unfortunately, this shooting area was closed recently.

From the Forest Service post on the subject:

Forest Service Closes Hansen Creek Gravel Pit to Target Shooting
New Trailhead, Mountain Bike Trail Being Built

The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest is closing the target shooting area today at Hansen Creek gravel pit to build a new trailhead off the I-90 corridor in the Snoqualmie Ranger District. The Hansen Creek Trailhead will access a new bike trail system expected to be finished next spring. Mountains to Sound Greenway and the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance are building the mountain bike trails, converting many old logging roads.

Forest Service regulations prohibit discharging a firearm within 150 yards of a residence, campsite, or developed recreation site. Violators can be fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned up to six months in jail. For more information contact Snoqualmie Ranger District at 425-888-1421.

This news is unfortunate for shooters who are now left to find other areas to shoot in the area. Since the terrain is wooded and and combined with the steep nature of the mountains in this area, shooters will have difficulty finding a comparable area. Ironically, this comes just after Obama’s effort to drastically restrict shooting on public lands (500,000 acres) was abandoned (good for us shooters!).

If you feel strongly about this matter, please contact the Forest Service.

-Gavin

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7 Responses to Western Washington Shooters Lose Public Shooting Area

  1. Kevin says:

    Ack…. fix the typo in the title to “Lose”. It hurts my eyes to read that ;P

  2. Mike says:

    So where is there to go now? I had been looking forward to going there for a while.

  3. Steve says:

    This was the last real place to target shoot in the i90 corridor this side of sniqualmie pass! It’s going to be closed to make a bike trail? How many endless miles of trails do bikers already have? ( I am also a biker) This is terrible. We can log the entire state and wash away entire hillsides to mine minerals but we can’t shoot because it “hurts the environment”? Make sure your “no war for oil” bumper sticker is visible on your Subaru as you burn oil driving up to your new bike trail.

  4. monica mcdonnell says:

    There are still spots to shoot along USFS 5510. The closure document is dated 05/10/2011. http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5299246.pdf
    Just make sure you are between the John Wayne Trail & Hansen Pit. Past the gate is also ok. Don’t use the old pit. The rangers will tell you the entire road is closed to target shooting. Disinformation to keep shooters out. The small print states that you have to be 150 yards from road right-of-way & trailheads. I was up there the past weekend yet far too may folks out hiking, biking & xmas tree cutting to shoot safely. Don’t use the pits right next to the road!
    One of the pits now has about 50 pumpkins blown to bits in the past few weeks less than 50 yds from road. This freaks out non-gun folks coming up to cut a tree and sures gives law enforcement more reason to push the no shooting zone out another 10 miles.

  5. Roman says:

    Monica
    I can barely see the map on my phone.
    So what exit can I shoot and can you give appx directions to the pits that I can shoot?

  6. Dan says:

    This is so ridiculous on so many levels. If the forest service is willing to go out of their way to close all these areas and make a dedicated mountain bike area, why won’t they do the same for us shooters? Oh that’s right…their hobby is better than our hobby.

    Grab a bull dozer and plow up some berms in several areas and call them, “Designated Target Shooting Zones” and restrict hikers and mountain bikers from entering those areas. Safety concerns solved. You want us to stay out of their area with our hobby, why can’t they do the same for us?

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