I went out to go shooting today with a friend at North Fork Wolf Creek
Rd dispersed shooting lanes in the Tillamook State Forest. I was a wee
bit excited and woke up at 3 AM! Couldn't get back to sleep so got up,
packed and left at 4:45. Arrived at 6:15 (it's just a little ways from
SW Washington!!!). Only 1 other person there on lane 4. Sweet! Had
the whole place to myself!
As I looked around at all the lanes, I got rather depressed at the
volume of trash (to me, any trash is too much!). I began to clean up at
lane 1.
Soon after, my friend Steve arrived. We are both cleanup kind of guys, (he attends just about
every group cleanup event we do!!!), so he started in on lane 2, which
was not bad at all. A group of young guys were shooting there and took a
break to hear our message of responsible shooting and allowed us to
gather up the minor amounts of trash.
We moved up to lane 3 where there were four other people already sharing
the lane. We explained we'd like to clean up that lane and they gladly
stopped and joined us! We were also able to replace 3 boulders that had
been missing for a while (I love the winch on my "new-to-me" truck!!!). I
remember Doug's name but can't place the others. Thank you Doug and
guys for being such good sports and giving back to the Shooting Sports!
Steve and I thanked them and promised a BBQ lunch when we return from lane 4.
Lane 4 was not bad at all. In fact, we didn't have to do any clean up
there because the person shooting there (Tony, I believe his name was),
had already taken care of most of it and his friends would help him
finish it off. So, all we did at lane 4 was to cover up some graffiti on
the jersey barriers. Thank you Tony and crew!
Back to lane 3 and joined the other 4 guys for a group shoot and Polish
Sausage Dog BBQ. Very nice morning for the weather and good people to
meet and recreate with!
If this had been an official cleanup event, the Ore Dept of Forestry may
have helped with the disposal fee, however, I decided Trash No Land
would cover the cost this time. We would appreciate any and all
donations via the Trash No Land website (Thank you!!!).
20 bags of trash, + a shot up gas tank and a PC computer. Pretty good haul for a half day payback and play!
Thank you Steve! I'll shoot with you anytime!
Bill
#StewardshipKeepsItOpen, #RandomActsOfCleanups, #TrashNoLand
