More than a year after the U.S. Forest Service pledged to control shooting on Colorado’s Front Range, concerns linger over a popular spot located between the state’s biggest metro areas.
The range is known as Turkey Tracks, near the Teller-Douglas county line off Colorado 67, north of Woodland Park. Under the plan, rangers would work to close sites deemed dangerous — sites off Gold Camp and Rampart Range roads, for example — while Turkey Tracks was identified as one potential area for safe gunfire in the broad effort “to more actively manage recreational sport shooting in Pike National Forest.”
That’s the explanation in a statement from the Forest Service. It said a “preliminary” analysis is due later this year examining the potential effects of designating and developing proposed ranges, including Turkey Tracks. A decision has not been made, the statement said.
But a draft plan calls for targets set across lanes of varying distances and uses, including handguns, rifles and bows and arrows. Colorado Parks and Wildlife recently announced awarding nearly $110,000 to Douglas County for metal targets at Turkey Tracks. The two agencies are members of the 11-group Southern Shooting Partnership, committed to a regional strategy addressing the growing activity.
To any suggestions of a safe future at Turkey Tracks, some onlookers remain unconvinced.
That includes the local volunteer fire chief, who says his team has responded to dozens of shooter-caused blazes in single summers. Over the years, Steve Brown says his crew has also regularly responded to self-imposed injuries and received late-night calls from awakened locals.
The land-owning Forest Service has observed the terrain with sloping backstops as “fairly amenable” for shooting. But if it were up to Brown, “I would probably shut it down,” he said. “Just because of the proximity to (Colorado 67) and the homes in the area.”
Dan Voth said the sound is constant from his home. He’s a retired Navy captain who counts himself a gun advocate and shooting enthusiast. “But my concerns are health and safety,” he said.
He’s among neighbors who have threatened legal action against the Forest Service. Neighbors have been upset, for one, with a lack of supervision at Turkey Tracks.
From his private fishery where stray bullets have landed and water has been drawn for extinguishing fires, Richard Johnson would like to see more supervision and enforcement, too. Still, “I’m all in favor of Turkey Tracks,” he said. “I’m all in favor of them increasing the development.”
The noise is “a nuisance,” Johnson said. “However, people need a safe place to go shoot, and Turkey Tracks is probably the safest place in the area.”
If it were closed, “it could drive shooters up into other places in the national forest,” he said.
But if the Forest Service is successful at closing other sites, as was the stated intent, Voth worries about a “funnel effect” at Turkey Tracks. “Shooting is going to increase exponentially and also increase the chance of something going wrong,” he said.
These were fears he shared with a neighbor, Linda Dewey. She had no comment for this article.
“Sorry,” she said. “I have moved. I solved the problem for myself.”
