unrealtrip
Member
I came back from my Knoxville BLM trip early for reasons which I will mention. This is a very long read, but I wanted to be detailed about my experience and what I took from it.
At the bottom is a link to a photo gallery of all of the pictures I took. I recommend you take a look. If this place was closed to shooting tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised.
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My plan was to find some BLM land that could fit a few needs. I wanted to do some four wheeling, camping, shooting and maybe some hunting. The Knoxville BLM seemed to fit the bill perfectly based on what I'd heard and read about it. I checked the CA BLM website first to make sure I knew what the rules were with regard to where I could off road, where I could camp and if fires were allowed and where shooting/hunting was allowed. Camping is more or less allowed wherever you want, but no campfires outside of the concrete firepits at the Lower Hunting Creek campground area. Four wheeling rules were standard fare, stick to the trails and the shooting rules were somewhat clear. Hunting is allowed as is target shooting anywhere that does not say "no shooting" on the PDF map they make available. What isn't clear is how large of an area is protected from shooters and hunters, there is just a spot on the map with an asterisk. Otherwise the map had a "pistol range" marked on it, and the shooting rules were pretty basic, pick up your brass, bring your own targets and clean up after yourself. No problem.
When I arrived at the south entrance I started driving in on the dirt road, which is technically a county road and what's the first thing I see? The "rough road" sign is riddled with bullet holes. This sign is about 2feet from the country dirt road and about 40feet from the paved street.
Lovely I'm thinking to myself, my expectations dropping a bit. As you crest the ridge, there is a BLM sign with posted rules and what not as well as direction to the campsite. Since it was my first night and I got in later than I planned, I figured I'd just camp there and find someplace nicer for my second night.
The campground experience:
As I pulled into the campsite Thursday evening, not expecting to see anyone, there were two longbed trucks with a large canopy arrangement. They had either been there for some time, or were planning to from the looks of it. The first thing I see is a guy wearing a blue shirt that says "PETA" on the front in large white block letters. Christ you've got to be kidding me, these guys are camping out here? There are only 2 other campsite areas available, one with a few picnic tables that looks a little nicer than the one with only 1. I pull up to the one with a few, leash my dog and jump out. The guy with the PETA shirt starts approaching in a slow and oddly careful manner, which I later discovered was due to his state of supreme drunkeness, but when he sees my german shepherd starts doing the seig heil nazi arm thing and yelling something at us. My first thought was jesus, I'm out in no mans land next to some crazies and my gun is still locked up. Gee whiz, I guess I wasn't going to find solitude midweek here.
I greet him and try to be polite, he wants to sit down and bs about things so I oblige him. His PETA shirt actually said in small print people eating tasty animals. He kind of weirds me out with the stuff he is talking about and he goes on to say we could feed the world with the number of dogs we put down. He also keeps staring at my dog saying how great a dog she is and what he could do with her. At this point I'm thinking, ok get the f*ck away from me. I know you're drunk, but something has short circuited here. I met his friend, seemed like a nice fairly normal guy, although the next morning he had a huge basket of golfballs which he was driving up the hill. Due to the volume, I'm assuming he had no intention of picking them back up but I could be wrong. Also in all fairness, the drunk dude, I'll reserve mentioning names in case someone knows him, was a nice guy the next day. He was just kinda weird when he was trashed, but then again... maybe so am I lol.
Land conditions:
Campground
Anyway, the campsite is one of those no shooting zones for obvious reasons and it is even posted there, however it looked like something out of a third world country battle zone. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures, but it was a mess. The toilet was about the only thing that didn't have bullet holes. The concrete benches, garbage cans and firepit with riddle with craters from bullet impacts. The metal guard to prevent people from driving off was filled with holes and the trail marking sign was so shot up you couldn't even see what it said. I wouldn't bring my family there.
The next morning I broke down camp and decided to make like a tree and headed out toward the "pistol range." Now I need to mention a couple of things real quick about the area. 1- There is a lot of private property there, so much in fact that every time you round a corner you're seeing signs that say posteed private property, no trespassing, etc. and 2- while you can gather from a topo that the land is hilly, what you don't see is that it is almost entirely exposed in spite of the trees and there is extremely thick ground cover making it virtually impossible to just hike off trail if you felt like it, so the amount of land you can actually use is much smaller than what you see on the map. Nearly everything south of the campsite was private.
Pistol range:
Anyway, driving to the pistol range I see garbage. A can here and there, a beer box, tp, you name it. I was going to pick some of it up, but there was just too much to deal with so I ignored it and all the private property signs and pressed on. When I rounded the corner to the pistol range, this is what I saw.
See the rest of the pictures here.
I guess some people missed the rules section that says pick up casings and clean up after yourself. Well, I did come to shoot so I set up my target and shot some .45 and moved back a ways and shot my .22 rifle for a while. I made sure to bring home all of my spent casings and when I couldn't find my own, I filled the spot with someone else's.
Trails
After leaving there I decided to wheel around a little and without getting into too much detail, just about everywhere I looked there was trash and left over targets. There were a few areas where it just looked like a junkyard there was so much crap piled up and shot apart. Old tv sets, appliances you name it. You know why shooters get no respect? Because they have none. It was sad.
I know this is way too long so I'm going to try to wrap up quick here. South of the campsite on the left side of the road was an area that allowed for some pretty long shots, it too was a junkyard. Oddly enough the bulk of the visible casings laying around were from shotguns, even in the long range area. Anyway I kept driving, seeing pockets of spent casings at the side of the road every so often. And more or less, the entire road on both sides had private property signs and the areas that didn't, as it turns out, were also private property as I was so politely informed by a local landowner who saw me casing my .22 after a missed opportunity at a jackrabbit.
I could not imagine heading out there to go on a hike, aside from the fact that every scenic area is riddled with litter and looks like a warzone I'd be afraid of getting shot either by accident, or on purpose. I'm glad I was there mid-week and there wasn't really anyone around, I can't imagine that place on a weekend.
The land abuse was rampant.
Shooters are entirely to blame.
See all the pictures I took here.
At the bottom is a link to a photo gallery of all of the pictures I took. I recommend you take a look. If this place was closed to shooting tomorrow I wouldn't be surprised.
-----------
My plan was to find some BLM land that could fit a few needs. I wanted to do some four wheeling, camping, shooting and maybe some hunting. The Knoxville BLM seemed to fit the bill perfectly based on what I'd heard and read about it. I checked the CA BLM website first to make sure I knew what the rules were with regard to where I could off road, where I could camp and if fires were allowed and where shooting/hunting was allowed. Camping is more or less allowed wherever you want, but no campfires outside of the concrete firepits at the Lower Hunting Creek campground area. Four wheeling rules were standard fare, stick to the trails and the shooting rules were somewhat clear. Hunting is allowed as is target shooting anywhere that does not say "no shooting" on the PDF map they make available. What isn't clear is how large of an area is protected from shooters and hunters, there is just a spot on the map with an asterisk. Otherwise the map had a "pistol range" marked on it, and the shooting rules were pretty basic, pick up your brass, bring your own targets and clean up after yourself. No problem.
When I arrived at the south entrance I started driving in on the dirt road, which is technically a county road and what's the first thing I see? The "rough road" sign is riddled with bullet holes. This sign is about 2feet from the country dirt road and about 40feet from the paved street.
Lovely I'm thinking to myself, my expectations dropping a bit. As you crest the ridge, there is a BLM sign with posted rules and what not as well as direction to the campsite. Since it was my first night and I got in later than I planned, I figured I'd just camp there and find someplace nicer for my second night.
The campground experience:
As I pulled into the campsite Thursday evening, not expecting to see anyone, there were two longbed trucks with a large canopy arrangement. They had either been there for some time, or were planning to from the looks of it. The first thing I see is a guy wearing a blue shirt that says "PETA" on the front in large white block letters. Christ you've got to be kidding me, these guys are camping out here? There are only 2 other campsite areas available, one with a few picnic tables that looks a little nicer than the one with only 1. I pull up to the one with a few, leash my dog and jump out. The guy with the PETA shirt starts approaching in a slow and oddly careful manner, which I later discovered was due to his state of supreme drunkeness, but when he sees my german shepherd starts doing the seig heil nazi arm thing and yelling something at us. My first thought was jesus, I'm out in no mans land next to some crazies and my gun is still locked up. Gee whiz, I guess I wasn't going to find solitude midweek here.
I greet him and try to be polite, he wants to sit down and bs about things so I oblige him. His PETA shirt actually said in small print people eating tasty animals. He kind of weirds me out with the stuff he is talking about and he goes on to say we could feed the world with the number of dogs we put down. He also keeps staring at my dog saying how great a dog she is and what he could do with her. At this point I'm thinking, ok get the f*ck away from me. I know you're drunk, but something has short circuited here. I met his friend, seemed like a nice fairly normal guy, although the next morning he had a huge basket of golfballs which he was driving up the hill. Due to the volume, I'm assuming he had no intention of picking them back up but I could be wrong. Also in all fairness, the drunk dude, I'll reserve mentioning names in case someone knows him, was a nice guy the next day. He was just kinda weird when he was trashed, but then again... maybe so am I lol.
Land conditions:
Campground
Anyway, the campsite is one of those no shooting zones for obvious reasons and it is even posted there, however it looked like something out of a third world country battle zone. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures, but it was a mess. The toilet was about the only thing that didn't have bullet holes. The concrete benches, garbage cans and firepit with riddle with craters from bullet impacts. The metal guard to prevent people from driving off was filled with holes and the trail marking sign was so shot up you couldn't even see what it said. I wouldn't bring my family there.
The next morning I broke down camp and decided to make like a tree and headed out toward the "pistol range." Now I need to mention a couple of things real quick about the area. 1- There is a lot of private property there, so much in fact that every time you round a corner you're seeing signs that say posteed private property, no trespassing, etc. and 2- while you can gather from a topo that the land is hilly, what you don't see is that it is almost entirely exposed in spite of the trees and there is extremely thick ground cover making it virtually impossible to just hike off trail if you felt like it, so the amount of land you can actually use is much smaller than what you see on the map. Nearly everything south of the campsite was private.
Pistol range:
Anyway, driving to the pistol range I see garbage. A can here and there, a beer box, tp, you name it. I was going to pick some of it up, but there was just too much to deal with so I ignored it and all the private property signs and pressed on. When I rounded the corner to the pistol range, this is what I saw.
See the rest of the pictures here.
I guess some people missed the rules section that says pick up casings and clean up after yourself. Well, I did come to shoot so I set up my target and shot some .45 and moved back a ways and shot my .22 rifle for a while. I made sure to bring home all of my spent casings and when I couldn't find my own, I filled the spot with someone else's.
Trails
After leaving there I decided to wheel around a little and without getting into too much detail, just about everywhere I looked there was trash and left over targets. There were a few areas where it just looked like a junkyard there was so much crap piled up and shot apart. Old tv sets, appliances you name it. You know why shooters get no respect? Because they have none. It was sad.
I know this is way too long so I'm going to try to wrap up quick here. South of the campsite on the left side of the road was an area that allowed for some pretty long shots, it too was a junkyard. Oddly enough the bulk of the visible casings laying around were from shotguns, even in the long range area. Anyway I kept driving, seeing pockets of spent casings at the side of the road every so often. And more or less, the entire road on both sides had private property signs and the areas that didn't, as it turns out, were also private property as I was so politely informed by a local landowner who saw me casing my .22 after a missed opportunity at a jackrabbit.
I could not imagine heading out there to go on a hike, aside from the fact that every scenic area is riddled with litter and looks like a warzone I'd be afraid of getting shot either by accident, or on purpose. I'm glad I was there mid-week and there wasn't really anyone around, I can't imagine that place on a weekend.
The land abuse was rampant.
Shooters are entirely to blame.
See all the pictures I took here.
