I live in a pretty great place for trail running. I’m in a small town in the Skykomish River valley, on the western edge of the Cascades. I have an awesome state park with trail head 3 miles from my door. National Forest is just up the highway 15 minutes or so. And there are all kinds of logging and Forest Service roads on some of the hills and mountains around town too.

I love to hit the trails. The popular trails are nice for encouragement from hikers, restroom facilities, and the trails usually get regular maintenance. I love the more secluded trails too. I like the solitude of no one else being around. I don’t, however, like taking my dogs on runs with me on popular trails because of the crowds. And I don’t really like taking them on other official trails because, while they are pretty good at staying out of the way on leash, the terrain and trails don’t always accommodate running with two leashed dogs. They tend to start thinking they own the place when they haven’t seen anyone for a while, and tend to run up barking at people when off leash. A couple barks and they’re done, but those other people don’t know that when two dogs are running up to them. They also have very strong prey instincts and will chase after just about any wildlife.

So, I run a lot on old logging and Forest Service roads. I have a couple gates that I usually park at, and from there I have many options for just about any length of run I want. I prefer to run starting at a gate with no other parked cars. There are quite a few in the area, so I can move on to the next if need be. I like to let the dogs run off leash when possible, and these roads don’t see a lot of other use. If there are other people, the width of the roads and more regular surface makes it easier to run with them on leash, and to pass other people, sometimes also with dogs.

So few people using the logging roads, which makes it great for running with my dogs off leash, also makes the area popular with people to go shooting. Even though there are signs posted at all the gates and places that have been popular for shooting, people still go out there.

There are a couple spots that I avoid, because so many people shoot out there. But I’ve still had a couple close calls.

People try to be safe, but they often just don’t know the area well enough to know that beyond the trees, or stump, up the hill, or over the gravel pile that they’re shooting at is another road or trail.

Last year, I had a friend come out from Seattle to go running with me. I left the dogs home, but we went to one of the couple logging gates that I frequent the most. There was no one else there when we started. We ran out to a fork in the road, then up a small hill to the end of the road and continued on a trail that connected to another road. After running out that way for a while, we turned back.

We could hear shooting for a while, but weren’t quite sure where it was coming from. It sounded like generally the direction we had started from. I didn’t think too much of it, because the people I’d seen shooting in that area had all been shooting in the opposite direction. Then we entered the connecting trail and the shot sounded too close for that. I yelled, not sure if they heard me, and we proceeded slowly. We made sure to try to be as visible as possible when we came out of the trees. We didn’t hear anymore shots. Once down the hill we saw a guy come walking out of the couple year old regrowth. He was all apologetic. He was about to keep shooting but saw us come out from the trail, which he didn’t know about.

About a month ago, I took the dogs to go running on some logging roads just outside the National Forest boundaries. It was sort of raining off and on, and I didn’t think too many people would be out. I was wrong. There were people shooting at 3 or 4 of the regular spots on the way out to where I wanted to go. They were far enough away from my destination that I wasn’t worried. We ran from a couple closed gates that I wanted to check out, and headed for another gate that we had run from several times.

We got going, and less than a mile from the car it had cooled down a bit and the sky opened up. It was pouring down, and I was only ready for lighter rain. We turned back.

About a minute later, I started hearing shots much closer than the normal spots, well into the posted “no target shooting” area.

SSWWWWWZZZZZZZZZZ. A bullet flew by about 10-15ft directly overhead. The shots came from nearby, 200-300 yards or so. The road coming in was just on the other side of a small creek valley from the one we were running. I gave out a loud “HEY.”

I ran quite a bit faster after that, getting back to the car pretty quickly. I was tapering, so cutting the run short wasn’t that big of a deal. I loaded up the dogs and headed home. Whoever was doing the shooting had already taken off in the less than 10 minutes from the shot until I passed the area they had been shooting. I guess they didn’t want to stick around to apologize like the other guy.

Those aren’t the only times I’ve been uncomfortable, to say the least, running in the woods with people shooting. There’s one other hair-raising shots-overhead incident and several times I’ve run across people shooting from the logging road. This all came to mind today, because I heard some loud shots on my run. At first, I thought they were closer than they were. I had intended to take the fork towards the shooting, but I changed my route to run in the opposite direction to try to avoid possible strays.

I’m not against guns. I was in the Army, I enjoy shooting, and I own firearms. One of those strange liberals with guns. I know that most people are careful and safety conscious, or at least think they are acting in such manner. But I also know the danger, and it only takes a little bit of unawareness. So, there are places that I used to run but don’t anymore. There are other places that I won’t run on weekends. I don’t really trust the safety consciousness and situational awareness of other people. No one is more responsible for my own safety than I am myself.