>>2311183I like hiking down abandoned or seldom-used forest service roads. These are dirt or gravel paths used for forestry or mineral excavation in national forests.
I hiked down one last year to explore the abandoned Claiborne air-to-ground weapons range (which is probably a felony, lol). Every map shows a break in the road where it meets a creek, which is the restricted area boundary. I figured there was probably just no bridge and the creek was a foot deep at most, as it is where a nearby trail crosses it, maybe a mile away.
The crossing is at 31.16738, -92.59153 if you want to check it out. I followed the trail that’s north of there, took a right on 277, hiked another mile, then turned down 275, the abandoned forest road.
The road ends at a moat. The Army (or whoever) actually dug out the creek with a backhoe or something. It’s easily 30’ wide, and I poked it with a big stick and it was a good 5’ deep.
There’s another road that looks like it crosses the trail at 31.18814, -92.59531. But it doesn’t actually come that close. It’s on top of a mellow hill, and can be seen from satellite images. That hill, however, is a jumbled mess of downed trees from a tornado a few years ago and/or super dense undergrowth (Louisiana is semi-tropical and some parts of forests are more like jungles).
I never did make it onto the weapons range. And desu, there’s probably not anything interesting there. Still, the boundary was pretty cool. I wasn’t expecting a moat.
tl;dr the government doesn’t want people walking around an active gunnery range but I’m a dumb ass who tried anyway.
