AAR: Colorado Springs, CO, Patriot's Weekend April 23-24, 2022

codefogey · April 25, 2022, 03:45:09 PM

A great group in Colorado Springs, with 17 shooters on the line, 11 of whom were age 14 or under, one who was 9 years old!
The youth were extremely safe and absorbed instruction quickly.

Challenging conditions with very string wind gusts for setup on Friday, a local instructor having to evacuate to escape wild fires, Saturday wind sufficient to destroy the target line. The instructor team stepped up to make repairs and the shooters looked for ways to hold their mats to the ground.

Everyone persisted and instruction continued while target line repairs were made. Finally, with two wire strands both top and bottom, extra t-posts, wires lashing the t-posts together, and zip ties in all four corners of the targets, our target line was stabilized, and we could shoot without interruption. Many, many rocks and stakes held down the shooting mats.

Shooters returned Sunday to slightly cooler temperatures but much lighter winds, and a great day was had by all.

It was smiles all around at the end. Then as cleanup finished, and after the youth shooters had built (from all the mat-holding rocks) an "A" for Appleseed on the berm's back hillside, the first flakes of snow appeared...

The trail life organization had shooters at the event, and Maximum Ordinate was there to help with the modeling (as well as dSB for an SBiT3)! Dax the Colorado mascot dog provided companionship.