Former Army base warns of grenades on local trails
Using unauthorized trails at Fort Ord “exposes visitors to unexploded ordnance hazards."
BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED MAR 31, 2024 12:39 PM EDT
The Army and the Bureau of Land Management are urging visitors to the Fort Ord National Monument in central California to please stick to only official hiking trails in the park. Going off those paths puts hikers at risk of running into the many unexploded munitions on the former Army installation, ranging from grenades to artillery rounds and bombs.
The warning, shared by the Bureau of Land Management this past week, came after the Army discovered several unofficial and unauthorized trails throughout the Army-base-turned-national monument. The U.S. Army, which is overseeing an ongoing cleanup of the space following decades of munitions training, found a series of unauthorized trails and jumps near Barloy Canyon Road.
“Unauthorized trail building and use of unsigned paths at the Fort Ord National Monument is dangerous,” Eric Morgan, the manager of Fort Ord National Monument Manager Eric Morgan, said in the BLM statement.. “Creating illegal routes exposes visitors to unexploded ordnance hazards, destroys endangered plants and wildlife habitat, and is costly to remedy.”
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