The Los Alamos Sportsmen's Club (LASC) is a nonprofit organization in operation since the mid 1940s (LA Rifle Association) and at the present site in Rendija Canyon since the early/mid 1960’s.  The, believe, 1967 thirty five year lease with the then AEC became very desirable to Herb Rosen, AEC, due to the fact that the range was the location of a WWII army munitions impact area from Tank Mesa (now Barranca Mesa).  It has been swept by the Fort Bliss explosives team, and others since, several times but each time additional munitions have been found just to the north and east of the developed range area. 

An elected board of volunteers governs the LASC.  The LASC is affiliated with the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) and the National Rifle Association (NRA).  The LASC has no paid employees.  However, with the concurrence of the DoE, in exchange for security surveillance and limited maintenance, the Club permits one member family to reside on the licensed land in Rendija Canyon.  The Club facilities were constructed by mostly volunteer labor, using materials donated or purchased by the Club.

The Club firearm facilities include; a club house with meeting room, rest rooms and indoor pistol and archery range, pistol ranges with five pits, with earthen berms, for various activities, four shotgun ranges for skeet, trap, Olympic Bunker Trap, and sporting clays, rifle range for conventional and black powder with 100, 200, and 300 yard with earthen berms.  Archery has bullseye, conventional, and 3-D archery ranges.  An outdoor picnic/meeting site with a covered pavilion.

The facilities are on the Department of Energy property and the Club is currently licensed for use through DoE.  The 900+ acre Rendija Canyon parcel is slated for transfer to Los Alamos County after archaeological site investigation and cleanup of the any contamination.  At this time the surveys on the parcel by the Department of Energy have been completed and the DoE decided to retain the land licensed to the Club and what is known as the “poor man’s range” approx. 1 mile east of the Club.

The Los Alamos Sportsman's Club range is a major recreational facility for approx. 1000 individual and family members mostly from Los Alamos, but also from Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Espanola, Jemez Springs, Taos, and others communities in northern New Mexico.  Essentially all full service ranges in the Rio Grande Valley have been closed over the past few years because of BLM and Forest Service edict or real estate development.  The LASC ranges provide the only indoor and outdoor, full service shooting sports facility within 100 miles of Los Alamos.  The LASC encourages and provides the means for responsible use of firearms in a safe setting rather than unstructured shooting in the neighboring forests.

Governmental entities as well as private citizens use the ranges.  The Los Alamos Police Department (LAPD) relies upon the Sportsmen's Club ranges for practice and qualification.  Other organizations that use, or have used, the LASC shooting ranges include the Los Alamos Sheriffs Department, the N.M. Mounted Patrol, the N.M. Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Forrest Service, the DEA, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Secret Service.  The LASC welcomes the opportunity to open the range facilities in support of regional and National law enforcement agencies.

The shooting and archery ranges and picnic grounds are used by the Cub Scouts for week camps, Boy Scouts for training and summer and winter overnight campouts, the 4H Shooting Sports programs, the N.M. Department of Fish and Game Youth Hunter Education Section, the American Legion, and fraternal and professional groups for social functions.

Not only does the facility support the direct interests of all community residents and guests, but there is an economic benefit to the community because registered archery, shotgun, rifle and pistol matches attract shooters from throughout the southwest.  The LASC facility was used in 1996 as a training site by the U.S. Olympic Cross-Country Biathlon team.  The Club has hosted the New Mexico Sporting Clays state championship matches and the N.M. Department of Fish and Game Youth Shotgun matches.  In late July 2000, the LASC hosted the New Mexico 3-D state archery tournament and since Archery Shooters Association tournaments.  These events usually run for two or more days and bring in as many as several hundred visitors at a time.  In 2006 an Olympic Bunker Trap facility was constructed to promote Olympic style, International Skeet shooting, only 26 other facilities in the United States and only the second high altitude facility next to Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center.

The Sportsman's Club contributes to the northern New Mexico communities by providing hunter safety courses, training in safe gun handling, and proficiency in target shooting.  The excellent firearms safety record in Los Alamos, a community with many firearms in the home, is outstanding owing in part to the ongoing training effort supported by the LASC.  The Club supports many other firearms and outdoor related courses provided throughout the year with emphasis on safety and responsibility. Several Club members are trained and certified as NRA Instructors.

As a shooting range the LASC facility has been used as firearms and artillery range since World War II.  The U.S. Army used the Club area in Rendija Canyon extensively as a range for both small arms and artillery and mortar shots into the area from Tank Mesa (now Barranca Mesa).  It would be very expensive, if not impractical, to clean up the range facility and surrounding area to current standards, for any other use, without destroying and disposing of much of the land surface and forest area that has served as the impact zone for the ranges.

Safety has always been the paramount focus for the Club.  When the AEC moved the shooting range from Barranca Mesa to Rendija Canyon the ranges were laid out to minimize the danger from ricochets or accidental discharges.  The LASC takes responsibility for a safe operation very seriously, and promptly reviews any possible concerns that are identified.  The ranges were located in Rendija Canyon in part to act as a buffer between the town site and the known hazard from the wartime artillery-impact zones containing unexploded ordnance. 

The County uses the road through Rendija Canyon largely to service the county water production wells in Rendija and Guaje Canyons and for the right-of-way for the Los Alamos water lines.  The Rendija Canyon road is also an emergency evacuation route for Los Alamos and was the only exit route for North Mesa and Barranca Mesa during the Cerro Grande fire of May 2000.  The range facilities lie adjacent to the north and south sides of the road at the Los Alamos end of the canyon, just northeast of the town site.  The range lies completely within Los Alamos County.

The Sportsman's Club members share Rendija Canyon with others interested in outdoor recreation.  Many local residents use the areas outside the range’s well-marked perimeter for biking, hiking, horseback riding, and birding and in particular the local motorcycling club and the orienteering club.  Because of its close proximity to the town site, Rendija Canyon sees extensive day use as a recreation site year-round.

Rendija Canyon has been considered in several studies for possible development.  The Canyon has been rejected consistently for further exploitation partly because of the enormous expense for both cleanup and infrastructure requirements.  Development of the Canyon would require new water, natural gas, primary electric, and sewage facilities and extensive road construction for access.  There is no reason to feel that the conclusion reached by the previous and recent studies will change in the near term.

Experience gained from the tragic Cerro Grande fire demonstrated that the Sportsmen's Club ranges and the open area to the east of the Club played a role in keeping the fire from reaching the south side of the road where it could have moved onto Barranca Mesa.  If homes had been in Rendija Canyon the loss could have been substantial. Following the Cerro Grande fire, the high flood danger in Rendija Canyon required remediation at the stream crossings.

The people of Los Alamos when polled have consistently opposed development in Rendija Canyon.  The issue has been revisited from time to time over the past two decades, always with the same results.  The polls taken over the years demonstrated that the citizens and different organization that use the canyon and surrounding areas continue to soundly reject further development in the canyon.