On its 50th birthday, Chugach State Park is more essential than ever

The coronavirus has awoken thousands of Alaskans to the beauty and wonder of Anchorage’s vast, back-yard wilderness — Chugach State Park. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the park’s opening. There have been more people tromping its trails than I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been a frequent visitor since the early 1960s, before the area became a park.

It is truly a wondrous place, especially when you consider it borders Anchorage’s largest city of roughly 300,000 people — nearly half of the state’s population. With half a million acres, it is the third-largest state park in the United States. It is larger than the state of Rhode Island and comprises some 40 percent of Municipality of Anchorage land. Annually, it receives about 1.5 million visitors.

Because of its size, the park allows people to easily escape the crush of civilization and find diverse outdoor recreation that includes hiking, biking, skiing, hunting, camping, wildlife viewing, photography, snow machining, packrafting, kayaking, ATV operation, climbing and much more.

For some, the park has become more than a venue for outdoor activities.

It has become a spiritual refuge, or what some have called a “sanctuary for the soul.” From northeast to southwest, its glacier-carved valleys are like long fingers of outstretched hands, reaching for the ocean. For more than half a century I’ve hiked in many of those valleys, climbed their adjacent mountain ridges and peaks. Today, I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without this gift of nature.

But as I pass people recreating on the park’s far-flung trails, I’m not sure if many know how CSP was created 50 years ago, and what an amazing undertaking it was.

In the mid-1960s, Anchorage was experiencing a burst of growth and expanding into the mountains above and east of Anchorage. Traditional access roads to the mountains were being blocked by homestead sales. Concern about these threats came to a head with the tentative sale of logging rights to the Bird and Indian valleys, south of Anchorage.

In 1969, a small group of concerned citizens formed the Chugach State Park Ad Hoc Committee. Members of the grassroots organization included Sharon Cissna, Pete Martin, Art Davidson, Mark Ganapole; as well as legislators Lowell Thomas Jr. and Helen Beirne. By early 1970, the group had gained support from the Alaska Legislature, including Chancey Croft, Nick Begich, Joe Josephson and Jay Hammond.

The group proposed that the mountains surrounding Anchorage should be protected for generations to come, and they gained broad support from the community. The committee lobbied the Alaska Legislature for the available 490,866 acres. The proposed park’s westernmost boundary would lie in the western foothills of the Chugach Mountain Range and a mere 7 miles to the east of downtown Anchorage. The park would be defined by the Knik Arm on the north, Turnagain Arm on the south, and Upper and Lower Lake George and Chugach National Forest on the east.

“We optimistically drew a large line around the designated area and were really surprised when the Legislature approved it all,” recounts Sharon Cissna, who some have called the “mother of CSP.”

In 1970, Gov. Keith Miller signed the bill creating CSP. It officially opened in August of that year with a dedication at the Upper O’Malley entrance, known today as Glen Alps.

To me, the grit and determination of the people who endowed us with this enduring legacy represent the can-do spirit I’ve witnessed among Alaskans all my life. And today — the people within the Division of State Parks and Outdoor Recreation who operate and maintain the park, as well as the many volunteers who contribute tirelessly without fanfare — exemplify that same spirit.

With a limited budget, Chugach State Park management and staff have a herculean job, particularly with the current park usage level. That job includes maintaining four campgrounds, outhouses, parking facilities, seven public use cabins and more than 200 miles of trails.

Because of state budget constraints, volunteerism in the park has grown significantly in recent years. One group, Alaska Trails, has been very active in maintaining trails and building new ones. This summer, Alaska Trails has been working on a reroute of the Little O’Malley Peak Trail to access what is called the “Ball Field.” This beautiful alpine area is across the South Fork of Campbell Creek from Flattop. Supporting this and other ongoing trail efforts is the Chugach Park Fund, established three years ago. The fund receives contributions from private and corporate sources.

You can support the Fund’s work financially through its portal on the Alaska Community Foundation website. Alaska Trails is also able to use material donations and volunteers. If you have questions or want to discuss the Fund’s role in detail, contact chugachparkfund@gmail.com

Through newspaper columns and other writings over the years, I’ve championed the benefits of outdoor recreation, focusing often on CSP. I was once quite covetous of remote areas that became very special to me — areas that were relatively unvisited. But over the years, I became less selfish. I learned that the park is so big that it’s not that difficult to find and re-find those kind of secret places. Even with Anchorage’s large population — double what it was when the park was established — there seems to be room for everyone.

I’ve summited 7,522-foot Bold Peak overlooking Eklutna Lake eight times and bivouacked twice on its top. I have had experiences in CSP that changed my life. After accumulating more than 250 vertical miles and who knows how much distance, I know some who have gone higher and farther. It’s not only a landscape with seemingly boundless horizons, but a place that expands human horizons; or in the words of poet T.S. Eliot: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”

On its 50th birthday, if CSP were hovering over its special cake and making a wish, I think it would whisper to all of us: “Be proud of me, respect me, take good care of me, make me look as good as you can for today’s visitors and future generations.”

A lifetime Alaska resident since 1946, Frank E. Baker is a former member of the Chugach State Park Citizens Advisory Board and freelance writer who lives in Eagle River with his wife Rebekah, a retired elementary school teacher.

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