OPINION: Anchorage-area trails need love. We’re helping, and you can too.

The summer hiking season is on the horizon, and for those of us in Southcentral Alaska, the destination is often Chugach State Park. The park will see a million visits this year — day-hikers and campers, Alaskans and visitors, bikers, boaters and more.

And what will those million people find in Alaska’s most-visited state park? That’s a question the Chugach Park Fund is helping answer with needed improvements to the park’s trails and informational signs.

For the past five years, the Fund has raised money from hundreds of donors — individuals, businesses, and foundations — to be the major private funder of improved access to the park. Our most visible project to date is the Little O’Malley Peak trail, a new trail that replaced a steep and unsustainable gully route. The Fund provided $88,000 toward that trail, one that was popular even as the Alaska Trails crew was still moving dirt.

Why private funding for a public gem? State of Alaska funding is no longer adequate to hire a trail crew to maintain the 265 miles of trails in Chugach State Park. Nor has money been allocated to rebuild old, existing trails to a standard that will hold up to the use of those million visitors. That’s why we’ve sought and received the support of organizations such as the Rasmuson Foundation, GCI, Alyeska, Bass Pro Shops-Cabela’s, Alaska Petroleum Women’s Association, Atwood Foundation, Northrim Bank and hundreds of individuals who value access to the park.

This year, the Chugach Park Fund will continue a focus on brushing existing trails. Rabbit Lake Trail, where alder cutting started in late 2021, will be finished and drainage improvements made. We hope to clear the first couple of miles of Falls Creek Trail to provide park visitors with a safer experience and one more suited for a wide variety of users.

We’re also raising funds for a major project in 2023 — rebuilding the second half of the trail up the South Fork of Eagle River. That is likely to cost $160,000, and involve a five-person crew working for most of next summer. The existing trail has a generally good alignment, but is frequently muddy, leading to trail braids, more mud, more braids, and so on. The project will put down a solid surface and add drainage features to keep the trail usable for decades.

We invite you to join the hundreds of donors to this private-public partnership and help benefit our community to improve access to Chugach State Park.

The Chugach Park Fund Board members are Judy Caminer, Haley Johnson, Claire LeClair, Charlotte Levy and John Quinley. Donation links to the fund and more information are available at https://alaskacf.org/funds/chugach-park-fund/

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