OPINION: Celebrating trail improvements in Anchorage’s ‘backyard wilderness’

Over the years I have regularly lamented, and sometimes harshly criticized, the poor condition of many popular trails in Chugach State Park’s Front Range, east of Anchorage. Now it’s my pleasure to celebrate a project that has vastly improved one of the park’s most heavily traveled pathways: a stretch of trail that leads to both Hidden Lake and Ship Lake Pass (the latter flanked by The Wedge and The Ramp, two popular hill-climbing destinations). Here I will simply call it the Hidden Lake Trail.

One section of that trail has had muddy spots for as long as I can remember, particularly during the “shoulder” seasons with their freeze-thaw cycles, or after extended rainfalls. But by 2022, it had become an appallingly muddy mess.

As I wrote in a commentary that fall, Jan Myers and I (and our dogs) had to negotiate huge boot-sucking mud holes that were the worst I’d ever seen along this route, and among the most awful I’ve observed anywhere in the Front Range in my 40-plus years of hiking there.

That summer’s unusually heavy rainfall was partly to blame. But so was our state government’s shameful, and frankly baffling, unwillingness to provide sufficient funding and staff to adequately maintain popular trails (and other facilities) in one of Alaska’s premier parklands, truly a “crown jewel” of our state parks system.

It’s been said many times by many people, but is worth repeating: If located elsewhere in the United States, Anchorage’s half-million-acre “backyard wilderness” would likely be a national park, it is that marvelous a place of wildlands, wildlife and recreational opportunities.

Two places were especially awful: where the Hidden Lake Trail weaves through a stand of hemlocks; and later, where it crosses a wetland meadow, on the far side of a dry, rocky bench. By late August, that latter section of trail had become a creek channel filled with flowing water and surrounded by thick mud.

Not surprisingly, hikers and hill runners had created a maze of secondary paths where they tried to circumvent the mud bog, which only served to further damage the meadow. I suggested that much of the problem could be fixed with boardwalk, to bridge the muddiest sections, but had no high hopes it would be done anytime soon.

Imagine my great and happy surprise when, on a hike to Hidden Lake this summer, Jan and I discovered that a trail crew had fixed the problem, creating a much more pleasurable hiking experience while at the same time protecting habitat adjacent to the trail.

“Wow, this is great,” I marveled to Jan. “It shows what’s possible when time and work are invested in our trails.”

For that, I’ve learned, we hikers, runners and hill climbers owe deep thanks to a pair of local groups — the Chugach Park Fund and Alaska Trails — and also to the volunteers who put in the many hours and hard work it must have taken to repair the trail.

New, sturdy boardwalk (with what appears to be a stout foundation) has been built in two places where the route crosses marshy areas, including — and especially — where it had become a huge and ever-expanding mud bog. And where the trail passes through the hemlocks, a combination of gravelly sand and drainage ditches have eliminated mud holes there.

I can’t emphasize enough the excellent work done by the volunteer crews and the trail-building (or repair) expertise of those who led this project.

Alaska Trails and the Chugach Park Fund often team up on projects in Chugach State Park and are always in search of new volunteers and funding sources, including contributions from individuals and businesses, and I suggest that those who are curious check out their websites for more information.

Though the two groups have accomplished a lot in recent years, they can only do so much on their own. It’s time for state government to step up and begin to properly support not only Chugach State Park, but also the entire Alaska State Parks system, which remains woefully understaffed and underfunded, a continuing disgrace for a state that so heavily promotes its wild places and wildlife.

I will continue to be among those who advocate on behalf of our world-class system of state parklands. For now, however, I will simply appreciate and applaud the excellent work being done by the two nonprofit groups and their volunteers, who continue to improve Chugach State Park’s expansive, but too often neglected, network of trails.

Anchorage nature writer and wildlife/wildlands advocate Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and the author of more than a dozen books, including “Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey” and “Alaska’s Accessible Wilderness: A Traveler’s Guide to Alaska’s State Parks.”

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