As the temperature approached 50 degrees Monday afternoon, snow finally began melting off Far North Bicentennial Park, bringing closer the day when nearly eight miles of new single-track mountain bike trail will be available to riders.

Click to enlarge

Janice Tower

Story tools

Comments (0)

Email Story

Print

Share on Facebook

Digg this

Seed Newsvine

Send link via AIM

Tweet this

Font size : A | A | A

tool name

close

tool goes here

Late last fall, mountain bikers got a taste of what's to come when a one-mile section in the southeast portion of the 4,000-acre park opened. The rest, however, was closed to give freshly disturbed ground time to firm up over winter.

Janice Tower, for one, can barely wait to ride the whole thing.

"I'm anxious, but there are so many wonderful projects going on statewide," said Tower of SingleTrack Advocates, the Anchorage group working to preserve, build and maintain natural trails. "We're just getting off the ground with the technical knowledge to build environmentally responsible trail systems.

"Trail building use to be real ad hoc. People just going out and making their own trails, and a lot of those trails are environmentally damaging. We need to do better."

As the 2009 Statewide Trails Conference opens Wednesday at the Anchorage Hilton Hotel, organizers, planners, recreation specialists -- as well plain old walkers, runners and riders -- may have more to celebrate than they've had in a while.

And not just in Bicentennial Park.

Over the last few years, trails have sprouted across Alaska -- from the Compeau Motorized Trail at the Chena State Recreation Area, to an ATV Subsistence Trail in Hooper Bay, to the gorgeous Trail of Blue Ice in Portage Valley, to the Susitna Valley Winter Trail that runs from Big Lake to the south boundary of Denali State Park .

"There's a real renaissance going on for sustainable trails," said Jillian Morrissey, executive director of Alaska Trails.

"More and more Alaskans are getting out on trails. We love the fact that we can have civilization in our front yard and wildness in our backyard. Trails are just an easy way to access what makes the state so amazing."

Although the Bicentennial Park single track -- like other unpaved Anchorage bike trails -- won't open to riders until June 1 in order to give the ground time to dry out, Tower said the route saw significant winter use, which surprised her.

"People have been using them -- skiers, snowshoers, hikers, anybody. We're getting rave reviews," said Tower, who was honored with a National Parks Service Volunteer-in-Parks Award two months ago for her 532 hours of volunteer time on the project.

The new trail is accessible from the Gasline Trail out of the Prospect Heights trail head in Chugach State Park, or from Hilltop Ski Area, about two-tenths of a mile off the intersection of the Upper Gasline and Spencer Loop trails.

But not yet.

"Right now, there's still snow on trails," Tower said. "They're pretty soft and punchy, and people need to stay off" to protect the trail surface.

She noted the care with which the trails were built using the sweat of a fair amount of volunteer labor. Only 20 trees were removed during the whole project, she said, and construction expenditures amounted to $170,000 -- about 25 percent less than originally estimated.

"We came in way under budget," Tower said. "And we were able to raise a nice nest egg for future trail development."

She said a Sweco trail dozer used to put in the trail helped keep down both costs and environmental impact. The mini-dozer is four feet wide and able to "thread the needle" between trees.

Farther north, another beautiful single-track trail luring mountain bikers is the 1.5-mile-long Mooseberry Mesa Trail in the Susitna Valley.

"It's a real fun trail," said Pat Owens of Sutton, a board member with the association. "It's narrow. It winds through the trees. It's a swooping trail, fun to ride. Anybody can do it."

This year, Owens said, the association's top priority is making progress on getting some 2,000 miles of Mat-Su trails legally documented by the borough.

The association also aims to put a new 2.5-mile trail up Lazy Mountain from the trail head to the summit this summer.

"We'll probably fix up the exiting trail, too,'' she said. "It's steep and erodes badly."

The challenging trail is one favored by diehard mountain runners.

"But a lot of people can't hike it," Owens said. "We're hoping for something the average person can experience."

Reporter Mike Campbell can be reached at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.

Some recent trail successes

1) Completion of a paved route from Kincaid Park to Eagle River via the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, a new Ship Creek Trail, Mountain View streets, and the bike trail paralleling the Glenn Highway. The route is good, but signs offering directions would help.

2) Nearly 8 miles of yet-unnamed singletrack through Far North Bicentennial Park.

3) The Bear Cub and Blueberry Pancake trails loop at Alyeska Resort. “It’s designed to be a flowing free ride trail for easy ability,” Warren Rowe of Alyeska said. “There are no drops, no tabletops, no ramps. For right now, simplicity is key.”

4) Trail of Blue Ice in Portage Valley to link the Seward Highway with the Begich Boggs Visitor Center. Flat and scenic — with three yellow cedar bridges, intricate rock work and 600 feet of elevated boardwalk — the 6-mile trail get travelers off the main road and into some of the area’s best scenery.

5) Mooseberry Mesa Trail, a 1.5-mile long single-track that’s part of the Crevasse-Moraine trail system in Palmer. “It’s very popular,” said Mark Gronewald, a co-founder of Valley Mountain Bikers and Hikers Association. He helped design the trail.

If you go …

• The Alaska Statewide Trails Conference, aimed at trail users, builders and guardians, runs Wednesday to Saturday at the Anchorage Hilton Hotel. It’s part of the Alaska Recreation and Park Association Conference. Session details at www.alaskarpa.org.

• Iditarod Champion Lance Mackey will deliver the keynote address 8:30 a.m. Thursday, “Tales from the trails: Yukon Quest/Iditarod.” Local historian Judy Bittner will introduce Mackey and discuss events surrounding the 100th anniversary of the Iditarod National Historic Trail.

• Audio Slide Show: To get a feel for Portage’s new Trail of Blue Ice, go to www.adn.com/excursions.

ADVERTISEMENT