Bad news for Anchorage motorheads. Chugach National Forest officials Tuesday said the vast wilderness south and east of the state's largest city probably won't open to snowmachine use on Dec. 1 as scheduled.
Irene Lindquist, a forestry technician based out of Seward, said there just isn't enough snow, and it looks unlikely that will change by Saturday. The National Weather Service is calling for continued cold-and-clear weather for Southcentral Alaska through the weekend and into next week.
Chugach State Park and the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge face the same snow-shortage problem as the national forest. The situation doesn't look much better to the north, either. Denali State Park north of Talkeetna reports a mere 2 inches of snow on the ground. Some riders are using trails in the Willow area, but they are rough. A few people have reported riding the Susitna and Yentna rivers as far north as Lake Creek, but they report very rough river ice.
Lindquist suggested people looking to get out of town might consider other recreational activities. Cross-country skiing on Kenai Peninsula lakes is good, she said, and people who don't care much about trashing skis can find skiing on some trails. The ice skating on Upper Trail Lake is good, she noted, as is the hiking or fat-tire biking on many forest trails.
Early season caution is needed on Kenai Peninsula lakes, she said, but ice is thickening in the persistent cold. Summit Lake, which had 8 inches of ice under 5 inches of snow a week ago now has almost a foot of ice under 8 inches of snow. Cooper and Grant lakes, which have no snow cover, are freezing and adding ice at about an inch per day. Cooper now has 6 inches, but Grant only has two.