Anchorage Daily News

KNIK -- Dog mushing clubs and recreators have been put on legal notice following the closing of access to the Iditarod National Historic Trail by a private landowner.

An Aug. 5 letter by Wasilla lawyer for landowner Kelly Dickson of California was sent to neighbors of Dickson's acreage located just east of Burma Road in Knik. The letter states that Dickson views crossing her property as trespass and encourages neighbors to notify the lawyer, DanaLyn Dalrymple, of violators.

Dalrymple did not return messages by press time.

Whether the Iditarod Historic Trail actually crosses the Dickson property is being debated.

Ben Hagedorn, a natural resource specialist with the state Department of Natural Resources, has been working on the Iditarod Trail Easements project since last year. He said the DNR places the original trail north of Dickson's property along a section line that was designated by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough as the Iditarod trail in 1983.

Jon Brautigan, a musher and vice president of the Knik Chapter of the Iditarod Trail Blazers who has been studying this issue since 1981, disagrees.

The section line, dubbed "Suicide Hill" by locals for its steep slope, would never have been used by mushers due to its dangers for dogs pulling heavy freight, he argued in an e-mail to Hagedorn earlier this week. Nor did the section line exist during the early years of the trail. Despite its official designation in 1983, no one has used it, preferring instead the safer path cut through Dickson's property, which users call the homestead road.

Brautigan believes the original Iditarod trail is slightly north of the homestead road, and south of the section line across Dickson's land. That route, he says, was blocked off by a Dickson relative in 1981.

Despite this, neither the DNR nor the borough appear willing to fight Dickson's blockage in court. An e-mail sent to borough officials by Borough community development director Linda Brenner says Dickson is within her rights to block a trail that is not part of the historic Iditarod trail and the property owner has "legally blocked an unauthorized or unprotected trail across her property."

This leaves dog mushers and race events that have used the homestead road portion of the trail for almost 30 years out in the cold. Although the Iditarod re-start moved permanently to Willow last year, trail users include the Junior Iditarod, the Knik 200, the Klondike 300, the Aurora 50/50, and bike/foot races such as the IditaSport, as well as people who use the trail to train.

Although no one's ever counted them all -- the snowmachiners, bicyclists, mushers, hikers and skiers -- they likely number into the hundreds.

THE ROAD TO LEGAL TRAILS

The issue of trail access in Alaska isn't new. The state lacks a comprehensive dedicated trail system composed of legally established rights of ways.

Brenner said that since the adoption of a trails plan in 2000, 36 trails have been legally recorded so far, constituting dedicated easements of 370 miles in the borough. That represents 18 percent of the total trail mileage.

The DNR's Iditarod Trail Easements project has legally recorded -- or adjudicated -- almost half the historic trail. The other half remains in their administrative decision phase or easement drafting phase, or is currently in negotiations with Native corporations, Hagedorn said.

"Knik is one of the worst spots as far as adjudicating the trail," Hagedorn said. "It was surveyed with some problems that we're left with now, and that's what we're dealing with and trying to make them right."

Bruce Paulsen, a land management specialist with the borough, walked the Suicide Hill section line recently with Brautigan, a musher who sits on the Knik-Fairview Community Council.

Both believe the trail could be made safe if the top of the hill is removed and the slope is regraded using heavy equipment. Paulsen said the borough would supply money for the required survey work and the rental of the equipment run by borough personnel, but the project might not be complete by the start of the winter racing season.

"We are considering speaking with the landowner and requesting permission to cross their property this winter while we develop alternatives," Paulsen said.

In the meantime, trail users are scratching their heads over what to do until a solution is found. Junior Iditarod board member and trail manager Richard Plack said the organization is looking at other routes and considering its options.

"The race will go on," Plack said. "It's just a matter of which trails we use is all."

Find Melodie Wright online at adn.com/contact/mwright or call 352-6721.

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