Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Valley Mountain Biking and Hiking members hope to put a little more "lazy" into the Lazy Mountain trail this summer.

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Whoever called "lazy" on the mountain east of Palmer obviously hadn't hiked its trail. The path is steep, slippery and has even conditioned hikers sucking wind within the first few hundred yards. Add a steady rain and the descent turns into a mudslide.

Ed Kessler, a student intern coordinator for the Alaska Division of Forestry, said he clearly sees the merits of an easier route.

"I think every hike on Lazy Mountain is a horror story. As beautiful as it is on the top, on the way down your knees are paying for it in a dire way," he said.

Worse, Valley Mountain Biking project leader Joe Ortner said the existing trail is badly eroded. Hikers forging new routes around the steepest or slipperiest parts have widened the trail by more than a dozen feet in some spots.

Thanks to two years of scouting work by Ortner and other Valley mountain members, a new trail is being carved out of the mountain's south side.

The work is being done with minimal financial assistance from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, enough to pay for the Division of Forestry intern crew, said borough community development director Linda Brenner.

Dubbed the South Side Lazy Mountain Trail, the new route promises to be more family-friendly than the existing one and boasts several awe-inspiring views of Pioneer Peak and the Valley.

"There are several large areas that I see the borough or maybe Boy Scouts building a picnic table," Ortner said while hiking the new route last week.

The South Side trail currently branches off the Morgan Horse Trail, a popular two-mile route connecting Lazy Mountain and Matanuska Peak trails.

A few hundred yards up a sometimes-steep game trail, a brown, bench-shaped curve in the route is taking shape amid fireweed, cow parsnip and devils club.

Vegetation was cut away, leaving fine loess, or silty soil behind. With help from a Division of Forestry intern crew in early June and a volunteer workday June 29, about a quarter of the new trail is roughed in.

It's still a bit narrow in some spots and is riddled with toe-jamming cottonwood roots in others, but those are details Ortner says are relatively easy to solve with the right tools and enough volunteers.

It's not ready for hiking yet but Ortner said the group plans another trail workday in August that will push the path further up the mountain.

"We would be just super fortunate if we were able to muster the labor to get the trail pushed through to the first picnic table," he said.

NOT SO STEEP

The bigger problem to solve was finding a route up the mountain that didn't involve going straight up.

The straight-up routes standard on many Alaska trails are slowly being replaced with more relaxed trails that take things like runoff and erosion into consideration, Kessler said. He called it a paradigm shift and pointed to the new and old Butte trails as a clear comparison.

The old Butte trail is steep, eroded and not clearly marked. Hikers who pick the wrong path could end up clinging to the face of a rocky outcropping while looking for a way up.

The new West Butte trail installed by the borough with volunteer help begins as a stroll through the forest. The wide path rolls along the base of the Butte before beginning a gentle ascent.

Stairways were anchored over the steepest spots and switchbacks and plastic grid soften the effect of other pitches.

"If you want your trail to be a lasting legacy, you have to build it right," Kessler said. "They're really making an effort all over the state to fix these trails."

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.

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