A walk in the park

In December 1990, doctors found a lump the size of a baseball under my breastbone — signs of lymphoma. I was lucky: A heavy dose of chemotherapy saved my life.

During treatment, the doctors warned, “No dangerous activities.” So I walked. And again I was lucky. That year, Chugach State Park ranger Jerry Lewanski was clearing the old homestead road at the end of Prospect Drive, up the South Fork rim of Campbell Creek. Each week he cleared more, and each week I walked farther. Walking that trail was a lifesaver as well.

We have trails throughout Anchorage. What I find special about Park trails is that, in many places within a stone’s throw of Alaska’s biggest city, walkers can find themselves looking at a view that could be deep in the mountains. To access these places, the park has done a great job of providing wide, well-signed trails close to parking lots at Prospect Heights and Glen Alps.

Both locations also have systems of “social trails” and narrower walking trails. All are well traveled, especially during the recent pandemic. I’ve never seen so many hikers. I think it’s great!

The trails have also seen increased bike use, clearly reflecting the growing enthusiasm for mountain biking nationwide.

Responding to requests by bikers for increased access, the park carried out a major reroute of the South Fork Rim trail in 2019, redesigning it to make biking more fun. Many love the new trail, which has undoubtedly brought increased numbers of bikers and hikers into the park.

Unfortunately, the banked turns and switchbacks of the new trail have also encouraged fast downhill runs. Trucks drop off cyclists at Glen Alps, who post their times on the Alaska Mountain Bikers Association website. That site documents cyclists traveling from Glen Alps to Prospect in six to seven minutes, averaging approximately 19 mph. Hikers like myself now avoid the Rim trail and hike other trails.

In mid-August, Park users may have noticed small signs at the kiosks at both Glen Alps and Prospect announcing the construction of another new trail — the first public notice of what is advertised as a “multi-use single-track trail for bikers, hikers, and skiers” to be constructed by Single Track Advocates, or STA, this September and October. The Assembly has approved the use of $540,000 of CARES Act funding for this and other trail work.

I knew this trail was in the works. In March 2020, STA president Lee Boling proposed a new four-mile downhill bike trail, the Hemlock Burn Trail, to the Park’s Citizen’s Advisory Board, or CAB. The trail would run from Glen Alps to Prospect Heights, beginning on the south side of Gasline Trail, then crossing over and through the hemlock forest just below Hemlock Knob Trail, continuing west of the power line all the way down to Prospect Heights.

With an increasingly limited budget, park staff were keen on STA’s plan to take on fundraising and maintenance for a new trail. I was dismayed by the prospect of yet another bike trail in the Front Range, and I am not alone. Here’s why.

Three-quarters of the new Hemlock Burn Trail follows a route laid out in the Park’s Trail Management Plan. This plan was developed with extensive public comment in 2009 and adopted as law in 2016. In the plan, the trail was designated as multi-use, and I looked forward to hiking it someday.

The trail that STA will build, however, is not for hikers and walkers. Although hikers will not be prohibited, what STA is building is a two-foot-wide single track trail, where bikes will be moving fast downhill.

Both the Park and STA say this new trail will make walking in the Front Range safer. They propose regulations making the South Fork Rim Trail one-way uphill for bikes and the new Hemlock Burn Trail one way downhill for bikes, thus solving the problem of fast bikes encountering uphill traffic on the Rim Trail. The problem is that the new trail will surely increase bike traffic in the Front Range — an area that already has miles of multi-use trails open to bikes, including the Gasline, Powerline, White Spruce, and out of Prospect Heights going in both directions.

Bikers on the new trail will not expect uphill traffic and can move at higher speeds. If the Hemlock Burn Trail were isolated, this wouldn’t be a problem. But the area it will run through is honeycombed by both established park trails and well-used social trails. The new trail will not eliminate danger, just move it to a different place.

STA insists that trail crossings will be engineered to slow bikes down. But these numerous trail crossings will definitely change the character of walking in the Front Range. In a walk I know well, going uphill from Prospect Heights, I’ll encounter three trail crossings in the first mile. With a dog who doesn’t always walk behind me, that will not feel safe, however well engineered.

Commenting on the proposed Hemlock Burn Trail, wildlife biologist Rick Sinnott emphasized the danger of bear and moose encounters with increased bike traffic in the Campbell Creek corridor. I have never heard anyone knowledgeable about wildlife in the Front Range disagree.

Former Park Superintendent Jerry Lewanski is also strongly opposed to the new trail, pointing out that if built, it will be the first time in park history that a trail was constructed for a single user group. Yes, skiers can use it in winter. But make no mistake — the intended use is downhill biking.

One final point — and the main reason I’m writing. Other than STA’s March presentation to the Citizen’s Advisory Board and subsequent discussion with Board members, the general public has been completely left out of the discussion of this new trail. If reading this you are learning about the new trail for the first time, you are not alone.

When the Hemlock Burn Trail was first proposed, Friends of Chugach State Park wrote to the park asking for a period of public comment before going ahead with the project. Both the park and the Board’s response was that their role was implementation of the Trail Plan, not continued discussion.

Yet so much has changed in the past 10 years, with bikes engineered to go ever faster and so many more miles of bike trails already in Anchorage; taking the time for wider public comment is essential. In fact, an extended public review process for any significant change to the Trail Management Plan is required by law. We think creating a downhill bike trail where the plan specifies a multi-use trail is significant. Moreover, the last mile of the new trail goes through hemlock and birch forests close to Prospect Heights, where no trail exists in the plan.

Park staff maintain that adding this segment is a matter of alignment and thus not a significant modification of the plan. Those few trail users who have been following these developments disagree. Many feel strongly that building this new trail before giving the general public time to consider the proposal will not serve the park well in the long run.

As in the reroute of South Fork Rim trail, the biking community will gain with this new trail, but with the many trail crossings, walkers will certainly lose. We can do better so that generations after us can also enjoy a walk in the park.

Ann Fienup-Riordan is a Friends of Chugach State Park member.

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