Greater park access likely

CHUGACH LAND: Two owners willing to sell; third is holding out.

By PETER PORCO
Anchorage Daily News

Published: November 13, 2005
Last Modified: November 13, 2005 at 03:50 AM

The Conservation Fund, a private land trust, may be on the way to resolving one of the stickiest park-access issues in the Anchorage Bowl.

The fund has acquired agreements with the owners to buy two of the three private parcels that block legal access to Chugach State Park from lower Rabbit Creek Valley on the Hillside. The organization would then deed the land to the park, said Brad Meiklejohn, the fund's Alaska representative.

Owners of the third parcel, a 160-acre spread that's half of the total contiguous area, are holding out for more than the fund wants to pay, Meiklejohn said recently. He said he hopes the families who own that land will eventually agree to sell.

But if the state comes to own only the first 160 acres, he said, park managers still should be able to solve the problem of blocked access by routing a trail high up a slope around a corner of the third in-holding.

Meiklejohn said the Conservation Fund is offering $1 million for all three parcels, a price he says is supported by market-value appraisals. He hopes to raise the money in coming months from individuals, corporations, foundations and the state Legislature.

The half-million-acre Chugach State Park, adjacent to the east side of Anchorage, is the second-largest state park in Alaska and third-largest in the nation. In any other state, Chugach would be a national park, Meiklejohn said. The park's Hillside gateways, primarily Glen Alps, are among the most visited recreation sites in the state.

"Chugach State Park is the number one tourist destination in Southcentral Alaska," said state Rep. Mike Hawker, whose district encompasses the Hillside and who praised the fund's actions. "Flattop may be the single most visited tourist destination in the state," Hawker said of the oft-climbed mountain above Glen Alps.

The entrance to Rabbit Creek Valley, an alpine Eden, lies tantalizingly close to Anchorage, roughly between Flattop and McHugh Peak southeast of the city. But legally it might as well be the moon.

The fact that the 320 acres are privately owned has seldom kept visitors out. For decades, in fact, trespassers have skied on nearby slopes and walked and biked the old dirt road through the in-holdings.

While a few have aimed their feet for the southwest face of Flattop, the destination for most visitors lies a few miles farther up-valley at Rabbit Lake beneath the rugged Suicide Peaks.

Guidebooks and a popular map of the park show Rabbit Creek, the park gate, the road and the private parcels sitting across the road. But they do not indicate a trail, which officially doesn't exist.

Park managers have put up no-trespassing signs, but apparently with little effect.

"The signs are being ripped down, the gates are being ripped down. It's impossible to keep people out of there," said Jerry Lewanski, director of the state Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, who spent almost 20 years in the park as ranger, chief ranger and superintendent.

"What's pushing this (purchase) is not me, not the Conservation Fund, but literally the public voting with their feet," Lewanski said.

"The first two miles (of the trail) are on private land, but few people realize that," Meiklejohn said. "It's a very accessible valley (physically). It's easy for families to walk up because it's relatively level."

"I think it's a terrific step forward for the park," said Julian Mason, a member of the park's Citizens Advisory Board. "That valley has gotten much more popular in the last few years, particularly for spring skiing."

In the 1980s and '90s, access to Rabbit Creek was so contentious that the issue wound up in court. In 1991 the state sued a couple, former state Rep. Jo Ann Miller and her husband, Robert, who owned the 160-acre parcel farthest up the valley.

The Millers had acquired the property in 1984 for $500,000 and blocked access across it in 1988, hoping the state would buy it from them for more than $1 million. The Millers destroyed the road at one point to keep what they considered trespassers from crossing it.

The state did not intend to buy the land but instead took the Millers to court, claiming that 30 years of public trekking through the 320 acres of private in-holdings, including what was now the Millers' land, had converted the road into a de facto public easement.

A jury, however, sided with the Millers in saying no such traditional route had ever been established.

The Millers would eventually default on their property, and ownership would revert to the families who originally sold it to them, Meiklejohn said.

The owners who have agreed to sell the other two parcels "are fed up with the situation as much as anybody and have begged, pleaded and cajoled for state Parks (Division) to buy these properties," Meiklejohn said. He would not divulge the selling price.

The owner of one of the parcels, a 40-acre holding that is first in line going up-valley, signed an agreement with the Conservation Fund on Oct. 13, according to Meiklejohn.

Darrel Renner, the owner, lives in Anchorage. Reached Friday in Florida where he spends time in the winter, Renner said of his 40 acres, "It's just a piece of land" for which he's paid taxes for years. "I just want to sell it."

"I don't give a damn one way or another what they do with it," Renner said.

Representatives of a family trust based in North Dakota, owner of the second parcel, 120 acres in size, signed the agreement with the fund in August, said Meiklejohn.

The deals have to be concluded by the end of March, he said. Royal Caribbean Ltd., through a program called Ocean Fund, has contributed $50,000, said Meiklejohn.

"We're going to be hunting under every rock to see whether people do consider this a priority, whether the community sees this as something to support," he said.

Acquiring the parcels, however, will give the park and its neighbors some new problems, officials said.

The current trail is "getting pretty hammered," said Mike Goodwin, the park's superintendent. He suggested the park would need a new trail head at Rabbit Creek, a new lower trail and a developed parking lot, and it would need help from the Municipality of Anchorage, which owns parkland close by.

"This is very bittersweet for us" said Lewanski, the state parks director. "It's difficult for us to generate money to either develop it (the trail head) or take care of it. Those kinds of things are based in the Legislature."

Hawker, the area's representative, said a Rabbit Creek trail head -- located at the end of Upper Canyon Road -- should be developed as a permanent entryway to Chugach. But the road should be upgraded too.

Upper Canyon and its side streets, like Toilsome Hill Road that leads to Glen Alps, are maintained by Limited Road Service Areas, which essentially are the neighbors contributing most of the funds to maintain their own roads, even though the roads are heavily used by the public, said Hawker.

"The answer to this is always money," Hawker said from his Anchorage office. A budget surplus due to high oil prices has given the state the opportunity to invest in deferred maintenance and capital improvements in schools and parks statewide.

Hawker said he's asked the governor's office to include in next year's budget proposal a $5 million appropriation for drainage, grading and road upgrades to the public right of ways to the Glen Alps and Rabbit Creek trail heads.

"My (largest) district priority in this year's budget are the problems accessing Chugach State Park for the folks utilizing Toilsome Hill and Upper Canyon Road," Hawker said.

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