Chugach State Park managers look to slow trail head thievery

URBAN ILLS: Crowded parking lots and noise are also concerns.

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Chugach State Park on the east side of Anchorage is a half-million acres of mostly unspoiled mountainous terrain. It's also the all-season backyard of Alaska's largest city.

For 35 years, Chugach has given joy to its urban neighbors. But for a decade and more, the park and its users have suffered urban woes: overcrowded parking lots, middle-of-the-night vandalism and middle-of-the-day break-ins of parked vehicles.

Neighbors of heavily used areas complain of the traffic, the noise, the midnight shenanigans.

The park's managers and its Citizens Advisory Board in recent years have tried, mostly futilely, to cope with the most serious trail head issues. Now they've scheduled a special public meeting of the board, Tuesday evening in downtown Anchorage, to explore potential solutions to the park's most pressing trail head problems and hear what park users suggest.

The problems persist. Wednesday night, for example, vandals at the Glen Alps parking lot on the upper Hillside torched a vehicle that had been stolen days earlier, an incident that's under investigation, said Mike Goodwin, the park's chief ranger.

And two weekends ago, the same parking lot was filled to overflowing because nordic skiers had learned that the groomed alpine trails reached from Glen Alps offered just about the only decent skiing in town.

Among possible security solutions, park managers are considering the use of a full-time caretaker at Glen Alps and other major trail heads, closure of some major trail heads from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., all-night lighting in the parking lots, and asking city police to increase patrols on the Hillside.

"We'd like to reduce the loss of state property and the skimming off the good-user public," Goodwin said. "We'd like to solicit ideas from the public on how to increase legitimate use and decrease illegitimate use" of the park.

Alaska State Troopers have caught and arrested some thieves who break windows in parked vehicles to steal valuables, according to trooper Bill Welch of the agency's post in Girdwood. But vehicle break-ins continue, he said, and, in fact, they occur at trail heads all over the Alaska road system.

Increasing the lighting in parking areas and closing trail heads for most of the night will not deter the thieves, Welch said.

"Almost every one of the break-ins happens during the day," he said. People hike in the daytime and leave valuables in their cars, which draws the thieves.

"During the summer, there is probably on the average of five or six break-ins a week in my area," Welch said, referring to the roughly half-dozen Chugach State Park trail heads along the Seward Highway from Potter Marsh to Girdwood, and Chugach National Forest trail heads from Girdwood to Hope. "I know that APD last year got hit hard on the Hillside."

When on patrol, Girdwood troopers now have made it a point to visit trail head parking lots to see who may be loitering there, Welch said.

The critical trail head issue for some members of the advisory board is not so much security as access -- getting people into the big park who want to go there while reducing the burden on the most popular trail heads.

"The usage has increased dramatically," said Julian Mason of Anchorage, a member of the advisory board and chair of its access committee.

"If you think about it, there's very little access to Chugach State Park," Mason said. "If you talk about people in the Anchorage Bowl, it's Glen Alps and Prospect Heights, and that's it. There's relatively little dedicated access into the park, and what there is is getting hit pretty hard."

Additional, smaller points of entry would spread access out and reduce concentrated demand, Mason said. So would education.

"Upper Huffman (a Hillside trail head) is hardly used in summer because people don't know it's there," he said. "And it's a good parking lot; it has terrific bike trails."

Park superintendent Jerry Lewanski said the last developable land in Anchorage essentially abuts the park and is now being subdivided, putting pressure on park managers to safeguard traditional trails and other park entries before they are lost.

A route to Mount Baldy and Black Tail Rocks overlooking Eagle River, a trail locals have used for more than 30 years, is presently threatened by a subdivision whose platting would seal off the trail head permanently with private property, Lewanski said.

The state Division of Parks and Recreation, the Municipality of Anchorage and the developer are working to find a compromise, he said -- a land trade or purchase, for example, that would maintain access to that part of the park.

Mason acknowledged that local access makes local residents nervous about the impact of visitors' parking, potential vandalism, noise and other problems.

However, he said, some concerns are wrongly conceived, while others, like parking, can be mitigated.

Neighbors once worried about the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, about what it would bring to their neighborhoods, Mason said. Now those homeowners see the Coastal Trail as a feature that boosts home values.

The Chugach park is asking developers and the city for modest entryways, Mason said. These would be small pedestrian easements like those that give Hawaiians access to their oceanfronts between and among private parcels.

The greater the number of access points, the less crowding, according to Mason.

"I expect we'll hear (Tuesday) from people that they want more access points to the park," he said.

The advisory board's recommendations are not binding, but park managers weigh them carefully, they have said.

Tuesday's three-hour meeting starts at 7 p.m. in Suite 240 of the Atwood Building, 550 W. Seventh Ave. For more information, call the park at 345-5014.

Daily News reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com or 257-4582.