The Parks Highway currently connects Fairbanks and Nenana by road, but an Anchorage-based nonprofit is hoping a state forest soon offer another means of travel between the two locations.
Alaska Trails, the main backers of the proposed 500-mile Alaska Long Trail, sent a letter detailing that idea to the state’s Division of Forestry (DOF), which is revising its management plan for the Tanana Valley State Forest (TVSF) for the first time since 2001.
The letter requests that DOF add a reference to their trail proposal into the final management plan.
The public comment period for the draft document closed on Dec. 20, and the division anticipates releasing the final version sometime this spring.
“I hesitate to give a concrete date that we’d be able to release that information, because it really just depends on the complexity of the issues,” said forest planner Geneva Preston.
She said the division is currently in the process of reviewing and responding to about 200 comments on the plan.
“And there’s been tons of feedback about recreational use, and about specifically this letter from Alaska Trails,” she said.
The letter posits building 18 miles of new, multi-use trails to link together 35 miles of existing forestry roads.
Together, those trails would weave a path through the state-managed forest, with termini a few miles north of Nenana on the Parks Highway and in the Rosie Creek area near Fairbanks.
Eventually, Alaska Trails wants to include that segment in the Alaska Long Trail, which would stretch from Seward to Fairbanks.
“That segment, we think, is essential because really there’s no other way, except for the Tanana River, to connect Nenana and Fairbanks, and that section on the river is only available in the winter,” said Mariyam Medovaya, the organization’s Alaska Long Trail project coordinator.
She said the trail through the TVSF would not only benefit recreation in Interior Alaska but would also make future timber road maintenance easier.
“It’s kind of a win-win for the forest, the way we see it,” she said.
According to the Alaska Trails letter, the new trail connections would be 7-feet wide, while the forestry roads they’d link up with are 12-feet wide. Beyond constructing the trail itself, crews would also install a map kiosk, directional signs and a bridge over Bonanza Creek.
Alaska Trails estimates that capital costs for their proposal would total about $2.6 million.
Medovaya said the Nenana-to-Fairbanks segment is an economical route because getting equipment on site wouldn’t require expensive methods of transportation, like helicopters, which are sometimes needed for creating trails.
“The area is easily accessible. There would be logging roads, easy access from the highway, so there’s no need to – there’s no need for special arrangements,” she said.
Alaska Trails also isn’t expecting the state to foot the bill.
Medovaya said her organization and its partners can find the money elsewhere, but that they need a sign of approval from the land manager – in this case, the state – before those fundraising efforts can begin in earnest.
“Either a go ahead from the head of the division of forestry, mention of this project in the management plan, something like that,” she said.
That greenlight, however, may have to come from somewhere other than the forestry division.
Preston, the forest planner, told KUAC the purview of the management plan does include facilitating recreation, but she said the division’s authority does not extend to granting large trail projects a definitive yes or no.
“So the role of the forest management plan, and my role as a forest planner, is to say, ‘well, recreational use is included in multiple use, and so, if that project is proposed on state forest land, here are the steps that we’d need to take to make sure that it’s done by the letter,’” she said.
Preston said approving of trails greater than 5-feet in width involves looping in the state division of mining, land and water to do more in-depth project review.