Borough boasts 2,005 miles of trails

Oct. 16, 2005

DARRELL L. BREESE\Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - The Iditarod Trail may be more than 1,000 miles in length, but that is nothing compared with the trail system in the Mat-Su Borough, which recently surpassed the 2,005-mile mark.

The dedication of a new segment of the Flathorn Lake Trail was the final piece needed to help the borough reach its goal of dedicating 2,005 miles by the end of the year 2005. The Flat Horn Lake trailhead is on Ayshire Road in the Point MacKenzie area.

&#8221This is an exciting accomplishment for the borough,“ Ron Swanson, director of community development, said. &#8221It is the culmination of a lot of hard work by many people and various agencies over the years.“

The goal of establishing 2,005 miles of trails was set in 2003 when there was a little more than 1,000 miles of trails in the borough.

Over the ensuing two years, borough officials located, surveyed, mapped and reserved trails in an effort to keep them open for public use.

&#8221It was important for us to get these trails dedicated before growth would have made them impossible,“ Swanson said.

Reaching the goal took the combined efforts of multiple state and local agencies and the cooperation of several private land owners.

&#8221Without everyone working toward a common goal and getting together to overcome significant hurdles, we wouldn't have reached our goal,“ Swanson said.

By comparison, the new trails make the borough a model community for trail development in Alaska, dwarfing the length of trails in other regions. The Kenai Peninsula boasts approximately 200 miles of trails, equal to the Municipality of Anchorage. The North Star Borough has no official trails department and thus no record of total mileage.

&#8221Having 2,000-plus miles is really significant,“ Swanson said. &#8221Anchorage brags about having 200 miles of recreational trails and they are all single-use trails. We have 10 times that now and most of ours are multi-use trails.“

Reaching the goal of 2,005 miles gives the borough nearly twice the number of miles committed to recreation as there are miles of highways and roads. According to Swanson, there are just over 1,000 miles of roads and highways in the borough.

The community development department has no plan to stop.

&#8221Our goal is to create a networked system of trails that would allow someone to go from the Butte to Talkeetna on dedicated trails,“ Swanson said. &#8221I guess I could set a goal to have 2006 miles by 2006, but that would be nothing spectacular. I want to see us get all our trails interconnected and have about 5,000 miles dedicated for recreation in the next 10 years.“

Contact Darrell L. Breese at 352-2267 or darrell.breese@

frontiersman.com.