With no new openings, Valley state parks officials focused on taking care of what they have

After several years of expansion projects and improvements at Valley-area State Park sites, officials this year say they’re shifting their energy to caretaking and maintenance.

“We’re just trying to focus on our existing infrastructure,” said Stuart Leidner, superintendent for the Mat-Su area state parks. “And that will be the focus for several years, because we really can’t continue to put in new without figuring out how to maintain it.”

The fall to winter season shift always gives his staff a welcomed chance to step back and do some final trail maintenance before the snow flies, focusing on work they don’t have time for during peak use season, he said.

But rather than spend time readying new trails or prepping newer public use cabins for the winter season as they’ve done in years past, they’re instead pouring attention into improving existing infrastructure. And the delayed snowfall in areas outside Hatcher Pass has offered a needed extra buffer to make sure everything is ready for winter users. That includes projects like brush and tree clearing at Nancy Lakes, he said.

“With no snow on the ground at the moment, one of the nice things is we can hop on a six-wheeler when everything’s frozen, and start to get some trails cleared out,” Leidner said.”It’s allowing us to get some additional maintenance work done on existing infrastructure that we’d like to do before you’re freezing your digits off.”

Maintaining and grooming winter trails is also a priority in Denali State Park, where Leidner’s team last year opened a new skiing and snowmachine trail between Kesugi Ken and Byers Lake. That trail was mostly used by cross-country skiers over its first season after a series of unusual weather events made grooming a challenge, he said. But he hopes it gains in popularity for motorized users over the 2022-2023 season.

Back in the Valley’s core area their work includes figuring out a way to keep vandals from destroying the buildings and artifacts at Independence Mine State Historical Park, he said. A $1.3 million grant from the New York-based Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust is slated to help officials shore-up the buildings and protect against damage. But that work can’t start until the thaw next year, and in the meantime vandals continue to wreak havoc. Early this month, for example, they ripped protective plywood from the bunkhouse door frame, destroying both the plywood and the doorframe it was screwed into.

“We had already actually put up all of the plywood and everything, I mean screwed it over the doors and everything,” he said. “They ripped it completely off, destroying the door frames. We just can’t fathom why they continue to do this, but they did.”

Leidner said officials are exploring ways to install monitor cameras that won’t be subject to the same vandalism that has destroyed the historic buildings.

In addition to those Independence Mine area improvements that will start next year, Leidner hopes to also tackle additional work on the Reed Lakes trail parking area at the end of Archangel Road. A constant source of congestion, the first improvements for the area will likely focus on latrines, he said. Officials hope to install one at the winter trailhead parking lot off Hatcher Pass Road to replace the portapotty currently set-up there each winter, and latrines at the summer parking area at the end of the road.