Getting Around in Alaska

"Alaska is Different" Part 1: Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve

2009-10-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

Every time you turn around here, someone is telling you authoritatively that "Alaska is different." The statement is easy to shrug off when working at the Regional Office in downtown Anchorage, across the street from the mall. However, Paul Schrooten, the Transportation Coordinator for the Alaska Region and my supervisor here, took me to take a preliminary look at a potential transportation project at Coal Creek near the Yukon River.

As is common in the more remote Parks, Yukon Charley has very little developed infrastructure within the Preserve itself. Its headquarters are in Fairbanks, over 3 hours away by car, and much of its operations are conducted from Eagle, a small Alaska town near the border of Canada. Most visitors to this Park unit float through on one of the rivers.

So how is Alaska different? Well, just getting from administrative headquarters to Coal Creek, the Preserve's most developed area, took about 10 hours. We started in Fairbanks first thing in the morning, hauling the river boat behind the truck. The slick dirt road and strong winds made for a longer-than-usual 4-hour commute to the put-in at Circle. Then a two-hour boat ride up the river in the freezing rain gave us plenty of time to enjoy the fall colors. We waited at the river for the camp manager, Randy, to finish shuttling some researchers to the helicopter at the airstrip, and then shuttle the two batches of us up to the camp in the 4-seater ORV. After the long hours, wind and freezing rain, the wood burning stoves found in the mess hall and the cabins were very welcome!

The transportation issue that we had come to look at is unique to Alaska as well. Coal Creek had been developed as a moving gold mine camp that followed a dredge up and down the bed of the creek. The current stream has been moved repeatedly through the mining process, and increasingly shares the same space as the "road" bed used to bring supplies from the river to the camp by ATV. While some supplies can be brought by small plane or helicopter, this would be impractical for transporting large loads and vehicles. Preserve staff want to explore the feasibility of providing a more stable administrative dirt road connecting the camp with the river.

The dredge floated like a houseboat up and down Coal Creek from 1935- 1957

Park housing at Coal Creek- restored mining camp cabins (the 2-log foundation allowed it to be transported up and down the river with the dredge)

The piles of dredge materials have drastically altered the stream bed. The dredge material is now considered historic. What does the park preserve, the original hydrology of the area or the historic dredge piles with its accompanying erosion issues?

Currently, the "lower road" is used by four wheelers. This road crosses the Creek several times in water several feet deep. At one point the creek looks like it will likely breach its banks within the year, flooding a much longer section of the lower road. An old mining road exists higher on the embankment, but it has not been maintained for years, required costly yearly upkeep when it was maintained, and crossed permafrost areas which are very sensitive to built infrastructure.

The "lower road" is currently sharing the same space as Coal Creek

Yukon Charley's Jobe Chakuchin at the wheel. Recent fire damage adds to erosion issues at the "upper road"

For some reason, everyone at camp was surprised that we made it

through the upper road at all

With the park considering moving some of its law enforcement operations to Coal Creek, staff consider safe, reliable access from the camp to the river for park staff a priority. However, road vehicles are unable to navigate the flooded lower road, and the upper road would require a great deal of yearly upkeep and would have considerable impacts on the land. Not an easy answer to this transportation issue.

After spending 2 days with me, the Stream Team decided that the best use of my time in Alaska was as gabion basket fill.

We couldn't leave until the fog did.

Guess who got to drive on the way home!

AK FLMA LRTP update

2009-10-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the world of acronyms! On top of the usual transportation letters, we have the agency shortcuts, meaning that nearly any sentence related to my project could be written in at least 50% capital letters. So, AK FLMA LRTP is the Alaska Federal Land Management Agencies Long Range Transportation Plan, required by SAFETEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act, a Legacy for Users- heh), not to be confused with the AK NPS LRTP (Alaska National Park Service Long Range Transportation Plan).

Anyway, the FLMA LRTP effort has been underway for over a year. The plan will provide the agencies and the state the opportunity to work together to set statewide transportation priorities and leverage funds to meet transportation needs on Alaska's federal lands.

The interagency team has conducted initial data collection and has drafted a mission, goals, objectives and strategies for the plan. Currently, the FLMA LRTP is in a second data collection phase focused on informing these goals objectives and strategies.

The FLMA LRTP will actually consist of an umbrella plan which addresses the common objectives of the agencies, and "dropdown" agency-specific plans which address the individual transportation needs of each agency. By using this model, the agencies will be able to build on their common transportation goals while remaining mindful of their sister-agencies respective missions and transportation needs. This model also allows a maximum of resources, such as a shared public participation process and data collection and analysis.

Immediate benefits of the FLMA LRTP were obvious to me when I attended the last team meeting at BLM headquarters in Fairbanks in August. This effort is the first time that representatives from each agency, FHWA, and the state have sat around the same table to address transportation to and through Alaska's Federal lands. During breaks and after the meeting, people broke off to discuss obvious potential areas of collaboration and joint funding opportunities that only now have become apparent. The collaboration and information sharing that has taken place in this past year has had immediate payoffs, and the importance of continuing open lines of communication is a common topic of discussion.

Long Range Transportation Planning in Alaska's Federal Lands

2009-09-08T00:37:00.000-07:00

Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs) have begun conducting long range transportation planning processes consistent with LRTPs required by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and States. LRTPs in the National Park Service regions and in the other FLMAs have a different focus than other LRTPs because transportation on federal lands rarely centers on the efficient movement of people and goods. In the National Park units, transportation to and through the park often IS the experience. Often, the last thing a visitor to a park wants is a quick trip between two points!

In many ways, the Alaska Region units face a different set of transportation issues than the regions in the lower 48. The Alaska Region serves 15 parks, and comprises 68% of all NPS land in the country, yet boasts some of the least visited units in the system. Only three of the 15 parks are accessible by the limited road system in Alaska. The other parks are accessed by plan, helicopter, boat, dogsled, and snowmachine. Rather than exploring ways to control congestion and reduce vehicle miles traveled like other regions, the Alaska NPS units face diverse issues such as cruise ship capacity and access for subsistence hunting and gathering in the backcountry.

In Alaska, NPS is teaming up with the US Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Federal Highways, and the State of Alaska. Land managed by these agencies combined comprise over half of all the land in Alaska. Through conducting long range transportation planning jointly the FLMAs can identify common interests, align project investments, and maximize transportation investments.

Animal Count!

2009-07-21T23:38:00.000-07:00

Animals I've run into:

Sea Otters: 5

But Otis will always be my favorite. Otis is the otter that Susan Law and I ran into when we were sea kayaking near Homer. At first we thought he was a log, then I thought he was dead, until he yawned and looked over at us. I am new to sea otters and had no idea they slept floating on their backs with their feet sticking straight into the air!

Mountain Goats: 15- up close at midnight! Yes, it was still light out...

Moose: 8

Although everyone tells me I am blind and that they are everywhere! I usually see them after long, long hikes when I am too tired to care much.

Update (October 15)- OK, I just installed a headlamp on my bike because I come so close to running into moose on my morning commute. They are still shockingly huge animals!

Eagles: Too many to count!

Wolf: 1- showing off for the Denali shuttle!

Mosquitoes: Millions

Lynx: 3 (!!!) 1 at Yukon Charley

Update: Paul and I saw 2 more at Denali. They stayed on the road right by our car, then just off in the bush, hunting a rabbit. Wow.

Devolved Kuala: 4

Looks a little different from his Australian cousins due to tens of thousands of years of isolation in the Talkeetna Mountains. At least this is what we assumed until we saw a picture of a pika.

Bears: 5 (squint- it's there!)

Marmots ("whistle pigs":): Lots

Dall Sheep: 2 for sure in Denali, maybe 10 more (but they might have been rocks)

Salmon: Lots, but I haven't caught any yet.

Ongoing Alaska Vocabulary List

2009-07-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

Phrases it took me a while to figure out- in context:

On the Slope- as in "I work on the slope- two weeks on, two weeks off". The North Slope of Alaska, I usually hear it associated with the oil and gas industry.

Outside- anywhere not Alaska. "I'm going outside in December. My cousin is getting married in Wisconsin"

In the Bush- just what it sounds like- really, really remote. Which carries different connotations up here. "I grew up in the bush", "Do you think you could survive in the bush?" (I said no, not yet), "Jim went into the bush and was crazy within the year. We only saw him once in the spring and once in the fall when he came out to get as much whiskey as he could carry. I think he's still there."

Moose Nuggets- Okay, that is obvious, but there is a bona fide Moose Nugget Festival that everyone in Anchorage headed to this month???

Termination Dust- "Last year we had termination dust on the Talkeetna Mountains in July." Termination dust is a light dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains- "termination dust" because it marks the termination of summer. I'll post a picture as soon as I see it- happily not yet!

Pup- A pup is not quite a stream (even though in Utah an Alaska "pup" would be considered a major river).

Why am I in Alaska?

2009-07-20T22:42:00.000-07:00

I am living and working in Anchorage, Alaska as a National Park Foundation Scholar with the Alaska Region of the National Park Service. Each year the National Park Foundation Transportation Scholar program pairs transportation professionals with park service units facing transportation issues.

Last year I spent 7 amazing months as a scholar at Gulf Islands National Seashore in Florida, working on an alternative transportation plan for a hurricane-prone area of the park. This year I find myself at the opposite corner of the country, working at a very different scale of transportation planning.

I will be working with the Alaska Region of the National Park Service (NPS) on a long range transportation plan (LRTP). The most recent surface transportation bill requires that federal land management agencies (FLMAs) conduct LRTPs similar to those conducted by states and metropolitan planning organizations. The FLMAs in Alaska are in a unique position to work together to satisfy the LRTP requirement because they all share an administrative boundary- the state of Alaska.