Clarise Larson

Eaglecrest Ski Area celebrated 50 years of downhill skiing and outdoor adventures in Alaska’s capital city on Saturday. But, the celebration comes amid questions about the financial viability of the city-owned ski area in the years ahead. 

A live band played under the sun outside the lodge. Athena Morris was in the crowd with her family. She has been skiing most of her young life. She and her friend said their favorite thing about the local ski area isn’t the skiing.  

“It’s the chairlift,” she said. “You get to sit on it and you get to go really high.”

Her dad, Ammon Morris, said his favorite part is the easy access to the sport and being able to share it with his daughter. 

“I just love it,” he said. “I feel so privileged that we have this thing — and right in town. It’s just like, 20 minutes from my house. I get here every weekend, and we’re totally doing that this year.” 

The Morrises were among the hundreds of residents who flocked to the ski area on Douglas Island on Saturday to celebrate its 50th year of operation. There was live music, food and auctions. 

For five decades, Eaglecrest has drawn generations of local outdoor enthusiasts and travelers seeking Alaska snow adventures. It’s the only ski area in town. 

Jim Calvin is the board chair for the Eaglecrest Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to generating community support for the ski area.

“I think it’s hard to understate the value of Eaglecrest,” he said. “It’s hard to measure the value of Eaglecrest to the community, but it really is one of the things that makes Juneau a special place to live.”

Over the years, Eaglecrest has faced criticism for its growing reliance on city funding to build and maintain infrastructure and pay its staff. Now, management is looking to the future. The ski area is attempting to expand its services to operate year-round and become financially self-sustaining. 

Calvin said Eaglecrest is at a turning point in its history. 

“I think many of us see that summer development opportunities are part of the equation, part of the solution as we move to the next generation of Eaglecrest and we’re working hard to make that happen,”  he said. 

In the coming years, the ski area is slated to run into a multimillion-dollar deficit. It’s a part of a plan to repair some broken and aging infrastructure while boosting pay to employees and preparing to operate year-round. 

Its expansion into summer operations relies heavily on the success of a gondola that the city bought for about $2 million three years ago. Its parts haven’t left the ground since arriving in  Juneau, and it’s unclear how much it will cost to get it up and running. But once it’s operating, leaders say it will allow the ski area to stay open year-round and eventually make enough money for Eaglecrest to be self-sustaining. 

Hannah Shively, Eaglecrest’s new board chair, said that’s critical to the next 50 years of operation. Eaglecrest’s former longtime board chair Mike Satre resigned earlier this month, saying he didn’t have enough time to dedicate to the position. 

Shively said, despite the uncertainty, she thinks Eaglecrest’s future is bright. 

“There’s a lot of opportunity to becoming more self-sustainable and maybe even subsidize winter recreation in the future,” she said. “I think it’s all potential, and it’s whether or not we can grab onto it.”

The ski area plans to host another anniversary celebration in January, which is when Eaglecrest officially opened in 1976.

This story has been updated.

Update, Tuesday:

The National Weather Service has canceled the flood warning for Mendenhall Lake and River.

Juneau’s second glacial outburst flood of the year crested Monday night at 7:30 p.m. at 9.6 feet.

Original story:

A second, minor glacial lake outburst flood is underway in Juneau. Water levels in the Mendenhall Lake and River are slated to crest sometime Tuesday morning. 

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning Monday morning after indications that the water in Suicide Basin had started to release from the basin and into Mendenhall Lake.

The National Weather Service in Juneau predicts water levels will be much lower than last month’s record-breaking flood, based on the estimated current volume of Suicide Basin.

Nicole Ferrin, the NWS warning coordination meteorologist, said at a press briefing Monday afternoon that recent heavy rainfall may influence how much water is in the basin and lake. 

“We’ve got fall storms coming through, so that’s going to contribute to the base flow of everything,” Ferrin said. 

NWS currently forecasts a crest between 11 and 12 feet between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Tuesday. Ferrin says the forecast could change as new information becomes available.  

Flooding is expected around Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River, including around the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, the Mendenhall Campground, Skaters Cabin Road, View Drive and potentially Back Loop Bridge.

Denise Koch, the city’s director of engineering and public works, said at the briefing the city is advising residents on View Drive to evacuate the area out of “an abundance of caution.”

The city also plans to close off Meander Way to local traffic only and reinforce the HESCO flood barriers in that area before the crest. Koch said most homes in the Mendenhall Valley should be spared from flooding. 

“We are confident that the HESCO barriers overall will perform in a GLOF of this magnitude, similarly to how they were overall, pretty successful in the August event,” she said.

The temporary levee the city installed along the Mendenhall River this year protected hundreds of homes during last month’s flood, which crested at 16.65 feet. But water still leaked through some sections and flooded several streets. 

A similar secondary glacial lake outburst flood occurred last October. The city reported minimal impacts to neighborhoods. The city plans to close the Kaxdigoowu Heen Dei, or Brotherhood Bridge Trail, and potentially other streets.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

Find more information about glacial outburst flooding, including coverage of August’s flood, here. 

Heavy rainfall in Juneau this week caused untreated wastewater from a city pump station downtown to overflow into Gastineau Channel for several hours. 

Chad Gubala, the production and treatment manager at the city’s wastewater utility, said heavy rain paired with a high tide overwhelmed the pump station along Egan Drive, which is currently undergoing a major reconstruction. 

He said the potential environmental and human health impacts of the overflow are expected to be minimal to none. Samples of the water appeared to be very dilute. 

“It went out once again in an area where there’s typically no human contact,” Gubala said. “It gets diluted very quickly, and it gets consumed by the natural microorganisms in our channel pretty quickly as well, and becomes part of the food chain.”

The approximately 160,000 gallons of discharge was a mixture of stormwater and wastewater, or sewage, that was headed to the Juneau-Douglas Wastewater Treatment Plant. But instead, it overflowed into the channel before being treated. The overflow happened twice, first on Wednesday for a brief 30-minute window, then again on Thursday, which lasted several hours. 

Gubala said once the reconstruction project of the pump station is complete, overflows like this won’t likely happen again. The city notified the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation after the initial discharge. 

The city is currently undertaking several reconstruction projects for its utility infrastructure as much of it reaches the end of its lifespan. Gubala said repairing and maintaining infrastructure now is key to preventing other accidents like this from happening in the future. 

In this newscast:

• Juneau may be getting a ‘new’ City Hall after all – but this time voters won’t get to decide on whether to approve it.
• The union that represents support staff at the Juneau School District is suing the district over its afterschool child care program.
• Last year, the Klondike Road Relay got off to a late start when a tour bus crash delayed the race, forcing participants to skip the first few legs. This year, the event celebrated its biggest gathering, despite broken infrastructure and ongoing political tension.
• Sea shanties have been around for centuries. But in recent years, they’ve made a pop culture comeback. You can hear them all over TikTok or in the video game Assassin’s Creed 4. But one man has been getting generations of people in Ketchikan to sing shanty songs for over 30 years.

Juneau may be getting a ‘new’ City Hall after all – but this time voters won’t get to decide on whether to approve it. 

At a committee of the whole meeting on Monday, the Juneau Assembly moved forward with a plan to purchase and renovate two floors of the Michael J. Burns building, which houses the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation downtown. 

If approved by the Assembly at its next regular meeting later this month, it would become the new location for City Hall. The cost to purchase the floors is $10.2 million. Renovation costs could add more than $7.5 million. 

At the meeting, City Manager Katie Koester told members the city estimates the move and renovations will be cheaper in the long run than maintaining the city’s current status quo.   

“Purchasing two floors of a box outside of the downtown core is not my dream situation. It’s not my legacy. It’s not anything like that,” she said. “I just think that it’s a very practical, fiscally responsible thing to do.” 

The current City Hall near Marine Park fits less than half of the city’s employees and needs millions of dollars in maintenance and repairs. The city rents other office space around town to house the rest of its staff. But city administrators say that’s unsustainable and expensive. They have advocated for years for a new space that would fit everyone. 

The city asked voters twice during recent municipal elections to approve bond debt to help pay for the construction of a brand new City Hall building. Voters said no both times. 

Now, the city has enough money set aside to purchase the floors in the Burns building, which means it won’t need to ask voters to approve any bond debt. The decision will instead go to the Assembly. 

Assembly member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs said she doesn’t like the plan, but she won’t object to it. 

“I share some people’s sense of, This isn’t what I wanted,’ but we do owe it to our community and to the folks who work for the city and for the community to come up with a solution,” she said. 

The Assembly asked for a more detailed estimate of what the renovations would cost. The Assembly is slated to take public testimony on the purchase of the floors and vote on it at its next regular meeting on Monday, Sept. 22. 

Sunday is the last day to register to vote or update your mailing address for Juneau’s 2025 municipal election.

This year’s election features three ballot propositions, three open Assembly seats and three open school board seats. Ballots will be mailed to voters on Sept. 19 and vote centers for in-person voting will open on Sept. 22.

The last day to vote is Oct. 7. Final election results will be shared later that month. Go to the city’s election page for more information. 

Have questions for candidates? Submit your thoughts to the KTOO newsroom through the form at the bottom of ktoo.org/elections or below.