Outdoors

It’s no secret Juneau is a special place — after all, there’s a reason people visit here: the nature. Anyone with a map or a phone can walk from the heart of downtown Juneau and within ten minutes be completely engulfed by the rainforest. 

Or, they can pay someone to take them there. Soon, visitors may be able to take guided tours of a few places that, up to now, have been off-limits to tourism companies. That’s because the way tourism companies in Juneau can take advantage of city-owned trails and parks is getting an update.

New guidelines for how Juneau’s Parks and Recreation Department manages the commercial use of trails and parks could open up more areas for guided tours. That has some residents concerned, but the city has been tracking that feedback. Earlier this summer the department held public meetings across town to collect local input. 

Parks and Rec Director George Schaaf said at a meeting last week that the city used input from hundreds of residents to help shape the recommendations.

“We hope that the analysis that we’ve been able to pull together… reflects those comments that we received, and is something that the community can support,” he said.

He said the new guidance is overdue – the last time guidelines were updated was two decades ago. The proposed revisions come as city officials and residents grapple with what role cruise ship tourism should play in Juneau’s future. 

 If approved by the Juneau Assembly, the update would take into account the impacts tours could have on the natural environment and local users. It gauges whether an area is high or low usage and then regulates things like the group size allowed, restricted days and hours of operation. 

Linda Pringle is with Corvus Design, which helped develop the analysis. At the meeting, she explained that most trails won’t be affected by the revision.  

“Approximately out of the 50 or so miles of trails that the CBJ manages through the Parks and Recreation Department only about 15% of those are actually going to be open to commercial use,” she said. 

The recommendations would revise tourism rules at 13 locations across town. Three of those would be locations where tourism companies haven’t been allowed before, including the Under Thunder Trail and Telephone Hill Park. 

Some residents expressed frustration with the commercial tourism already on trails and parks and worried more of it would lead to overuse. 

Kathy Coghill, a North Douglas resident and active trail runner testified at the meeting last week. She said she was nervous about more people using the trails. 

“I’m just concerned about the physical vulnerability of the trails and making sure that we assess their current status and make sure they’re healthy and okay before we start thinking about adding volume of visitors,” she said. 

But some trails would be saved just for Juneauites. The new plan designates 38 trails and 24 parks that would be off-limits to commercial tourism. That includes historical hotspots like Perseverance Trail and Sunshine Cove.

But, individual tourists can still go to them on their own accord. And, there are still trails that the city doesn’t manage that could be open to commercial use. 

The recommendations still need to be vetted by the Assembly, which has the authority to make changes. Residents will have another chance to comment, which has not yet been scheduled. If the new plan is approved, companies would need to apply for permits to operate on certain trails and parks.

Eaglecrest Ski Area has just enough snow to partially open to skiers on Saturday — its scheduled opening day. It marks the kick-off of the winter ski season in Juneau. 

But, not everything is in operation quite yet — only the short Porcupine chairlift will be running. New Eaglecrest General Manager Craig Cimmons said that’s because there’s been too much rain and not enough snow for a full opening. 

“Opening on our forecasted opening day is always a win,” he said. “But, the sad reality is we were buried in snow and it’s not all gone, but it’s mostly gone — which is sad. But I think that’s just a product of where we are.”

This is the first time in a while that the ski area has opened on time. The last two seasons were delayed for weeks because of heavy rain and warm temperatures.  

Cimmons said last week’s dump of snow — paired with a stint of around-the-clock snow-making — means there is just enough to get skiers up at least some of the mountain.

“We need another cold snap to come through. We need more natural snow to come,” he said. “But, we’ll just do whatever we can do with natural and cold temperatures and keep making snow when we can.”

In October the ski area management team announced that the Black Bear lift would be out of commission this winter season because of a broken bearing. It’s one of four chairlifts at the ski area, and it services the east side of the mountain including the East Bowl Chutes and the Drifter, Marmot and Vertigo runs. 

It’s unclear what the plan is for Black Bear Lift. 

“The last several weeks, we’ve just been focusing on opening so we’ve just been focusing on the other lifts,” Cimmons said. “Blackbear is what it is, and we will get back into that once we get open and we know everything’s up and running.”

The ski area’s three other lifts — Ptarmigan, Hooter and Porcupine — are working and planned to run the entire season, once the area is fully open. 

The Porcupine Lift will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and daily tickets will cost $22 for adults and kids this weekend. But, if skiers bring non-perishables or canned goods to donate to the Southeast Alaska Food Bank, they’ll halve the price. Kids under six who ride with their parents are free.

Beyond this week, the National Weather Service Juneau forecasts moderate to heavy rain in Juneau through at least the middle of next week. No new snow is expected. A flood watch is in effect through 9 a.m. Friday morning. 

Eaglecrest’s regular schedule is Wednesday through Sunday with daily operations over Christmas. The winter season runs through mid-April.

Hundreds of Ketchikan residents recently packed into a parking lot on a chilly Wednesday evening to send off a 74-foot Sitka spruce, on its way to the U.S. Capitol.

The massive tree was fully encased inside a tractor trailer, only visible through a few plastic windows on the back end. But that didn’t deter the impressively large crowd from forming a long line to sign the banners hanging over each side of the truck.

It’s the first Capitol Christmas Tree to come from the Tongass National Forest, and only the second from Alaska. The tree made a pit stop in Ketchikan as it began the long journey to Washington, D.C.

Twenty-five-year-old Max Ludwigsen got his turn with the sharpie as local band Dude Mountain played behind him. He said he came out for the event because of his connection to the island where the tree was harvested.

“This was cut on Zarembo Island, and I grew up hunting Zarembo,” Ludwigsen explained. “I was born and raised in Wrangell.”

Ludwigsen said he moved to Ketchikan back in grade school, but his family still hunts on the small island that lies between Wrangell and Prince of Wales Island.

“It’s pretty cool with us being, you know, not really a spot that people think about,” Ludwigsen said.

Each year, the “People’s Tree” is sourced from one of the country’s national forests. But in the more than half a century since the tradition began, America’s largest national forest hasn’t made the cut, until now.

The Tongass spans 17 million acres across the panhandle — nearly triple the size of the next largest national forest. That’s a pretty daunting haystack to search for the one perfect Christmas needle.

But Tom Roland was up to the task. He’s the tree team lead with the U.S. Forest Service, meaning he had the privilege of choosing the handful or so finalist trees to present to the Architect of the Capitol.

“Essentially what it comes down to is they want a 60 to 80 foot tall Christmas tree,” Roland said. “Exactly what you’re looking for in your living room.”

Maybe not exactly like your living room given it’s eight stories tall, but imagining a giant Christmas tree is simple enough. Even knowing precisely what you’re looking for though, where do you start in a forest twice the size of Maryland?

Roland said modern technology helped. They used lidar, which is sort of like radar, but instead of radio waves, it uses lasers to create detailed digital images. The team applied algorithms to existing scans of the forest to look for areas with favorable characteristics.

“So things like roundness of the canopy, number of returns on the lidar scan indicating a full crown, things like that,” Roland explained.

Once they found potential candidates, Roland said they used ground-based lidar to produce a 3D model of each tree. That way, the Architect of the Capitol’s office could get a look at every part of those trees without having to cut down and remove all the finalists.

That’s important, because unlike your tree at home, the People’s Tree doesn’t have the benefit of walls to cover up aesthetic imperfections.

“You don’t have a bad corner to hide it in. It has to be perfect on all sides,” said Roland. “And when your trees grow as a forest, that’s a challenge. Because a lot of the times when you’re growing in a forest setting, you end up with a side that’s bald or a side that’s missing branches.”

After more than a year of searching, the team found the perfect tree on Zarembo Island, where it was barged to Wrangell and then down to Ketchikan to kick off its whistle-stop tour through the Lower 48.

Terry Baker is the CEO of the Society of American Foresters, the primary sponsor making the US tour happen.

“Kind of being that facilitator that brings this whole thing together and helps people, you know, have some Christmas magic,” Baker said of his organization’s role.

Baker said there were a lot of partners who donated things like that giant tractor trailer, which minimized the tax dollars spent on the project. Those sponsors, like the people who came out to sign the banner, wanted to be a part of something bigger, he said.

The stop-and-go tour is about honoring the tree’s home state, but also letting the rest of the country join in on that community spirit.

“Being able to have signatures from every stop, and I think this tree’s going to have about 17 stops in the Lower 48, so all these communities across the country are going to be connected with Alaska, be connected with Ketchikan, be connected with Wrangell,” Baker said.

Once those banners collect signatures from around the country, they will be showcased during receptions in Washington, D.C., creating what Baker called “its own unique part of history.”

Michael Fanelli is the News Director at KRBD. He can be reached at michael@krbd.org.

Tourism to national parks in Alaska has rebounded from pre-pandemic levels after three years of lower numbers, according to a report released by the National Park Service.

In all, 3.3 million visitors came to Alaska’s national park sites in 2023, and they spent about $1.5 billion in the local regions, according to the Park Service’s annual visitor spending effects report.

There were 21,300 park-related jobs in Alaska generating $839 million in labor income in 2023, the report said. Alaska’s national park units generated $2.3 billion in economic value to the state, the report said.

The statistics were compiled by the National Park Service, with assistance from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The totals for job numbers, labor income and economic output to the Alaska economy were higher than in 2019, the year prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report. Total visitor spending in 2023 was about equal to that in 2019, according to the report.

“Solitude, wilderness and deep human connection await in Alaska’s national parks, and I’m proud to see how the parks are benefitting surrounding communities,” Sarah Creachbaum, Alaska regional director for the National Park Service, said in a statement.

Alaska has 23 national park units and is one of the states that reaps the most economic value from its national parks, preserves, monuments and historic sites, according to the report. Alaska ranks fourth among all U.S. states in national park-related visitor spending, jobs, labor income and economic output, according to the report.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit Alaska park visitation particularly hard, however.

Analysis by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s research division found that visitation to Alaska’s eight main national parks fell by 86% from 2019 to 2020, compared to a national decline of 28% for total park visits.

Denali National Park and Preserve, for example, got only 54,850 visits in 2020, less than a tenth of what was recorded in each of the five preceding years, according to the park. Denali is one of the state’s top tourist destinations.

In 2023, visitor totals at Denali were back up to nearly 500,000, according to the Park Service. That was despite a new impediment to travel: the closure at the midpoint of the only road through the park. The 92-mile road has been closed at its midpoint since late summer of 2021 because of an ongoing landslide triggered by thaw. That section of road is expected to remain closed until 2026 as crews build a new bridge at the site.

A different hazard has limited visitation at another popular Alaska national park unit. Severe flooding from storms in the fall of 2022 destroyed bridges and wreaked other damage on the Alaska portion of the 33-mile Chilkoot Trail, part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

The Alaska side of that historic trail has been closed beyond the first four miles, though the Canadian portion of the trail, which lies north of the Chilkoot Pass, remains open.

Indications are that this year’s visitation numbers will be high as well, despite the hindrances at Denali and Klondike Gold Rush. A large percentage of visitors to national parks in Alaska arrive by cruise ship, and cruise passenger numbers this year were expected to break the record set in 2023, according to industry reports.

A warning: this story contains references to child sex abuse. 

Juneau’s Echo Ranch Bible Camp is among the places where a California man allegedly abused boys over the span of decades. Now, the people who say they were victims of Bradley Earl Reger are trying to hold the institutions where the abuse took place accountable. 

Reger was affiliated with Juneau’s Echo Ranch Bible camp for about 30 years. In the 1970s, the California resident volunteered as a nurse there. He also brought minors on trips to the camp from his home in California as recently as the early 2000s. Multiple men have accused Reger of abuse at the camp, under the guise of medical care.

Reger was already criminally indicted on federal sexual abuse charges last year. But a recent lawsuit, which names Echo Ranch’s owner, Avant Ministries, aims to hold the organizations Reger was involved with accountable, too. 

California resident Zack Winfrey, the lead plaintiff in the recent suit, attended Reger’s home church in California as a kid. He said Reger abused him for years in California and on trips to Alaska. Winfrey said the people around Reger at his church – and organizations like Echo Ranch – allowed it to happen.

“Brad could have been stopped decades ago,” he said. “I mean, some of them not even just reporting to — some of them were in the positions of power to completely cut them off from this, and didn’t do it.”

Winfrey reached out to lawyers about taking legal action against organizations Reger worked and volunteered for. Now, 18 of Reger’s alleged victims are involved in the lawsuit. 

“But there’s even more victims signing on now,” he said.

Morgan Stewart is one of Winfrey’s lawyers. He’s a partner at the law firm Manly, Stewart, and Finaldi. They specialize in representing victims in widespread child sexual abuse cases at churches and schools. 

“It’s essentially taking back their power over a perpetrator and those who allowed the perpetrator to abuse them,” Stewart said.

He said lawsuits like this one target the people who turned a blind eye and enabled abusers.

“The intent is to hold those entities accountable for it, their endorsement, approval and participation in his sexual abuse of these young men,” he said.

Stewart said the total number of Reger’s victims could be in the hundreds. 

His firm has won hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements in famous child abuse cases. For instance, those involving the Roman Catholic Church and Larry Nassar, the U.S. Olympics Gymnastics physician who assaulted hundreds of athletes. 

When asked for comment, a lawyer representing Avant Ministries wrote in an email that they will be “aggressively defending” the claims against the organization. 

As news of the lawsuit spreads, Winfrey, the lead plaintiff in the case, hopes more victims of Reger will come forward. 

The FBI has an online form for anyone who wants to report that they — or their minor dependent — may have been victimized by Bradley Reger. 

Survivors of sexual abuse in Juneau can call AWARE at 907-586-1090 to find resources for support. There is also a national 24-hour phone and online chat hotline that offers counseling and support.

Dog sledding is an iconic piece of Alaska’s history. From its roots in Alaska Native culture to the Klondike Gold Rush to the Iditarod, it has withstood the test of time. 

Now, it’s taken on a new form to help it survive: excursions for Juneau’s ever-booming cruise ship tourism industry. 

Taking off in a helicopter from Douglas Island, the green rainforest that engulfs downtown quickly turned to white as the cruise ships in the Gastineau Channel fell out of view. 

Soon, the passengers were flying over the Juneau Icefield. Home to over a thousand glaciers, it stretches across 15,000 square miles of mountain terrain between the capital and British Columbia. Looking down from above, all you can see is the blue of glaciers weaving through the dark mountains and white patches of snow. 

But, there was something else out there, too. As the helicopter moved closer, it looked like a bunch of ants in the snow. Closer still, and the ants started to look kind of fluffy. 

But then, the barking came into earshot — it’s the Norris Glacier dog sledding camp. 

Each year from late April through mid-August, nearly 200 dogs from all over the U.S. live on the glacier. It’s located 3,100 feet above sea level. The camp has existed for more than 20 years, and everything there is flown up and down by helicopter — including the dogs.

Josi Thyr is the camp’s manager and a professional musher. She owns 27 of the dogs at the camp. For most of the year, she’s based in Fairbanks.

“I feel like for Alaska, it’s kind of what the cowboy is for the American West,” she said. “The difference is we still are doing this.”

Last year, she finished her first-ever Iditarod, the iconic 1,000-mile trek from Anchorage to Nome. Now, her team is training for her second.

“These dogs are athletes, and so we want to keep them moving,” she said. “The shape that they’re in after coming off the glacier, I think makes a big difference in how they perform in the wintertime.”

Right now, she’s building her team and figuring out which pups have what it takes to go the distance. 

Thyr’s husband, JJ Shelley, selected 10 dogs — with names like Fifa and Seabiscuit – and hooked their harnesses up to a multi-person sled. As they got lined up, some dogs were borderline screaming in anticipation, while others jumped up and down. 

Riding down the trail on the back of the sled, Shelley said training in cold places like the icefield is crucial to keeping the dogs in shape during the hot summer months.

He said it also serves as a way for mushers to maintain a steady income during the summer via the tours they give to people who visit the camp. In recent years, mushing has become increasingly expensive.

“People ask us the big question of ‘These guys are running over 100 miles a day, what are they eating?’ The answer is, my wallet. They eat maybe about $30,000 worth of food every year,” he said, laughing. 

Even in April of this year, race organizers for the Iditarod said financial woes like growing inflation, loss of sponsors and declining revenue threaten the race’s future. That’s why Shelley says more and more mushers are turning to tourism.

“The mushing community in general is very reliant on tourism for I mean, that’s how we make our money,” he said. “We rely on it for dog food money and all that stuff and race entry fees and everything — this is how we make our living.”

Dog mushing tours on the icefield run between $600 to $700 per person online. But for people like Cindy Spencer, it’s worth every penny. She traveled to Alaska from Colorado to celebrate her 60th birthday. 

“It was actually on my list to go to Alaska, that was on my ‘live list.’ And so I asked my girlfriends if they would be up for it, and they’re like, ‘Heck, yeah,’” she said. “We kind of chose things that we all wanted to do, and dog sledding was one of them.”

On a typical day during the heart of tourism season, about 150 people are flown up to take a tour. Jack White is the tour manager for NorthStar Helicopters, the company that flies people up to the camp. 

“We rely on cruise ships for 90% of our business, so they’re a huge part of it,” he said.  

White said many of the people who do the trip call it an experience they’ll never forget. It’s also a way to get people out of downtown Juneau during the congested summer months.

But for the dogs, it’s just another day in the office. Their office just happens to be up in the mountains, on a giant hunk of ice.