New recreation area by Healy!

[akdsmer]

The Wednesday meeting, as viewed by the News-Miner:

Stampede Road options debated

By [email=smilkowski%40newsminer.com]Stefan Milkowski[/email]
Staff Writer
Published January 3, 2008

People who hunt, snowmachine, and drive off-road vehicles on the Stampede Road near Healy all seem to agree the area should stay like it is now. It’s open to everyone from snowmachines to dog-mushers, there’s not a lot of traffic, and people take good care of it.
They disagree on the best way to do that.
Keeping things the same was the motivation behind a Denali Borough Assembly resolution calling for the creation of a state recreation area and companion bills in the Legislature that would create the area.
Rep. David Guttenberg and Sen. Joe Thomas, Fairbanks Democrats whose districts cover the area and who sponsored the bills, held an informal forum on the proposal Wednesday evening in Fairbanks.
Denali Borough Mayor David Talerico said the borough latched onto the idea of a recreation area after other proposals kept coming in — to build a railroad, improve the road, or possibly make the narrow strip of state land part of the Denali National Park and Preserve, which surrounds it on three sides.
“We got a little bit spooked with all these different management proposals,” Talerico said. “What we’re really looking for is a way to hang on to what we got.”
About 15 people turned out for the meeting Wednesday, which followed a similar meeting in October in Healy.
Everyone who spoke said he also wanted things to stay the same.
Vern Dulany of North Pole said he likes that local people can get there and experience the wilderness “without a lot of government infringement.”
Brian Kelly Shaw of Fairbanks said he likes it that he can take his off-highway vehicle back there, because there aren’t a lot of places the rigs are allowed.
But many also expressed concerns that by trying to keep things the way they are, users could actually mess things up.
Shaw said he didn’t want the state to come in and start making improvements to the Stampede Road, which turns into a rugged trail shortly after Eightmile Lake. Right now it’s pretty much impossible to get an off-highway vehicle out there in the summer, he said, and that’s how it should stay.
The state park superintendent for the region, Brooks Ludwig, explained that a citizens’ advisory group representing different users would help make any management decisions about the area. The Stampede State Recreation Area could be run a lot like the Chena River State Recreation Area near Fairbanks, he said.
But Paul Lhotka of Fairbanks and Mike Dubowski of Salcha argued the public process didn’t always work as promised, and Lhotka warned of restrictions and fees down the road.
A few at the meeting offered alternative solutions for keeping the area as it is.
**** Bishop of Fairbanks, president of the Alaska Outdoor Council, suggested the area might be better off as a public use area rather than a recreation area. Public use areas fall under the state’s Division of Mining, Land and Water, while recreation area fall under the Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation.
Dulany said he thought the best way to leave things alone was to really leave them alone.
“My biggest concern with the Stampede right now is the bus,” he said, referring to the abandoned bus near the end of the Stampede Road where Christopher McCandless died in 1992 after living there for more than 100 days.
A major studio movie about McCandless has renewed interest in his story, and Dulany said he’s already seen people trying to get out there and other people rescuing them, whether it’s their responsibility or not.
“This bus is an attractive nuisance,” he said later.
Thomas and Guttenberg both said their vision for the recreation area was to be as inclusive as possible. Thomas said after the meeting that as long as the community was behind the plan, he didn’t see any reason it wouldn’t make it through the Legislature. The bills are SB 173 and HB 241.