Alaska Community Foundation + Chugach Park Fund

Chugach Park Fund’s trail improvements are providing safer and easier access to Chugach
State Park for people with a wide range of abilities and outdoor experience and we hope you will join us in this effort.Chugach State Park is the most visited public recreation area in the entire state of Alaska—drawing more visitors each year than Denali National Park. This immense popularity ismainly due to the following attributes of the park:

Accessibility: the park encompasses 495,000 acres of land (making it the fourth largest
state park in the U.S.) and is located next to Alaska’s most populous city, Anchorage. It
has over 60 access points, including 16 developed trailheads. Access to this treasured
park is spread throughout the park’s boundary and many locals can get to a trailhead or
access point in just a few minutes.

Diversity of recreation pursuits: the park has something for everyone—visitors can explore
by foot, bicycle, ATV, snow machine, skis, ice skates and boats. They can spend their time
in the park viewing wildlife, hunting, fishing, picking berries, rock climbing, running rivers,
paddling lakes, orienteering, trail running and mountaineering.

Since 2016 the Chugach Park Fund (CPF), operated by a passionate group of seven
volunteers, has been improving and enhancing trails within Chugach State Park with the
goal of increased access and enjoyment for all Alaskans and our visitors. The group’s work
consists of two main tasks:
1. raising funds from private sources and;
2. managing trail improvement projects funded by those donations.

Our work is simplified greatly by the fact that the CPF is housed within the Alaska Community Foundation, which allows donations to the Fund to be tax exempt. The Alaska Community Foundation basically provides all the work associated with establishing and
managing a non-profit so that the CPF steering committee can focus efforts entirely on
raising money and managing projects. CPF’s volunteer committee members enjoy the park
in all seasons and we are passionate about improving trails and access for our families,
neighbors and visitors to our state. Through our work with the CPF we are putting our
gratitude for this beautiful and accessible park into action. The establishment of the Chugach Park Fund came about because the majority of the park’s 285 miles of trails were not designed in a sustainable fashion; in fact they were not really designed at all. Most of the trails in use today began as homestead access routes or are ‘social trails’ walked in by people trying to get from one place to another in the most direct way possible. Public funding for trail maintenance and improvement has nearly disappeared; the park has only one full-time staff person assigned to oversee the park’s trail system. Thus, park visitors routinely encounter trails that are too steep, poorly drained or overgrown. Signage on many trails is insufficient for providing safe experiences for visitors. Trails that aren't properly maintained are unsafe and discourage people from recreating outdoors. Overgrown and narrow trails can create a safety hazard by reducing visibility and sight lines for people to see other hikers or wildlife. First-time park visitors or others new to recreating outdoors may feel uncomfortable or unsafe in these conditions.

Other park visitors may be physically unable to navigate challenging conditions, such as
hard to find and steep, fall-line trails. Our work has resulted in vastly improved trails in
Chugach State Park, by rerouting to more accessible grades, adding gravel, placingboardwalks, clearing overgrown brush, and adding informational signs. Our trail improvement projects also resolve resource damage caused by social trails which develop around hard-to-traverse, muddy or unclear sections of trail. Hikers will almost always do what they can to keep their shoes dry but the use of an alternative route over time invariably results in the creation of another muddy section as vegetation is trampled, then replaced with bare ground where snow melt and rainwater follow the path of least resistance. We work closely with park managers to determine what their trail improvement priorities are so that we can serve all the people who visit the park and help conserve the park’s natural resources.

The Chugach Park Fund’s on the ground work is performed by contractors and also by
volunteers. A statewide non-profit organization, Alaska Trails, has been our most used
contractor for trail improvement projects, due to their affordability as well as their
expertise. We are proud to hire their crews, as they work to train young people to gain skills
in trail construction and maintenance. Our volunteer events, each of which accommodates up to 15 people, help build a sense of community ownership and accomplishment as local residents of all ages and abilities join for a full day of outdoor work on trails throughout the park. We generally offer six volunteer events each summer.