Juneau off-road vehicle park nears completion

Effort looks for more volunteers to work on first phase of trails

A partially completed trail at the 35-Mile Off-Road Vehicle Riding Park. (City and Borough of Juneau photo)

By Ellie Ruel

Juneau Independent

An off-road vehicle riding park at the 35-mile marker out the road is nearing completion as volunteer workers cut trails and stabilize terrain.

“So at this point we have about three-quarters of a mile, even maybe 0.8 miles of a finished trail that's been brushed and logged and grubbed, and then capped and rocked,” said Juneau Parks and Recreation Director Marc Wheeler at an open house earlier this month. “We're continuing that work this summer.”

Brushing is the process of removing undergrowth such as blueberry bushes from a path. Logging lays down felled trees to allow heavy equipment to access the area and be used to grub, or remove organic soil and debris from the path. Then gravel is placed over the stabilized trail.

“It's muddy. There's a lot of rocks, a lot of trees. Trees have been a really big one, just having to fall and clear so many trees,” said Meghan Tabacek, executive director of Trail Mix. “Just also the logistics of the location are what make it so difficult. Since it is 35 miles out the road, it just takes way more time and money to get any equipment, any rocks, anything out to 35 miles.”

Wheeler said sourcing rock from a quarry owned by Goldbelt Inc. three miles from the work site near Bridget Cove has been helpful. Plans to purchase a used excavator and hauler using funds from the state’s Multi-Use Trails Program are in progress, Wheeler said.

Wheeler said the whole project costs about $1.5 million, with funding coming from various grants and a 3% temporary sales tax renewal by voters in 2012.

About $500,000 of that went towards the now-complete one-acre gravel parking area, $50,000 towards Trail Mix labor and $260,000 for the initial maintenance road. The rest was used for heavy equipment used by volunteers during biweekly summer work weekends. 

Shelly Lager, secretary of the Juneau Off Road Association, said they hope to open part of the five-mile first phase of the project this fall or next spring, depending on volunteer interest. The park will have about two miles of completed trails open and the rest will be under construction. It will be managed by JORA once open.

“As of right now, with the core group that we have working, it's more realistic to do every other weekend,” Lager said. “But the more volunteers we can get, we can start getting out there every weekend. So, and with weather permitting, sometimes we do back-to-back weekends, but we have to leave. We don't want to burn out our crew.”

Volunteer applications are available on the off-road association’s website.

Lager said the group is excited to see the park draw near to an official opening, after getting the required permits in 2022.

“Growing up here we had Dredge Lake, we had Thane. We had various different areas, which are now off limits,” Lager said. “This will be the one spot. We have a large enough off-road group in this town that there needs to still be a good place to ride.”

• Contact Ellie Ruel at ellie.ruel@juneauindependent.com.