The road to the Russian River Campground, at the confluence of the Russian and Kenai rivers in Cooper Landing, is getting some major infrastructure upgrades that will close access to the campground between August 15 and June 1 of next year. The popular hiking and fishing spots that are reached by that road will also be inaccessible during the closure.
The purpose of the upgrades, according to the U.S. Forest Service, is to widen and resurface a mile of the Russian River Campground Road and to reinforce the hillside between the road and the Kenai River.
Jesse Labenski with the Forest Service said monitors have been measuring the hillside next to the road, which has been slumping toward the river despite previous efforts to reinforce it.
“The main purpose is to fix that wall, to shore it up, and essentially to prevent the road from washing into the Kenai River,” he said. “That is the big, main point right there, that would be pretty catastrophic for the fishery, not to mention the people that would end up stuck on the other side of the road.”
The road construction project will also close down several nearby recreation spots, in addition to the campground. Sport fishermen won’t be able to access the river from the Anglers Trail or White Trail, and hikers won’t be able to reach the Russian River falls via the Russian Lakes Trail. The public use cabins on the Russian Lakes Trail will also be inaccessible from that route, though they will still be available by Snug Harbor Road, Upper Russian Lakes Trailhead or by plane, Labenski said.
“The access is still there, it’s just longer. And that goes for hikers, bikers, everyone trying to get out there,” he said.
The closure will also affect Alaska Recreation Management, the organization that manages the campground and makes revenue from campground fees. But Labenski said it usually stops charging fees mid-September anyway, so the revenue loss should not be significant.
Labenski also said there could be impacts on nearby businesses that generally rely on tourists, like fishing guide companies.
He said the timeline of the project is meant to accommodate the anglers and recreators who use the Russian River campground and surrounding area in the summer. The closure was originally planned for August 1, but was pushed back two weeks to allow river access for subsistence dipnetters through the end of the sockeye salmon season.
Trout fishing in the river, Labenski said, might still be impacted, since the season continues into the fall.
“We’re trying to do what we can to lessen the impact. We know it’s gonna be impactful, but we don’t want that hillside to end up in the river, because that would cause bigger problems,” he said.
For campers hoping to spend some nights in Cooper Landing after August 15, Labenski recommends the Quartz Creek Campground, Cooper Creek North and Cooper Creek South, all of which should still have openings.
The Forest Service is hoping to have the Russian River Campground open again by Memorial Day weekend of 2023, prior to the start of the next sockeye season. Labenski explained that if the construction work takes longer than a year, the contractors would cease work for the summer to allow use of the campground and recreation during the busy season, before resuming work the following fall.
