An ailing road and spruce bark beetle outbreak kept the Chugach National Forest’s most popular campground closed since the fall. But Monday, the Russian River Campground reopened to the public.
On June 5, campers returned to the site for the first time since August, and rafters floated down the brilliant blue Kenai River on a warm, sunny Monday. Over the past 10 months, a lot of work happened at the campground, especially to the road that hugs the Kenai River as it takes campers to the sites. Marion Glaser oversees the campground in her role as Chugach’s interagency coordinator.
“The Kenai River does a big bend, and the river is actively attempting to take out this hillside that the road is on,” she said.
The road has been slowly sloughing off into the river for decades, and now the Forest Service is working on a big project to reinforce the bank and the road with a large metal retaining wall.
“That will combat the erosion that’s taking place, because this road is important, not just for recreational sportfishing, but also for subsistence fishing, for residents in subsistence communities around here, and it’s also very important for the Native tribes and their culture," she said.
Contractors worked on the road from August until winter, and from April until Memorial Day. Now, the fishery, campground and trailheads will be open until Aug. 15, when the contractor will take up the road project again.
In the meantime, the road is traversable, but unpaved in parts.
At the same time as the road construction, foresters have been working on solving another safety concern at the site — spruce bark beetle-killed trees. The beetles have damaged almost 2 million acres across Southcentral Alaska, including 50,000 acres of Chugach National Forest.
Tom Roland is the silviculturist with Chugach National Forest, which means he oversees the efforts to stop the spread of spruce bark beetles through forestry management. Throughout the popular campground, trees killed by the beetle infestation are at risk of toppling and hitting hikers or vehicles.
Roland said clearing beetle-kill wood in the campground has been a monumental effort, and nowhere is it more evident than the entrance. On the south side of the road, Forest Service efforts have left the woods nearly spruce-free, while the north side of the road, managed by a different agency, contains abundant dead spruce.
“So you see approximately 75 to 85 percent mortality for spruce,” he said, pointing across the Sterling Highway. “What’s gonna happen on that stand over the next 10 to 15 years, the needles have dropped off, so we have a fairly high fire risk of crowning, and a major risk to the highway, and the facilities around here.”
Then he points at the Chugach side of the road: “And then when you look over here, that spruce component’s gone.”
On Monday, the campground was pretty sparse, although plenty of cars were parked at the popular Lower Russian Lakes trailhead. Glaser said soon, however, the campsites will be packed.
“During the summer season, which runs from, usually,May to September, we will see up to and over 150,000 visitor use days here in the campground,” she said.
As visitors return to the site, she reminds the public that bears are already active in the area, and to keep backpacks within three feet of you, keep caught fish within 12 feet, and keep all food locked inside your car.
