Beaver Pond Trail Eyed for Upgrades

Public comment or opposition to the Beaver Pond Trail restoration project can be sent to kelleyk@muni.org. Deadline for comments is Oct. 30. (Courtesy of Girdwood Trails Committee)

By Soren Wuerth

TNews Editor

After years of being bandaged and bound, Girdwood's Beaver Pond trail is poised for a significant makeover should grant funding find approval.

The three-mile long path weaves through stately cottonwood trees, moose-pocked bogs, and silent canopies of ancient spruce and hemlock before emerging, at either end, on pavement.

The trail skirts a restless creek, capricious avalanche runouts, and a beaver-busy slough. It is an avenue for bears, porcupines, and coyotes, as well as human traffic—hikers, runners, and, occasionally, bikers.

Beginning, or ending, a mile or so down the Girdwood-to-Bird bike trail and ending, or beginning, a half mile up Crow Creek road, the north/south trail roughly parallels Alyeska Hwy, albeit closer to the foot of a mountain. 

For years the trail has had incidental flourishes of maintenance:  a bridge here, webbed boards there, weed-whacking where it's needed. It requires fancy footwork in short stretches where sodden planks give way to temperamental ponding.

Now, with the prospect of $200,000 for trail work, an amount that could include the purchase of a mini-excavator, Beaver Pond could be tamed to conform to the Class Three trail standards planners have intended for it.

Map of the proposed Beaver Creek Trail restoration project. (Courtesy of Girdwood Trails Committee)

Maintaining the trail is a ritual. Each year, when spring bends to summer, plants take back the path.

Cow parsnip (heracleum maximum), fireweed, alder, stinging nettle, wood fern, willow and horsetail make trail clearing, particular along its southern reach, a perennial chore.

"This (grant) will help us bring Beaver Pond into a level for motorized and mechanized trail maintenance," said Brian Burnett, chair of the local trails committee.

Should the grant be approved—Girdwood's Board of Supervisor will vote on a resolution authorizing its application during its Oct. 19 meeting—two years of trail work would realign, drain, bridge and turnpike the trail in places. 

While no changes would be made to its overall alignment, with new funding, the trail would become a little wider, and more rideable.

Already, the trail is "considered a good mountain bike route in Girdwood," wrote Service Area Manager Kyle Kelley in an email. 

Kelley and the trail's committee will ask the state's Recreation Trails Program to fund restorations on the more than 100 year old trail.

Sign designation along the Beaver Creek Trail. (Courtesy of Girdwood Trails Committee)

The trail is locally well known, though for any given day, one is lucky, or unlucky— depending—to see another soul.

In 2021, 180 users were recorded in a 14-day study, according to Kelley, with most setting out from the trailhead on the Gird-Bird bike trail side. 

Data collected by the city's traffic department this year won't be published until winter, he said. 

The decision to maintain the trail at "Class 3" standards was made years ago in a report on "trail management objectives". 

Trails are rated on a scale of 1-5, where one is "primitive" and five is a fully developed, paved pathway. 

Designation as a Class 3 standard means the trail is suitable for bikes, but not Class 3 bikes— bikes with a throttle, or bikes that have "pegs not pedals", Kelley said during a trails committee meeting.

(Photo courtesy of Girdwood Trails Committee)

Controversy has swelled locally and nationwide in recent years around the use of electric bikes and other faster, higher tech recreational toys.

The Municipality of Anchorage does not allow Class 3 bikes on its trails.

"Concerns about certain ebikes are understandable, but it's important to know that Anchorage already prohibits riding super-powered electric motorcycles like the Juiced Scorpion on multi-use trails, pathways and bike lanes. Their motor power and top speeds exceed the current legal limit, making them electric motorcycles, not bicycles," says advocacy group Bike Anchorage.

The group labels Alaska as the only state with "problematic" ebike rules. 

Acknowledging that ebikes "are very well understood", the groups website says "currently, the state of Alaska has no regulatory framework in place for ebikes, as HB 8 was vetoed by Governor Dunleavy in 2023. Anchorage code currently classifies ebikes as high- or low-speed, with a cutoff for motors at 750W."

The Beaver Pond Trail was originally a road from Turnagain Arm up to Crow Pass and served miners and loggers. 

An  interpretive sign at the Crow Creek trailhead shows a photo of miner Axel Lindblad, holding beaver pelts, one hand clubbing the pelt against him. 

Lindblad, for whom a road in downtown Girdwood is named, lost his seven fingers and thumb to frostbite after either falling in a creek or running a dog team. 

During a snowy day last spring, two ambitious tourists trudged the path to a cut-off shown on their online trail map. They couldn't find the thin path that connects Beaver Pond Trail to Alyeska Hwy, however. 

The trails committee wants to make that trail part of a loop for mountain bikes.

Public comment or opposition to the Beaver Pond Trail restoration project can be sent to kelleyk@muni.org. Deadline for comments is Oct. 30.

Bear scat along the Beaver Pond trail in this photo from July 2026. (Photo by Soren Wuerth)