Alaska Off-Roading with a Local JK Club

onetraveller

Adventurer
Went with one of the local Jeep groups on a trail run this weekend. The destination of the run was a 1950s era B-29 crash site in the Talkeetna mountains. We ended up about a mile short of the crash site, stopped by a tundra style bog. Had a great time and wanted to share some pictures of what we do for trail runs up here. This trail becomes very nasty in a rain, but is passable by stock Jeeps when dry.

Here's the nasty muck that stopped us.
B-29-71.jpg


Part of the trail.
B-29-27.jpg


Here's a link to the entire photo album with 40+ pictures.
https://picasaweb.google.com/OneTravellerStudios/B29CrashSiteRun?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOHHquf9_djbUg&feat=directlink

Enjoy,
Mike
 

tweenerlj

Adventurer
When I see stuff like this, no wonder trails get closed, look at the tracks all over this meadow :(

B-29-31.jpg


And here, the mud hole has to be 10-12 vehicles wide :(

B-29-32.jpg
 

bluehash

Adventurer
Lovely pics. I have the same commando green JK.
Tires look stock on that one. Did you guys have to do alot of recovery?
 

onetraveller

Adventurer
The only recoveries (not including self recoveries) we had were in the bog and the one of the copper Rubicon that got off line crossing the mud hole.

The trail is heavily criss-crossed at the bog and the bog is about 1/2 mile across. We turned around right after we got stuck instead of trying to winch the whole group across. Most of the tracks you see are from ATVs and side-by-sides. We were the only full sized rigs up there that day and we do try to tread lightly. We don't have the trail closure issues the lower 48 has, but it's only a matter of time.

The Commando Sahara is mine. She's running about 3 inches of lift and 275/70R18 Cooper ST Maxx tires. The white one is on 40 inch Maxxis Trepadors. The silver Jeep he's helping to recover is on 37 inch Toyos.

Mike
 

mikeJKUR

Adventurer
When I see stuff like this, no wonder trails get closed, look at the tracks all over this meadow :(

And here, the mud hole has to be 10-12 vehicles wide :(

[

I always see comments like from people who live out west where it doesn't or barely rains. It must be nice to feel so superior to everyone else with such easy.
 

tweenerlj

Adventurer
I always see comments like from people who live out west where it doesn't or barely rains. It must be nice to feel so superior to everyone else with such easy.

My post was not to attack the person who posted the pictures, my hope was to inspire thoughts on stewardship. BTW, there is mud in places that I frequent despite stereotypical thoughts from folks who lie east of the Mississippi River and do not have the public lands that are in the west, on which we recreate or have an appreciation for the responsibility that lies with driving there. Here is an example, this bog had been present for years and became a target for closing a whole trail:

20000726.4.jpg


Local clubs, which I support, volunteered to stabilize the area and it looked like this after the work and the trail remains open:

1330526.jpg


I have seen/lived closures and a web debate is not productive in saving access. Our actions and stewardship is all that will keep things open in the future.
 
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1stDeuce

Explorer
If you're all about treading lightly, you probably shouldn't read any threads that are about trips in Alaska. Compared to what's in the lower 48, those Alaska trips are going to give the image that the participants are just raping the land. And if the Alaska population was anything like that in most of the lower 48, it might be a real problem. But in Alaska, the big snow and the amount of rain they get pretty much result in a full reset on the conditions every year, and the relative few number of people, vs the vast amount of open area means though the problem is unsightly in a few localized areas, the big picture is that the land is virtually untouched.

Big difference between that and places with 100x the population density, and 0.5% of the "playground" area, where something like that would attract thousands of people and quickly become a disaster, and then stay like that for years. Even in the UP of MI, it was easy for a common for the soft places on a few of our trails to get really destroyed during the spring, and by the following spring they'd look like nobody had been through in a hundred years.

Sweet trip pics! Enjoy it while you can. :)
 

akhummer

Member
Absolute bull****

But in Alaska, the big snow and the amount of rain they get pretty much result in a full reset on the conditions every year)

Please don't fall for the line of bull****. Much of Alaska is a desert and some of the most fragile terrain in the state is tundra that gets less than 10 inches of precipitation a year. Permanently frozen soils (permafrost) under an active layer of soil prevents drainage. Even those areas with little rainfall remain wet due to the poor drainage and little evaporative loss. Damaging the protective insulating vegetative layer results in melting permafrost and subsidence of the previously frozen soil. Those low areas then collect water which permanently alters the landscape. The damaged area depicted in the photo will be there for decades. 1st Duece, you have no idea what you are talking about.
 

1stDeuce

Explorer
Sorry. You are correct that I'm not familiar with permafrost conditions, and hadn't thought about the effects of disturbing the insulating layer... My experience is in Canada, where damage like that is gone the next year. I can imagine permafrost conditions might change things.
 

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