The Forest Service is considering building a new cabin at Highbush Lake on the Wrangell road system.
The project is listed on the Forest Service’s Schedule of Proposed Actions, or SOPA, which “contains a list of proposed actions that will soon begin or are currently undergoing environmental analysis and documentation.”
The agency’s list invites the public to “indicate your interest in specific proposals,” according to (www.fs.fed.us/sopa) the Forest Service website. People can write in and provide input.
The new cabin is a good candidate because there is an existing recreation site with a parking lot and access trail down to the lake, Tory Houser, district recreation staff officer, said Friday.
Highbush Lake is about 15 air miles southeast of Wrangell, about 2 miles inland from the Back Channel. It can be reached on old logging roads that veer off from Zimovia Highway near McCormack Creek.
“We thought that might be a good place to consider a new cabin,” she said. “The stage that we’re at right now is the Forest Service is considering taking action.”
There is no funding, as the Forest Service must work through its environmental review process. “We are more in the planning stages.”
And since the Forest Service doesn’t have a design, they don’t have cost estimates, Houser said. For comparison, the Forest Service built Ravens Roost Cabin on Mitkof Island last fall in Petersburg at a cost of about $700,000. “That one was way up on a mountain, possibly if (Wrangell’s) is built on a road system, it could be a lower cost,” Houser said.
In order to be faithful to the Tongass National Forest Sustainable Cabin Strategy, the Ranger District is considering decommissioning a cabin — the one at Anan Lake.
“The idea is that, basically we would have a zero gain, if we build a new one, we would eliminate one that is not being used to its full potential. It’s not an absolute — we don’t have to, but we’re trying to do that. We know the number of cabins we have makes it challenging to use them all. We want to make sure it’s not costing a lot to maintain a non-used cabin.”
If you follow Anan Creek up to where it hits Anan Lake, the cabin is on the left-hand shore of the lake, Houser said. “It’s very remote, you can only get there by plane. Sadly, not too many people are flying to our cabin these days.”
Any movement on decommissioning the Anan Lake cabin would be in tandem with building a Highbush Lake cabin. Houser said they hope to make a decision in the upcoming federal fiscal year which starts on Oct. 1.
A second project, which is also open for input on the SOPA page, is an environmental assessment to look at sites in Wrangell, Petersburg and Kake for new cabins that are relatively accessible, Houser said.
“We’re really focusing on things on the road system. We have numbers showing it is much easier for folks to get to cabins and use them if they can drive to them. We are asking people to give us ideas of places where we should build projects,” she said.
Houser said the Forest Service wants to open that input period this spring.
When the agency has that input from the public, it will put it toward a specialist or an archeologist who can vet the sites for feasibility of construction.
“We are really hoping to have a lot of community input,” Houser said. “We want to ask our community users what they want, we have a robust public input process planned.”
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