Four-wheelers and dirtbikes braving Kodiak’s Saltery Cove trail this summer faced an unexpected obstacle. Trail users have recently faced thousands of dollars of vehicle damage, which were partly caused by a furry culprit. But a new solution to fix the trail is on the way.
There are just three trucks at the dirt parking lot for Saltery Cove Road around 25 miles south of Kodiak on the afternoon of Monday, Aug. 10.
One of those three trucks belonged to Mike Brown. He owns and runs Salty Fly Safaris, a guided fishing company in Kodiak. A month earlier, he said the same parking lot was packed full of trucks unloading four wheelers and dirtbikes, as guided tours and local fishermen hit Saltery Creek to fish for sockeye salmon.
But then, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reduced the daily sockeye limit at Saltery Creek from five to two fish because of low returns. Brown said that, with the thirty minute drive on the highway from town and the hour and a half four-wheeler ride on the trail to get to the creek, it wasn't worth it anymore for most people to make the trip.
“Now that it’s down to two fish, you see almost nobody out here," he said.
The reduced bag limit wasn't the only thing keeping people off of the gravel trail to Saltery Creek. The trail has also been plagued with issues; the biggest: a massive pond on the south end of the trail. Brown said it’s racked up quite the casualty list.
“It was four feet deep, it drowned a bunch of machines," he said. "One weekend they were just scattered all over the place trying to get through it. That was the highest I’ve ever seen it, and I’ve been coming up here 25 years.”
Ralph Aguero, the owner and operator of another guided fishing company called Kodiak River Runners, said the damage has been hurting his fellow guides’ wallets.
“That’s thousands of dollars damage," Aguero said. "Labor is very costly, and as a business, we can’t afford that cost.”
The record high waters that drowned so many vehicles were caused by a very industrious culprit: beavers.
Beavers were introduced to Kodiak for the first time in 1925. Since then, they’ve spread all over the archipelago, said Bill Dunker, an area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Kodiak.
“They’re pretty extensive," Dunker said. "They’ve done very well for themselves here in Kodiak.”
He said the beavers are an ongoing problem on the Saltery Cove trail. They have an innate instinct to dam up running water, creating ponds that protect their lodges from predators. Dunker said that previously, locals and guides took charge of handling the problem, either by removing dams or acquiring permits to trap the beavers. But he said that’s a short term solution.
"It doesn’t take long for dispersing juveniles from other lodge complexes throughout the area to move into those unoccupied home ranges and pick up where the last guy left off," he said.
Video caption: One of the water control structures set up along a dam near Saltery Cove Road. Pipes protected by cages on one side run through the dam to the other side, preventing the water level from getting too high. Video by Bill Dunker/Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Dunker went out on the trail on Aug. 5 to set up a more permanent solution. Using some extra funding from a $541,000 state grant to improve the Saltery Cove Trail System, he put in what are known as water control structures at the site of the dam. The structures are made up of a large pipe that runs through the dam and a cage at one end: the pipe is set at a certain height to make sure the water level doesn’t get too high above it, and the cage protects it from beavers.
Dunker said it’s been a balancing act getting the structures to work. When he installed the first one, the beavers went and built a dam somewhere else instead, so he said he had to install a second one with a slightly higher position so the beavers still had a pond they were satisfied with.
“It’s a bit of a negotiation with them to some degree or another," he said.
Brown with Salty Fly Safaris said the structures are working so far; the pond is back down to a manageable level. But he said conditions on the trail were still rough as of August 10: his vehicle and others have broken down because of it.
“Some years are rocky and everything, but this year is probably as bad overall as it's been," he said.
Dunker said that the Island Trails Network is working with the Kodiak Island Borough, the State Department of Natural Resources and the Hunter Access Program to get the trail fixed up through the trail improvement project. And on August 12, two days after I spoke to Brown, ADF&G restored the limit on Saltery Creek back to five fish. Meaning that soon, that dirt parking lot might be full once again.
