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Rex Trail Update - August 9, 2012

Recent Management Action

The Department has extended the 8/25/09 Amendment and will again be issuing permits to certain tracked rigs for the 2012 hunting season. Please see the Rex Trail Management homepage (dnr.alaska.gov/mlw/rextrail/) for additional information and specific conditions.

Update on the 5/12/08 Administrative Decision
and 8/25/09 Amendment:

The May 2008 and August 2009 decisions were appealed to the Commissioner of DNR. The Commissioner denied the appeals and upheld both DMLW decisions. The decisions were then appealed to the Alaska Superior Court, which upheld DNR's decisions on February 1, 2011. This decision has subsequently been appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court. The Supreme Court case is ongoing; the seasonal restriction remains in effect while the Court reviews the case.

What's Next?

In 2011, the State Legislature designated limited funding for DNR land stewardship management, including the Rex Trail. The DMLW, Northern Regional Office is currently developing a plan to evaluate feasibility of potential upgrade and/or reroutes, using these funds. This will most likely involve contracting for a prescription report. A trail prescription report for existing trails typically focuses on identifying the cause of the issues, provides an engineering evaluation of crossing structures and other trail structures, identifies appropriate corrective actions, and tailors these actions or methods to the capability and capacity of available maintenance resources. In this case, the report would likely focus on different options for traversing the wetter sections of the trail, likely through a combination of trail hardening, minor reroutes, and/or major reroutes. To further this goal, the Department also applied for and received a Recreational Trails Grant administered by the DNR Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation. This grant will supplement legislatively designated funds. Information from the prescription report will provide the Department with the information needed to evaluate any future trail projects.

The Division will continue to monitor use of the trail and discuss changes to the Generally Allowed Use regulations (11 AAC 96. 020).  Any trail user groups interested in trail hardening projects or trail reroutes should contact the Northern Region to discuss any appropriate solutions.

This site will be updated with news and information about this program.  Please check back often.

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