Winner Creek hand tram vandalized for second time this year

By Roger Baty II
Turnagain Times

The Winner Creek trail is the most accessible trail in Girdwood with several trailheads at Alyeska Resort and along Crow Creek road. The trail passes through a beautiful stretch of temperate rain forest to a popular hand tram over Winner Creek gorge. But the hand tram is no longer usable for the second time this year due to what appears to be the work of some vandals.
Because the hand tram is not meant to be operated in the winter, it would have been closed for the season anyway, but the free time of some individuals left it disabled sooner than anyone had planned.
The authorities were decidedly left out of the matter as “there was no need,” said Dave Wilson, head of Alyeska Resort’s maintenance team. “There’s not much you can do about it, even though it doesn’t look like it’s from normal wear and tear.”
This reporter hiked out to the site of the hand tram and found a mess of rope off to one side. Whatever was done, it appears that two to three foot sections of rope were cut and shredded off the wire core.
It may appear to be accessible but “the pull rope needs to be re-slung and re-tensioned,” said John Gallup, Girdwood Board of Supervisor Parks and Recreation representative.
Due to liability’s sake and the maintenance that goes along with the hand tram, “Alyeska Resort will no longer be responsible for maintenance,” said Wilson.
It was Wilson and Alyeska Resort maintenance who volunteered to maintain the hand tram, but it remains a Parks and Recreation facility.
The resort will, however, be ordering a new rope and replacing it. This will be the second time they have replaced the rope due to such an incident. The first came in the spring of 2007.
Whether it is fixed in the fall or the spring, the hand tram will be “padlocked for the winter,” said Gallup.
Parks and Recreation will continue the hand trams upkeep and simply hopes for the best in the future.
“It’s like all our infrastructure,” said Gallup. “It’s out in the public, and we trust in people to be good people.”
Each side of the Winner Creek trail can still be accessed at well marked trailheads, but when hikers arrive at glacier creek canyon and the hand tram, they will have to turn back.