Eric Teela / Teela Photography |
By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times
The Girdwood Forest Fair has come and gone, and this year’s fair by all accounts was bigger than last year, which had an estimated 9,000 visitors. Food booth operators boasted of greater sales, local restaurants and bars all claimed the weekend was a roaring success, and by the looks of the traffic flowing up Alyeska Highway, and the large crowd attending this year’s Forest Fair parade, it certainly appeared to be a larger turnout than last year.
But with Forest Fair’s growth, concerns are being raised over the community’s ability to handle the increasing number of visitors, especially people staying at the local campground along Glacier Creek. This year it was estimated that more than 2,000 people camped out; the number of campers more than doubled the annual year-round population of Girdwood. The majority of the campers are between the ages of 18 and 25.
Now, Girdwood officials both at the Fire Department and State Trooper’s office are voicing their concerns about present and future security problems posed by the increasing size of the campground and the Fair itself.
Girdwood Fire Chief, Bill Chadwick, frequented the campground specifically looking for illegal fires.
“I didn’t even count the number of illegal fires I requested to put out,” he said at his office several days after the fair. “There were dozens each trip I made to the campground.
In addition to the illegal fires, Chadwick said there were numerous injuries to attend to as well as substance abuse problems with both drugs and alcohol.
“Alcohol was primarily the problem,” he said. “We had a fair number of people with acute alcohol poisoning, and we had a number of people who were assaulted. About 4 a.m. people showed up with bloody faces from the campground who were in a fight.”
The Girdwood Fire Department volunteers, like the Troopers, were extremely busy throughout the three-day event. The fire department responded to 22 calls including 15 walk-in patients with various cuts, bumps and bruises. They also had four highway responses for motor vehicle accidents, and four responses to Whittier.
State Trooper Sergeant Bryan Barlow, who was overseeing his first Forest Fair, reported over 15 arrests during the fair, culminating in five arrests on Sunday morning alone. In one incident, the driver of a car registered in Anchorage collided with a Trooper on the DUI enforcement team. Around 4:30 a.m., the driver of the car pulled a U-turn in the middle of Alyeska Highway while driving southbound just past the Girdwood Transfer Station. As he turned into the northbound lane, the oncoming Trooper collided with the vehicle. The driver’s car landed in a ditch and the Trooper’s front-end was destroyed. The Trooper had to exit the passenger’s side of the vehicle because of the damage to the right side of his car. He pursued the driver who fled into the nearby woods down by the transfer station. The driver got away, but a passenger in the car was apprehended.
Girdwood’s Trooper Post located in the Tesoro Station Mall has four full-time Troopers on staff. To assist them in the Forest Fair, an additional six DUI team members were brought in; however, after witnessing this year’s fair, especially the number of people at the campground, Barlow said he would like to double the number of Troopers for next year’s fair. He said he’s especially concerned over the amount of alcohol and drugs being consumed by people in the campground.
“I think we’re on the verge of a real tragedy down there,” he said. “We’ve got a real recipe for disaster. There were many highly intoxicated people camping along the river. Some areas are really shallow and some are quite deep. I don’t want to see somebody really hurt or a drowning.”
Barlow said he watched people in the campground simply walking around people lying on the ground, passed out from drinking alcohol.
The other safety concern– illegal fires–poses a challenge for the fire department to respond in the campground due to its inaccessibility.
Chadwick said there is no access to the campground either for EMS responses or for fire personnel to extinguish a fire.
“I had a real hard time stopping people from starting a camp fire,” Chadwick said. “I was very concerned about having a forest fire, especially where we don’t’ have access, except on foot.”
Chadwick walked the campground daily confronting dozens of campers to put out their campfires. At times, he said, he actually feared for his safety. He said when he walked around the campground, debris was thrown at him, and he was occasionally accosted by unruly campers.
“I noticed a difference in the vibe this year,” he said. “Normally, I’m able to go down there and talk to people and get decent compliance. This year I had people get in my face, I had things thrown at me, I was threatened. It was definitely a different crowd this year…I was scared back there a couple of times and that’s never happened to me before.”
One area of particular concern to both Chadwick and Barlow was the campers on the gravel island in the middle of Glacier Creek, which was accessible only by walking over a fallen tree. Both expressed concern that intoxicated campers trying to cross the tree would fall into the creek.
In addition to alcohol consumption, both Chadwick and Barlow suspect there was a prevalence of drugs in the campground. Barlow said he confiscated small amounts of marijuana and marijuana pipes, and Chadwick suspects that several people transported to Anchorage suffered from drug overdoses.
This reporter upon visiting the campground, witnessed a young man, about 19, yelling several times, “Anybody want to buy some acid!”
The Forest Fair volunteers provided security personnel throughout the fairgrounds and the campground, but both Barlow and Chadwick questioned the level of qualifications of some volunteers.
“Some were doing a very good job,” said Barlow. “however, I had serious problems with some of the other people they had on security staff.”
Barlow added that the Forest Fair security staff provided important support and assistance finding people who were either injured or highly intoxicated.
One thing that seems certain, though, is that more security is needed at the fair, either hiring a professional security company, adding more state troopers, or a combination of the two.
Another concern is managing the amount of vehicular traffic. At one point during Saturday afternoon, traffic was backed up a half-mile on the Seward Highway towards Anchorage. Barlow asked a volunteer coordinator to make a change with the person conducting traffic, and it started flowing properly again.
Barlow said he is setting up a meeting at the end of the month to meet with the Forest Fair Committee, Heritage Land Bank officials, officials from the municipality, and local representatives, to discuss the future course of security for the Forest Fair.
“I think the fair is a great opportunity for the vendors to sell their products and people to have a good time,” he said, “but there are some aspects that need much better control than there currently is. It’s still a great event, but it’s growing tremendously.”
