Geotechnical work complete on proposed South Denali VC road

Planning for the South Denali Visitor Center area is inching forward. The past few weeks, geotechnical work was completed on the area that is considered to be the proposed road corridor near Mary Carey’s on the Parks Highway in the State Park.

Claire Holland-St. Clair, special assistant to the director of State Parks, says that drilling along the road-corridor-to-be was completed Wednesday. Geotechnical personnel were looking at bedrock and areas that were possible wetlands in order to come up with a final report for the exact road placement. The report should be available in a couple of weeks.

Funds for the work came from the state last year. Holland St-Clair said the $9 million in the state budget last year was for a preliminary road analysis. However, she says that much of that money will sit and wait for the Visitor Center to be fully funded. She reiterated that the road cannot be built until all the funds to build the Visitor Center and area trails is received. Eventually, she says the hope is the road, the parking area, the building and trails can all be developed, but for now, the project is not considered shovel ready and is not subject to federal stimulus funds.

Holland St Clair says they have  issued a final version of the master interpretive plan. The plan is separate from the building, trail and road planning documents. The final interpretive plan should be available on the state park website by the end of next week(9-25)