Aaron

The Aaron Inventoried Roadless Area encompasses 78,719 acres within the Tongass National Forest, Alaska, occupying a section of the outer Coast Mountains where named summits — Marsha Peak, Mount Waters, and Berg Mountain — rise above the tidal reach of Berg Bay. The terrain is varied, with mountain slopes draining into a network of stream corridors. Four named creeks — Glacier Creek, Berg Creek, Aaron Creek, and Oerns Creek — channel water down through forested valleys before emptying into Berg Bay. Berg Basin gathers drainage from the surrounding high country. The area's hydrology, rated moderate in significance, sustains both freshwater and coastal estuarine habitats where the forest meets the intertidal zone.

The dominant forest communities reflect the wet maritime character of Southeast Alaska. Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) and mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) define the primary canopy, with spruce predominating near sea level, along stream corridors, and on lower slopes, and hemlock ascending to higher elevations where snowpack persists longer. The understory beneath the spruce canopy is rich with shade-tolerant species. Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) forms low spreading mats on the forest floor; western dwarf dogwood (Cornus unalaschkensis) spreads in small colonies in damp shade. Spleenwortleaf goldthread (Coptis aspleniifolia) traces the mossy ground with delicate trifoliate leaves. In forest openings and along the steeper slopes, larkspurleaf monkshood (Aconitum delphiniifolium) raises stalks of deep blue-violet flowers, its characteristic marker of the coastal montane herb layer.

Berg Bay and the lower reaches of Aaron Creek and Berg Creek support coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), which drive organic nutrient exchange between the marine environment and the forested interior. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) range through forest and streamside zones, browsing on the diverse forb layer. In the nearshore waters adjacent to Berg Bay, northern sea otters (Enhydra lutris kenyoni) forage across shallow subtidal habitat, using their forepaws to break shellfish. The intertidal and subtidal habitats support searcher (Bathymaster signatus) and whitespotted greenling (Hexagrammos stelleri), two bottom-oriented fish of rocky nearshore habitat. Western toad (Anaxyrus boreas) occupies the moist transitional zones between forest and freshwater, active in the warmer months around pond margins and streamsides. Portions of this area fall within the potential range of several federally listed species; see the Conservation section for details.

The Aaron Creek Trail (3.7 miles, Trail 22527) and the Berg Creek Trail (3.8 miles, Trail 22528) are the two maintained routes through the area, each following its namesake drainage from lower elevations toward the interior. Walking the Aaron Creek Trail, a visitor moves through spruce forest at sea level, crossing small side drainages where the sound of moving water is near-constant. As elevation gains, the canopy shifts from tall spruce to the more windswept growth of mountain hemlock. On the Berg Creek Trail, the corridor follows the stream through dense forest, with coho salmon visible in the pools during fall runs. Both trails end well short of the high country, where the open terrain of Berg Basin and the slopes of Berg Mountain remain accessible only off-trail.

The Aaron Inventoried Roadless Area occupies 78,719 acres within the homeland of the Stikine Tlingit, a constituent qwaan of the Southern Tlingit people who have maintained cultural and subsistence ties to Southeast Alaska's coastal islands and waterways for thousands of years. Expanding northward over centuries, the Tlingit nation came to occupy a coastal territory stretching from northern British Columbia to Cape Yakataga, organized into sixteen tribes each centered on a primary village [3]. In the region encompassed by the Wrangell Ranger District, the Stikine Tlingit maintained trade routes along river corridors including the Stikine valley, exchanging coastal resources such as salmon and sea otter pelts with interior Athapaskan peoples [3]. In the late 1890s, Wrangell sustained dozens of carved totem poles representing clan lineages and ancestral histories that reached back generations [2].

The Russian America Company established a post at Sitka in 1799, though Tlingit forces expelled the occupiers in 1802; Russia returned in 1804 and remained until the United States purchased Alaska in 1867, without the consent of its Native peoples [3]. American authority asserted itself quickly. In 1869, U.S. forces bombarded the Native village at Wrangell, and a grave marker later placed at the site memorializes Shx'atoo, who died in that action [2]. The U.S. Navy destroyed the village of Angoon in 1882 [3].

The early American period brought intensified resource extraction to Southeast Alaska. Handlogging was the dominant practice; as late as 1902 there were only three steam-powered donkey engines in all of southeastern Alaska, and most timber was cut for local use by miners, fishermen, and cannery operators [6]. Under a mission at Wrangell, Tlingit and Haida men worked as loggers by occupation, and the creation of the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve in August 1902 drew protests that federal regulation would disrupt that livelihood [6]. By 1909, following consolidation of the region's forest reserves, nearly all commercial timber in Southeast Alaska had been absorbed into the Tongass National Forest, with annual regional harvests averaging about 15 million board feet [4].

The mid-twentieth century transformed the scale of timber operations on the Tongass. In 1954, Wrangell Lumber Company, Inc. was incorporated by a Japanese parent firm to supply Southeast Alaska timber for Japan's postwar rebuilding economy [4]. The first export shipload, 3,240,000 board feet, sailed for Japan in July 1955 [5]. Operations grew rapidly through the 1960s and 1970s, and by 1980, 454 million board feet of logs were being harvested annually across the Tongass. The company shut down its Wrangell sawmill at the end of November 1994 [4].

The Tongass National Forest was formally established by presidential proclamation on September 10, 1907, under President Theodore Roosevelt [6]. On July 1, 1908, the Alexander Archipelago National Forest was consolidated into the Tongass, which then encompassed 6,756,362 acres; a second proclamation in 1909 expanded it by more than 8.7 million additional acres [6]. The Aaron Inventoried Roadless Area, spanning the watershed of Aaron Creek and Berg Bay within the Wrangell Ranger District, is today protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

Cold-Water Stream and Estuarine Integrity

The Aaron Inventoried Roadless Area maintains four named stream systems — Glacier Creek, Berg Creek, Aaron Creek, and Oerns Creek — in their undisturbed, unroaded condition as they drain from the Coast Mountains to Berg Bay. The roadless condition preserves uninterrupted riparian buffer zones of Sitka spruce and mountain hemlock along each drainage, keeping stream banks stable, water temperatures cold, and gravel spawning substrates clear of fine sediment. These clean, cold stream conditions directly support coho salmon, which depend on precise water temperature and gravel permeability for spawning success.

Interior Forest and Unfragmented Canopy

Across 78,719 acres of varied Coast Mountain terrain, the absence of roads preserves the structural continuity of the forest canopy, allowing interior forest conditions to persist far from the edge disturbance that fragmentation introduces. Maritime Sitka spruce and mountain hemlock forest without road corridors maintains its characteristic understory — twinflower, western dwarf dogwood, spleenwortleaf goldthread, and larkspurleaf monkshood — in a moisture and light regime that fragmented forest cannot sustain. The unbroken forest interior also provides undisturbed cover and foraging habitat for mule deer across a landscape where cover quality determines winter survival.

Nearshore Connectivity and Coastal Ecosystem Integration

Berg Bay and the intertidal and subtidal zones adjacent to the roadless area form a coastal interface that the unroaded condition of the upland watershed helps sustain. Undisturbed forested slopes deliver low-sediment, cold freshwater to the estuary and nearshore zone, maintaining the water clarity and substrate quality on which the forage base of northern sea otters depends. The intact stream-to-estuary continuum — from Glacier Creek and Aaron Creek through Berg Bay — supports the foraging and breeding habitat of multiple species dependent on clean intertidal and subtidal conditions.

The area supports one federally listed species: Short-tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus, Endangered), which forages in the offshore and nearshore marine environment of Southeast Alaska.

Potential Effects of Road Construction

Sedimentation from Cut Slopes and Gravel Fill

Road construction on the Coast Mountain slopes draining to Berg Bay would expose mineral soil through cut-and-fill operations, generating chronic sediment input to Aaron Creek, Berg Creek, and their tributaries. Fine sediment settling into spawning gravel reduces oxygen diffusion through the substrate, suffocating incubating salmon eggs and impairing the embryo survival on which coho populations depend. Once introduced, elevated sedimentation is difficult to reverse because it is driven by ongoing erosion from unstabilized road fills rather than a single disturbance event.

Stream Crossing Barriers and Thermal Disruption

Stream crossings required by any road network through the Aaron watershed would introduce culverts or bridges at creek crossings; undersized or poorly installed culverts can block salmon migration at critical points in spawning drainages. Road-related canopy removal along stream banks reduces shade, raising summer water temperatures in the shallow reaches most sensitive to thermal change. Even localized canopy loss along a stream corridor can push water temperatures above the thermal thresholds tolerated by coho during spawning migration.

Habitat Fragmentation and Edge Effects

Road construction fragments continuous forest into patches separated by road corridors, replacing interior forest conditions with edge environments characterized by increased light, drying, and wind. The dense understory of twinflower and western dwarf dogwood that characterizes interior spruce-hemlock forest requires stable humidity conditions that edge environments cannot maintain. Invasive plant species establish preferentially in road-disturbed soil and spread from road margins into adjacent forest, displacing native ground cover that is otherwise absent from intact roadless areas.

The Aaron Inventoried Roadless Area is accessed via two maintained hiking trails, each following a named drainage from sea level into the interior of the Coast Mountains. The Aaron Creek Trail (Trail 22527, 3.7 miles, native material surface) and the Berg Creek Trail (Trail 22528, 3.8 miles, native material surface) are both designated for hiker use. There are no verified formal trailheads or designated campgrounds within the area. Given the coastal position of the area and the absence of road access, both trailheads are likely reached by boat through Berg Bay.

Hiking

The Aaron Creek Trail follows its namesake drainage through Sitka spruce and mountain hemlock forest, traveling the valley floor through varying densities of canopy. At 3.7 miles it reaches well into the drainage; hikers return by the same route. The Berg Creek Trail covers similar terrain along Berg Creek, 3.8 miles of native-surface hiking in a forested river corridor. Both trails offer continuous proximity to moving water, with bank-side pockets accessible for close observation throughout. Off-trail travel to Berg Basin and the slopes of Berg Mountain and Marsha Peak is possible for experienced hikers, but requires navigation skills in terrain with no established routes.

Fishing

Aaron Creek and Berg Creek support coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), which move upstream from Berg Bay during fall runs. Both trail corridors provide direct streamside access for fly and spin fishing. Berg Bay itself is accessible from the trail system's lower reaches, providing additional fishing opportunity along the coastal interface. The searcher (Bathymaster signatus) and whitespotted greenling (Hexagrammos stelleri) occupy rocky nearshore habitat in Berg Bay; accessing these species requires a small boat or kayak.

Wildlife Observation

Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) range through the forested slopes and streamside corridors of the Aaron area, and both trail systems pass through their primary habitat; deer are most active at dawn and dusk along stream edges. Western toad (Anaxyrus boreas) can be found in the moist transitional zones along both stream margins, particularly in spring and early summer. In Berg Bay's nearshore waters, northern sea otters (Enhydra lutris kenyoni) are present, foraging on shellfish in shallow subtidal habitat — best observed from a boat or kayak along the bay shoreline.

Boating and Coastal Access

Berg Bay provides the primary coastal entry point to the Aaron area. Kayak or small-boat access from the bay connects to the lower trailheads of both the Aaron Creek and Berg Creek Trails. The bay's protected position within the outer Coast Mountain coastline makes it suitable for sea kayaking, with the intertidal zone offering opportunities to observe marine invertebrates and the sea otters that forage along its margins.

Roadless Character and Recreation Value

The recreation that Aaron supports — boat-access trail hiking, fishing in undisturbed salmon spawning streams, sea otter watching from a kayak on Berg Bay — depends directly on the absence of roads. Road construction would introduce vehicle traffic to the Aaron and Berg Creek corridors, fragment the forest that keeps stream temperatures cold enough for coho spawning, and alter the coastal interface that the sea otter population uses. The area's two trails exist within a landscape where the creek drainages function without road-related sedimentation, and where the transition from old-growth forest to tidal bay remains intact.