Gary Lillo

“My name is Gary. I own some property here on Alexander Creek and I’ve been here for about 25 years, building log cabins and enjoying a remote lifestyle.

My first experience on Alexander Creek occurred in 1974. I was flown out here as a part of a complimentary tour by my employer to enjoy silver salmon fishing along with some of my coworkers. And we enjoyed a long weekend catching silver salmon. Camping along the creek, living underneath a visqueen shelter and a sleeping bag. I returned, doing that for five, six consecutive years before I ended up buying some property out here.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

“My enjoyment of this area has been to not only enjoy the remoteness of it, but if you walk out on your front porch and just smell the clean air and enjoy the sounds of nature, whether it's the birds that are chirping or whether you can hear, you know, sounds that you wouldn't hear in an urban environment. I enjoy that immensely, but I also enjoy sharing that with family and friends, particularly people that have not had the occasion to go to a remote part of Alaska. They're just amazed by the greenery and the trees and the pristine beauty of looking across the Sleeping Lady and watching bald eagles flying overhead and occasional moose crossing a creek or a bear.

It's the remoteness, but it's also the isolation that, is, is a lot of enjoyment to me.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

“Family memories are a big part of what I'm all about out here. I have several cabins that I've built over the years. When family comes with my 6 grandchildren, who have basically grown up out here — I mean, my youngest grandchild is 17. I remember him being in the first cabin that we had built, in a bassinet, when he was an infant. And that young man, at the age of 16, helped me build a 20 x 24 cabin during the summer of 2022.

He helped me erect the walls. Behind us, here are my kitchen cabinets. He made the lumber on my sawmill. He put a tree on the mill deck, cut the wood to thickness, ran it through my table saw to cut it to the proper width then assembled it to fashion the cabinet framework. So I've had these family memories that are our treasure.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

“Living in an area like this, there's very few that are full time year round residents. Most of us are — some of them are referred to as weekend warriors, but I'm probably a little more than that. I probably spend — not quite half a year out here, but more than a lot of people do. I'm here for two or three weeks at a time.

There's people that I've known now for 20, 30 years that are close friends and I wouldn't have known them had I not had a piece of property here, and spent a fair amount of time here. And they're all, the kind of Alaskans that you would like to think everybody up here is. They're honest. Straightforward. You can rely on them to help you if you get in trouble. And that's not the case in some other parts of Alaska that people might think are like that.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

“You've got multiple options currently to get here in the wintertime. You can snow machine out from a trailhead that's accessible. The Point MacKenzie area, it's a 25-mile run on a snow machine. Takes about an hour and 20 minutes to get here one way on a reasonably good well-used trail.

You cross this Little Su River, the Big Su River. And you do it safely because the residents out here use the same trail. They mark it. So, you know exactly where to go.

Summer months — early summer, late summer — I use aircraft to get here. And then, throughout the summer months, June, July, August and then September. I boat down from the Deshka Landing area. It's a 35-mile run on the river. I run an 18-foot jet boat with a 65-horse motor on it. It takes me an hour and 45 minutes one way. About seven gallons of fuel.

So those are the three options that I use in addition to chartering out with companies like Trail Ridge, on Lake Hood, for getting family friends and visiting relatives out here on occasion. I have a dock down in front of my property here where the plane can just land, taxi up, tie off off, load. Makes it real convenient.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

“A couple of years ago, this idea of a remote road to the Skwentna, crossing the flats and Alexander Creek and others, was brought to my attention by some advertisements that I started to see on TV.

From what I'm hearing, it's a significant change to the remote element that we currently enjoy here on Alexander Creek. And the road is projected to be nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer money, state-funded. I'm wondering if there's other services throughout the state that you could think of where that money could be better used. And that’s talking about spending on developing this remote road, not spending it to maintain and upgrade. It seems like a poor choice to use limited resources from taxpayer dollars.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

“I'm well past the retirement age. I was looking forward to spending my sunset years enjoying what I enjoy currently here and five years from now. If this road goes through what's being proposed, I have no idea what it looks like. I really don't.

So, the uncertainty of it is that — you know, I'm not a worrying kind of a person, but it would tend to put a person to worrying about your future. And not only mine, but my children and grandchildren.”

—Gary Lillo, West Susitna cabin owner

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Ben Huff