Great Adventure Day Trips for the Family from Anchorage

Some­times you just want to be amazed. The over­look at the Glen Alps trail­head of Chugach State Park on the Anchor­age Hill­side offers a grand front-row seat on the forces of geol­o­gy as well as one of the best post­card views any­where. Like — how about a three-vol­cano vista? Or the pro­file of Denali, Forak­er and Hunter in a sin­gle glance? Plate tec­ton­ics at your feet? The sky­line of the biggest city with­in 1,000 miles?

A giant sand dune ris­es into the trees of Kin­caid Park near the south­west cor­ner of the Anchor­age Bowl. Its brown face of gor­geous speck­led grains looms more than 40 feet above the sur­round­ing for­est floor, pre­sent­ing a pyra­mid-steep slope that just begs to be climbed. This nat­ur­al fea­ture is a blast for the whole fam­i­ly, per­fect for any­body who has ever delight­ed in a romp at the beach.

Thou­sands of pink salmon con­verge on Indi­an Creek each July and August, just about fill­ing this shal­low, easy-flow­ing stream south of Anchor­age along Tur­na­gain Arm from bank-to-bank. This amaz­ing nat­ur­al spec­ta­cle occurs in one of the eas­i­est places to view spawn­ing salmon in the region: No steep banks, crys­tal clear water and fish so close they could almost be touched.

Portage Val­ley south­east of Anchor­age at the head of Tur­na­gain Arm offers so many poten­tial adven­tures that you might have to tow a trail­er loaded with gear to sam­ple them all. What will you find here? Bik­ing, hik­ing, pic­nick­ing, fish­ing, pad­dling, wildlife view­ing, poten­tial ice­berg sight­ings — plus a nat­ur­al his­to­ry vis­i­tor cen­ter packed with inter­ac­tive dis­plays about the ecosys­tem of the val­ley and Prince William Sound. It’s like an outdoor  ...more

A stretch of exposed bedrock south­east of Anchor­age along Tur­na­gain Arm was gouged and pol­ished by mile-thick glac­i­ers dur­ing the last ice age. The grooves appear as smooth chan­nels carved into the rock itself by almost unimag­in­able forces. Some are sub­tle, like rip­ples, and hard to see. Oth­ers are large enough to lie inside on a sun­ny afternoon.

Who can say no to a cool water­fall only a half-hour’s dri­ve from town? One of the most pop­u­lar ​“first hikes” for fam­i­lies with small chil­dren, the one-mile trail to Thun­der­bird Falls tra­vers­es a hand­some birch for­est along the Eklut­na Riv­er canyon to reach a deck with views of a 200-foot water­fall. Dur­ing win­ter, the falls can freeze, form­ing fab­u­lous columns of blue ice.