Ever since our kids started getting into rock climbing, these gyms have supplanted the traditional…read morechildren's museum as the place we look forward when we travel, and the kids need to burn off some energy. The spot was one that we found online, and we're very impressed with the place. The climbing gym has two levels, a bouldering area upstairs, and large climbing walls, with ropes and belays downstairs. The main climate walls were really impressive. The largest ones we estimated to be 40 or 50 feet high. Bigger than we are used to, but not so big that the kids couldn't conquer them! Pricing seemed very reasonable, and really when it comes down to it, there aren't many prices that we wouldn't pay to get the kids to runoff some energy and have a good time doing it. Well, worth your time garrulous of if you're stopping in for a quick climbing session or looking to do more training long-term.

Our kids have been enjoying the Rock Gym for almost a year now. Great facility and up until today,…read moreexcellent service. Our kids had a private 1 hour lesson booked at noon. We showed up at 11:50 and checked in, asked to wait near the front desk for our instructor. 12:00...nothing. 12:05...ask where our instructor is...told the manager will come out and speak to us. 12:15...no instructor, no manager. Neither of the front desk staff could effect a refund for our lesson, or offered an explanation why we didn't have an instructor. I get that things out of our control can arise and complicate the schedule. My concern is that there was no communication about it before we battled Anchorage Sat AM traffic, or during the 25 minutes we waited at the rock gym.

Take the helicopter glacier hike tour! You will not regret it!! My husband and I were second…read moreguessing such a big ticket item for our Alaska trip but we agree it was worth it! Our trip would not have been the same had we skipped this standout experience! Our guides Andy and Matt were amazing! We had a lot of fun with them and learned a lot too. Thank you guys for the memories! Until you see and walk on a glacier, you cannot understand the scale and size of one! There are hidden worlds when you get on the ice! Waterfalls into the abyss, hidden ice caves, lakes of deep aqua blue... and it goes on and on in every direction. Completely insane! Do yourself a favor and book this trip. The views from the helicopter alone are worth it, but exploring a glacier is priceless!

Did the spencer glacier kayak and hike, starting from the Alyeska Resort. $379pp (occasional…read morecoupons on their Facebook). This took about 9 hours, with about 5 hours being kayak + hike. The rest was transportation/waiting for train/etc. Prices are high, but the experience is pretty amazing. It's hard to do activities or get up close to glaciers without assistance/guides. The group to guide ratio is low so you're definitely safe. I love the energy from the guides. They know what they're doing and they are so enthusiastic about it. They definitely take care of you if you're a newb to all this. Amazing views. Amazing pictures. Would recommend!

We took the trail in rain. Trail is muddy but walkable. The view is BEAUTIFUL! We would have…read morefinished the trail if we had more time before sunset or if it's a sunny day.

This is a beautiful, scenic 10+ mile round trip hike that ends at two lakes side by side (Eagle…read moreLake and Symphony Lake). The trail is pretty flat, only an 850 ft. gradual elevation gain. If the parking lot gets full, you can park on the road without worry, even though it says not to. Little to no cell service out here so prepare accordingly. Bring bear spray and big spray.

The Begich, Boggs Visitor Center at the Portage Glacier is definitely worth a stop. It doesn't cost…read moreanything extra and has some fun activities for kids, as well as some informative displays for adults. Once you've ridden the Ptarmigan out to Portage Glacier, you will want to go inside and get warmed up anyway, so a stop at the Visitor Center is definitely a good option! I thought the Portage Glacier Cruise was a wonderful experience, especially for being pretty affordable (about $45). We rode around for about an hour and a half and got to glide right up to the face of the glacier. It was beautiful and piercing blue. There were also many small waterfalls all around the lake that were great to look at too as we strode by. It was raining and sleeting when we took the cruise, but we still managed to trod up to the outdoor deck and snap pictures of the glacier up close. The tour guides were very informative and open to questions, and they even let me take home some glacial till that they had extracted as samples! Overall, a great way to spend a half-day. I definitely recommend it if you're near Girdwood.

Stopping in this visitor center was an unexpected delight on a rainy day! It has a mini museum…read morewithin and a really well done video talking about the history of the park. Definitely worth a stop on your visit!

The crux for me on these Eklutna Glacier summits is that I don't have a mountain bike, but Abbey…read morehelped me out by renting one for me downtown ahead of time, so we could go right to the trailhead after work on Friday. We cycled in and setup our tent. There was a man and his dog plane-camping there, something I've heard happens at the Bold airstrip, but that I've never witnessed. We decided to get an early start and wakeup around 4:30am. At around 5:30 we were crossing the braids of the Eklutna river. I learned my mountaineering skills in the Pacific NW where you walk across bridges, so every time I cross these in Alaska... it kind of feels like the first time. It was extremely cold and unpleasant. Lucky for us, we had some uphill bushwhacking just ahead to clear our minds and warm us up. I've heard there might be some sort of "trail" up to the ridge of The Watchman, but we didn't find one. I was in front, following weaknesses in the trees. Initially it wasn't that bad, but, before I knew it we were hopping over rubbery tree branches stabbing at us from the slopes. In maybe 3-4 hours (it felt much longer) we were gaining the summit ridge. (Beta note: while I can't vouch for our bushwhacking route-finding, I can vouch for our ridge top-out. Once you can start to see up towards the ridge again, aim for ~61.3160, -149.0299. There is a big grass bench there, great for napping. The slope leading to it is quite moderate.) Once on the ridge, it's straight forward class 2 hiking. At about 61.3126, -149.0290 we left the ridge and started side-hilling to the climber's right (West). The side-hilling eventually turns to a wide grass bench with very comfortable hiking. This would be an amazing spot to make a high camp. (if you enjoy crossing rivers and bushwhacking with overnight gear, that is. There were ample streams for water here, but they seemed like they might be seasonal only.) Eventually the grassy bench ended (~61.3002, -149.0275) and we had to start picking our way up a series of choss gullies and rotting snow tongues. From here, the summit of The Watchman looks close (spoiler: it ain't) and there are great views of Peak 6530 (which I stupidly thought was Benign when I first saw it). The creatively-named peak (there's another peak with the same name, less than a dozen miles from this one) looks like it has some great couloir routes on its north-aspect. After ~1,000 feet of gain we were on the ridge proper. From here, it's mainly 3rd class ridge scrambling. You just have to be mindful of the runouts and not climb up anything that feels harder than that. (unless you want to) After a few false-summit top-outs, we eventually reached the summit proper. The summit area is how we all imagined the tops of mountains were before we actually started climbing them: it's the narrowest, steepest part of the climb with the scariest runout. We stayed on a ridge of increasing narrowness. Finally, we were looking at the last ~80ft. It was a slabby-looking slope off to our right with a thin (maybe 3-5 inches) layer of snow. In front of us, there was gravelly rock spine snaking up to the summit. Abbey mentioned that she didn't feel like going all the way to the summit, and, even though I'm the one with the higher risk tolerance...I definitely agreed with her on this one. It seemed like there wasn't a non-slippery way to the top. Either you go on ball-bearing gravel on top of rock or you go on a thin layer of snow of dubious quality. Abbey mentioned she read some people had gone "around" at this point. I started looking for another way. I found a sensible, short down-climb off of the ridge (climber's left/North). And then we side-hilled around looking for a less-terrible way up. I spotted some tat (the "summit anchor") around a horn and thought that was probably the summit. In front of us was something halfway between a shallow chimney and a narrow gully. After testing holds repeatedly, and breaking many, we were back on the summit ridge about 10ft from the summit. From there it was an easy crawl-scramble to the summit. Apart from an ominous storm cloud forming near Thunderbird Peak, the views were sunny and incredible! Abbey signed us into the summit register, and then we started picking our way down. In a surprise twist that rarely happens in the hills, down-climbing from the summit area was actually easier than going up! However, the dread of the bushwhack and the river re-crossing hung over our descent the entire time. We weren't precious about the creek crossing on the way out, we just marched straight through with our boots on this time. The rigidity of the mountaineering boots made It much easier, despite the flow coming up maybe a foot higher (mid-thigh now, instead of knee-high earlier). We got back to the Bold Airstrip and hydrated meals at Eklutna Lake. In our tent, we watched TV on a phone, and Abbey fell asleep with a nine-tenths of a beer in her hand.

Everything about this mountain was easier than I thought it would be: the approach (Joe Chmielowski…read moreis an excellent navigator, no matter what he might say), working the majority of the North Ridge, and finding and rigging the rap off the chockstone. Climbing up-and-out from the rappel and gaining the summit...was pretty GD harrowing. The gully (which is not really visible until you're right up in it) was meringued in a crust of rotten snow that was barely clinging on for life. It would've been easier to work up it cramponless but...many sections had a slick ice layer underneath. So, crampons were necessary for safety the entire time. However, many sections had loose chossy and/or smooth slab underneath, causing the front points to alternate between snagging and scraping. Kudos to Joe for blazing the boot pack in the trashy beer cooler snow. On the summit, I drank a pint of my latest homebrew ('Scend, a hoppy, 7% abv, lager) to calm the nerves. The entire time up I as filled with dread for the way down. Thankfully, the downclimb wasn't as bad as we were expecting, the double-boot pack on they way up paid dividends. Our day stretched out a bit longer than we were expecting and rather than hike all the way out (our informal, original plan), we opted to stay another night in Pichler's, which we again had all to ourselves. A great 103rd summit in the park! The next day we had a mellow hike out down the Eklutna, and parted ways at the East Fork Eklutna Trail where I began working my way towards Kelly Peak. (TR later)

You may not know the name of this mountain but, she knows you…read more.. if you've driven through the Arm more than a couple times, you've definitely seen it. If you're driving back into Anchorage, it's visible as you're approaching the small village of "Indian" (home to one of the best restaurants in the state: Froth & Forage, https://www.yelp.com/biz/froth-and-forage-coffeehouse-and-eatery-anchorage) It's flanked by two official trails: Falls Creek Trail: on the "Anchorage side" (west) https://www.yelp.com/biz/falls-creek-trail-anchorage Indian Valley Trail: on the "Indian, AK side" (east) https://www.yelp.com/biz/indian-valley-trail-anchorage The trail that goes up to Indianhouse is not an "official trail". Because of this, I was always leery about climbing Indianhouse Mountain. I'm not super-thrilled about bushwhacking, and I thought getting to the mountain proper would require a ton of it. Oh, how wrong I was! The trail that goes up here is actually shockingly well maintained. No 'schwacking at all! It is, however, incredibly steep. Probably steepest trail I've been on in the Chugach State Park area (maybe that's why it's not "official"). Anyway, for the first (steep) mile, it's a very steep hike. You'll eventually top out on nice, wide prairie-like area. From here, casual hikers should probably turn around. You'll know you're at the turnaround point because the trail will start to become faint and eventually disappear into a ridge that leads to the much larger ridge of Indianhouse Mountain. To summit Indianhouse, DO NOT ride this ridge up to ridge of Indianhouse and then try to take that to the summit! This is a tempting move to make but the rock that lies ahead for you is of very poor quality and the moves are very much 5th-class! (e.g. you'll need a rope) Go partially up the ridge, but, before you connect with the summit ridge traverse right. And keep traversing right. This...can be kinda bushwhacky, but you're largely on tundra (and/or garbage snow). I'd say this is probably the crux of the hike/climb. You're looking for a large couloir (narrow gully) that leads up to the summit. It usually has snow in it until later in the summer. You might want to bring an ice axe and crampons or, at the very least, a trekking pole and some microspikes. The summit is exposed and complex, with incredible views in all directions. Views of the nearby Suicide Peaks are one-of-a-kind!

This peak is accessed from the penguin creek trail:…read morehttps://www.yelp.com/biz/penguin-creek-trail-anchorage Depending on who you ask, it may be considered the most difficult hike in Chugach State Park. It definitely requires lots of off-trail travel and navigation, that's for sure! Here's my trip report from when I summitted it: We left the penguin creek trail shortly after and began our traverse into the hanging valley. We ended up maintaining an elevation of roughly 1400 ft before steadily ascending to 2600 ft to drop down into the hanging valley. This decision was...OK. It wasn't a sufferfest, but it wasn't exactly great. There was definitely some bad snow and some alder-wrangling. The lake of any chlorophyll in any of the foilage made route-finding through it much easier...but there was still ample grunting and rubber-banding-gunning of branches. Rather than take the full ridge up Bird, we decided to go up-valley and then gain the ridge near "Point 4800"/"Point 4840" (I've heard it called both things, and on my map it isn't either of these elevations, anyone know where this name is documented?) Anyway, we started ascending form the valley floor at roughly 60.9989, -149.3137. It was mostly snow climbing on snow of marginal quality. Lower down it was very bad wallowing, so we climbed the rock bands. Eventually the rock bands ended and we were climbing a spine of snow (reminded my of the "hogsback" from my Mt Hood climbing days!). It was straightforward ascending, but extremely bad visibility was a little anxiety-inducing. We were in and out of rolling whiteouts and there was so little contrast my camera couldn't auto-focus, ha! We kept taking the obvious gully up, and eventually were dumped out onto a flattish rock band. From there steep, firm snow climbing to gained the ridge proper. (we didn't put our crampons on for this, but we probably should have) We aggressively side-hilled to avoid going up and over Point 48XX, a decision that didn't end up saving any time. Knife-hard Icy snow slopes peppered sloppy scree fields making travel annoying, unless you're really good at crampon-changing! Eventually we were at a low-point in the ridge, where I found a sneaky route down. I was a line I had heard described in some trip reports at the end of the valley that could take you directly to the summit ridge and probably save a lot of time, if it had snow on it. There was a ton of good-looking snow on it, so I noted it in caltopo (60.9981, -149.2958) for a possible, hot-pizza-at-Moose's Tooth-preserving descent short-cut. What we did next is hard to describe, but sticking to the ridge became difficult so we started side-willing east towards the true summit. Eventually we were on and off of really bad choss that was either dusted with half-melted powder or hardened by rime ice (similar to what Kevin Downie experienced last fall: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=1524570) . I can see how this would be a fun scramble in the summer, but dodging icy gullies and scraping choss with crampons was not! Abbey found an "easy" icy ramp to the summit area (I thought it was kinda scary), and after front-pointing on some rime, we reached the snow-and-rime dome that is the Bird Peak summit...to absolutely zero views. Vis was probably at 20-30 ft? There was enough visibility for us to scout an easy snow ramp that would take us down from the summit. (Anything to avoid down-climbing the Abbey M0 variation!) Long story short, the snow ramp was also extremely hard snow. It would've protected beautifully with even vertical pickets. We just kept our heads down and slowly front-pointed down it for what seemed like forever. Eventually we got back down to the scree slopes, took the crampons off, and started side-hilling back to the ridge (west). We went right to the descent line I had marked and...it still looked pretty good. I got out and tested it a little and it was just too hard to tell what the quality of the snow would be once we got out on it. I still had some mild anxiety from the summit downclimb and wasn't interested it going down a long slope with that level of firmness (especially with my crappy ultra light crampons, but that's for another time) We talked about it and, with some hesitancy, decided to go down the way we came up. We didn't side-hill Peak 48XX this time, we stayed pretty high, and travel was much faster! We found where we were topped out on the ridge, put our crampons on, and started down-climbing. The first small section was really steep, but eventually we were quickly plunge stepping down the slopes. I decided to go left (south) down a different way than what we came up to make it a pure snow down-climb. Heavy, wet snow in this area made for perfect wet-cement, slow-and-steady glissade conditions. We then trudged through chunky-water-style snow back to our tent, and we quickly saturated our gaitered mountaineering boots. Good day in the hills? Um, kinda?

If you're looking to setup your game from your usual Flattop, Ptarmigan is a great bet!…read more You start at the Rabbit Creek trailhead, go about halfway up, then just aim for Ptarmigan! It's the pyramid-like summit to your left, you can miss it! The usually route is a fun 3rd class scramble. Like the very top of Flattop, except way more of it. Another great route in the winter for skiers/mountaineers is the "S-colouir". That route starts from Glen Alps. There are even crazy ice/mixed routes in the winter, some that have only been climbed handful of times.

Man, how am I just now getting around to hiking this?!…read more Falls Creek is located at ~Mile Post 105.6 on the Seward Highway. In relation to other trails: To the West: Rainbow Trailhead (https://www.yelp.com/biz/rainbow-trailhead-anchorage) To the East: Indian Valley Trailhead (https://www.yelp.com/biz/indian-valley-trail-anchorage) Stats: Mileage: 2.7 (one-way) Gain: 2,900 ft About a 1,000 ft/mile, steep but not *too* steep. The trail starts out...next to a falls! It closely follows Falls Creek for the first half of its length. As the water is loud and the brush is thick, I'd highly recommend doing some trail karaoke with your friends to make sure you alert any bears in the area that you're coming. Eventually, you get out of the brush and the valley expands. It's gorgeous. It's wide and it's bright-freakin'-green (my favorite shade of that color), or at least it was in mid-June. This is going to sound odd but, it actually reminded me of some of the valleys I hiked in Hawaii! It made me a little butthurt that I am only just-now getting around to hiking the trail. The trail ends at a lake. I'm not sure what the name of it is, so I'll just call it "Falls Lake". The lake frequently has snow on/in/around it, up until July. But, there is an ample amount of vegetated, snow-free flat area around the lake, this would be a perfect "Baby's First Backpacking" trip. (no permits required, just load yourself down and hike up) You can continue up past the lake, onto the ridge between South Suicide Peak and Indianhouse Mountain. The path will quickly change from "hiking" to "scrambling" though. I'd only recommend going up South Suicide if you are confident on your feet, and I'd only recommend going up Indianhouse if you have a rope and a partner! If you're quick enough, this can be done as an after-work hike. If you're slow or looking for a casual stroll, you can easily make a day of this hike.

I'm still sore. Dragged my spouse and our neurodivergent son with me to do this hike on a sunny…read moreSeptember Saturday. We parked at 1pm (parking lot was packed). Got back to the parking lot after 5pm. You'll need most of your day to do this hike if you're not a professional. This hike is beautiful but it is challenging for sure. You are going uphill the entire time. On the way down it's so steep you're jamming your toes trying not to fall. We did the bulk of this hike with nothing but backpacks full of snacks hahaha. Everyone that passed us up or down had poles, guns, bear spray, bells, dogs, the whole enchilada. I don't recommend hiking this area the way we did, we just got lucky :) It was a beautiful day and we were never alone for longer than 15-20min at a time. Weather was perfect, it was sunny and warm but the breeze was breezin'. The falls are a sight to see and made this strenuous hike completely worth it for my water-loving son. I can't wait to return soon and make it further.