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.

I don't know if bittersweet is the right word but, this is one of the most scenic zones in the park…read moreand access issues are fraught. It reminds me of when I lived in the PacNW and would read about access into the Picket range of the North Cascades. There would often be 3 approaches listed, all painful, all for different reasons. For Rumble, it goes something like this: 1. Hike in about 20ish miles on Peter's Creek Trail 2. Go up and over a steep, off-trail mountain pass of questionable quality and feasibility from Eagle River Nature center. 3. Luck out and get access from a private property owner bordering the park boundary. Optionally, I've heard a decent access area might be the pass behind The Watchman (I took photos of it while I was on the summit). Anyway, I lucked out and was able to do option #3. My hope is that @mountaineering can secure legal and efficient access before I finish the 120. As I crested up over into the valley, I was bloom away by the serenity of it all. It's a magical place. I anxiously scanned for bears (I've had some encounters that were a little too close for comfort in this area...maybe they are hanging out here more now that there are less people) and started hiking up the valley. I road the tundra-cuts and consolidated snow all the way to Bombardment Pass. I was debating if I should camp at the pass or carry my overnight gear down into the (next) valley. I decided to split the difference and camp at a pretty lake about halfway down. I slept for exactly 8 hours and woke up to Rumble completely obscured from my tent. I attempted to snooze another hour but sleep wouldn't come back. The series of sheep trails winding down the pass into the valley are magic. The grade is perfectly gentle. It made me feel "fast" even though I very much am not. Finding a spot to cross the creek to keep my precious princess feet dry was initially a challenge. But I just kept following the creek uphill until I found a sturdy snow bridge. This whole area (Peter's Creek Valley?) is even more scenic than Ram Valley. It's got bright green hills of sod rolling down off the craggy peaks, dotted with massive boulders that almost resemble stonehenge. I made my way up into the long gully of Rumble and it didn't look as intimidating as I was expecting. It looked boring. A long slope of scree with old snow tongues on climber's right. Towards the end, things do get tricky. The gully funnels into a tight corridor that ends in a drop. There are probably a couple ways to scramble up. I went up some wet fourth class climber's right. It wasn't too bad but eventually I had to traverse across a very short but very scary snow tongue. it was maybe only 10 ft wide but the top was bullet-hard and 5 ft below it, where my feet were, was loose sugar. I didn't realize it till I was halfway across, so booted a platform so I could have a decent stance. I awkwardly took my pack off and more awkwardly put my aluminium crampons on. The snow was so hard that I could probably only get 4 inches of my ice axe shaft into it, but the crampons really helped I was able to take a wide step onto the wet choss on the other side. Looking back at this snow feature, I felt ridiculous. It looks so easy, why was I so flummoxed? Once above that it was just fun, choose-your-own-adventure, snow and rock ramps that were no harder than 3rd class. In classic mountaineering style, as soon as I got into the ridgeline, the sweltering sun subsided and clouds covered the south-side of the mountain. I drank a pint of my luck beer "'Scend"(it's 2/2 so far) on the summit and took in the great views of Thunderbird to Bellicose and everything inbetween. I saw a pile of rocks where the's usually a summit register, but I couldn't find one. I saw that Caltopo/Gaia/Peakbagger/OSM have the true summit marked further down the ridge so I walked over there just in case. (just eyeballing it, I don't think it's taller) I took a summit selfie, summit pano, checked-in with my emergency contacts/family (had 2 bars of LTE on Verizon on top, the only place with any signal on the trip, save Bombardment Pass) The hike out was gorgeous with light coming over the pass and shading the layered golf courses of Peter's Creek Valley various bright and shiny shades of green. Coming back to a ready-made tent with no chores (other than delicious rehydration) is really something special. Hike out was largely uneventful, save for the fact that I got my first unobstructed view of the entire massiveness that is Rumble.

This peak's main claim to fame is that it's the "tallest peak in Chugach....State Park"…read more Only in Alaska do we have state parks massive enough to include dozens of prominent mountains! The elevation is 8,005 ft, which might not sound like much if you're a Colorado-Bro. However, you have to earn most of it. The trailhead (https://www.yelp.com/biz/eklutna-lakeside-trail-eklutna) starts at only about 900 ft. You'll be grabbing about 7,100 ft of gain to summit this shy mountain. Speaking of shy: Bashful gets its name because it's often hidden: behind other mountains and/or clouds. The Mountaineering Club of Alaska named most of the peaks in this area. They must've had an alliteration fetish back in those days, as they when on a B-spree: Bold Peak (https://www.yelp.com/biz/bold-peak-anchorage), Baleful Peak, Baneful Peak, Benign Peak, Bellicose Peak, Mount Beelzebub, etc. I used the GPS track here as a rough guide: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=704662 The approach begins the same as Bold Peak: mountain bike all the way around Eklutna Lake on the Eklutna Lake trail. Eventually you'll hit a bridge, right before this bridge is the East Fork trail. Ditch your bike here, and hike about 2 miles to a (probably dried out) creek bed with a cairn. Make your way up this (minor bush whacking in spots) till you hit Stivers' Gully: a large scree-filled gully with steep walls on either side. If you go up this gully, you'll eventually summit Bold Peak. But we're bumbling our way up Bashful, bro, so we're not barging up towards Bold. Instead: Just as you enter the gully, you're looking for a cairn (there was also a machete when we were there) that signals a faint trail leading climber's right of the gully. Depending where you enter the gulley, you may have to look back (downhill) to locate the cairn. This will wind you up and around alder-choked slopes. You're looking to enter multiple "alder tunnels". If you take it slow and follow the GPS track, you should be able to easily located them, even as the sun sets (speaking for a friend ;) I saw a black bear in this area (he quickly ran into the bushes when he saw me), so be bear-aware: carry spray and make noise. There are tons of bear-ries (ugh) on these slopes, so it makes sense why Baloo would be here. You'll eventually exit the alder tunnels and cross a rock glacier, then go up a screen gulley and onto a grass ramp. Now you're on the West Ridge, which you more or less ride all the way to the summit. There is one major cruz though: about around 7,000 ft the ridge will get too steep to climb and you'll be forced to side-hill onto screen and enter into a slightly-wider than-body-width gully which has been dubbed: Chickenshit Gully. This is what separates the sodas from the beers! I found the climbing to not be terribly difficult, but it is very loose. You need to test (by tugging and by slapping) most holds before committing to them. I recommend going up ONE AT A TIME if you're climbing with friends. It is way too easy to accidentally knock rocks down. (you should have a helmet for this hike/climb as well) It's probably not necessary to use a rope to go up this (will do more harm than good, pulling loose rock and scree down), but you will want one to go down this. There used to be fixed ropes here but some local climbers, obsessed with weird mountain purity, have recently removed them. (they left the summit register though...along with tons of signage, benches...and they probably drove a car to the trail-head, and used a bike to do the first part...) I see the point of not leaving damaged gear behind but, a severely damaged rope is probably just as strong, if not stronger, than some of these horrible rock holds. Ropes are rated for thousands of pounds, even a damaged rope is still good for hundreds of pounds. But, I digress. The climb up Chicken is straight-forward, but feels longer than you'd expect it to. AKMountain (business link above) is bang-on about it being 200ft long. To rappel it you will need TWO 60m ropes, or a 60m rope and a tag-line. If you've never used a tagline before, this would not be a good place to learn, practice ahead of time! We took two 60's up here because we like to suffer. After Chicken, it's a pretty straight-forward ridge-ride followed by steep scree to the summit. The summit has a nice, new summit register put there by Team FILGO (www.filgo.org). I'll let you go there to see what it stands for ;) Views from the summit are easily the best I've seen in Alaska: full-stop. You can really see the wall of intense glaciation begin from this point. We also saw Denali and Sultana faintly in the distance. We rappelled down Chicken, which was eventful. Lots of rockfall. One of my ropes to multiple direct-hits and was visibly damaged :-/ From there, we reversed course and narrowly had enough light to make it down the alder tunnels. We were back at camp by 1am (having left at 5:30am).

What a great hike/climb!…read more Depending on who you ask, this is either an extremely difficult hike or a non-technical climb. There is one section where, if you don't have experience rock climbing, you might be pretty sketched out. But, fear not, there are fixed ropes! I'd just caution on not relying on them 100%. I might also recommend wearing a helmet. This climb starts at Eklutna Lake: https://www.yelp.com/biz/eklutna-lakeside-trail-eklutna From there you travel 10.5 miles along the lake to the trailhead. I'd HIGHLY recommend doing this with a mountain bike. I rented one from here (they are open till 10pm!): https://www.yelp.com/biz/downtown-bicycle-rental-sales-and-repair-anchorage?osq=mountain+bike I'm not a good cyclist and it took me about 90 minutes to get to the trailhead. Once there, you go up a densely vegetated trail for about 1.6 miles. It's not quite bush whacking but...in a month or two it probably will be. Eventually you find a creek, take this up into a large, scree-riddled gully. You then ride this gully up to the summit. And it's gorgeous. As you undulate up and down the gully, the canyon narrows and widens, the vegetation changes, creeks wind through it, it's incredible. Eventually you're on the SE face which is a pretty easy scree-scramble to the summit. Views from the summit are incredible. The main thing that makes this hard is the gain: 7,000 ft of it. That's a lot for a Chugach hike. (For comparison, Flattop is about 1,300 ft)

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)

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!

You've probably seen this peak a million times if you've ever driven up to Palmer…read more It's the second most-notable peak in the area, behind Pioneer (which is sits right next to). The twin peaks vaguely resememble a pint-sized version of the Tetons if you squint your eyes just right. To get to the tops of them, you need to start at Eklutna Lake: https://www.yelp.com/biz/eklutna-lakeside-trail-eklutna Take the trail that goes *away* from the lake, you'll quickly start gaining some elevation. Eventually you'll come to one of the most scenic trail benches in Alaska. Keep going up! The trail will end and you'll see an expanse of tundra in front of the craggy Twin Peaks. You want to go for the one on your right. (if you continue up the "hill" behind you, you'll summit pepper peak, which is a walk-up) You've got two options for summitting East Twin: East Ridge: this is on your (climber's) right. It's got some pretty exposed 4th class terrain and maybe one or two 5th-class moves. The climbing is easy but the consequences of a fall could be dire. (there are a couple spots where a fall might be fatal) Just keep making your way up the ridge, scrambling through the path of least resistance, until you can't anymore. If there is still snow on the ridge, you may need crampons. Main South Gully: this is a garbage chute of loose rock located roughly in the middle of the Twin Peaks massif. It's the descent route for the East Ridge route as well. This is the most common way people take to access the summit. While the movement isn't anywhere near as exposed as the East Ridge, rock fall can be a serious issue. The scree/talus here is very loose. If there are people ahead of you, they could easily knock stuff down on you. In winter/early spring, this gully is filled with snow and is probably more pleasant, however, avalanches would be a very real concern. It took us about 9 hours roundtrip, going up the East Ridge and down the Main South Gully. The views from the summit are incredible. Eklutna Lake and Bold Peak dominate the area and there is also a backside view of Pioneer Peak. On clear days, Denali can easily be seen. You'll also probably see lots of Dall Sheep on the way up/down. Summit post is a great resource for topping out on East Twin: http://www.summitpost.org/east-twin-peak/753392

Joy G's review is bang-on!…read more There is so little info (beta, as we say in climbing) about this hike, that I'm shocked it is actually marked on google maps. (the previous map-marker was off, I put in a fix, you should be able to navigate to this spot from Yelp now) Not only is the trailhead marked, so is the trail! (on google maps, NOT in real life) I did this on a frigid winter day. The (very short) road to the trailhead is not plowed, so use good judgement if you don't have good: tires, clearance, etc. (but it's so short, you can park on a pullout and walk in) There is no sign marking this trail either. Most of the falls was under snow when I was here. The falls were at least partially frozen underneath. Still, this is a nice place to go. It's shockingly short and feels shockingly remote. I'll be back in the summer, I wonder how far up you can wade?

I have no idea why, but Pioneer Falls is one of the best kept secrets in the valley. People who've…read morelived here their whole lives have never heard of it, it's not in any guidebooks, it doesn't have an address, and the sign is so inconspicuous it's like they WANT you to miss it. The falls is absolutely lovely and is very very close to the road, but not visible from the road. From the little parking lot, it is a Very short walk to the base of the falls. The walk to the base is an easy walk less than a city block's distance the should be accessible to anyone on foot. The falls is (guessing here) is probably about 800 feet, but cannot be viewed in its entirety from any one vantage point. The trail isn't maintained, but if you have good footwear and a walking stick if you like, you can leapfrog over rocks and fallen logs up a few hundred feet (less than a half mile) to the widest part of the falls. At this point you can go no further because the canyon walls close in. I would LOVE to see these falls from above. We did find ourselves in need of bandaids after this little jaunt due to bare legs and leaping over fallen logs. I've got crappy knees and the was also one little spot I had to scooch down on my but because if I had tried to step down I probably would have blown out my knee (hence why I use a walking stick ) I think most people wouldn't have this issue though. These falls are exceptionally beautiful in my opinion, second in the Anchorage area, only to Thunderbird Falls. However, I wouldn't make the trip to the Valley solely for the falls, since it's such a short little hike. I suggest if you drive out that way, visit other nearby sites such as Knik River Public Use Area, Eklutna Tail race, the reindeer farm, Pyrah's U-pick, or Austin Helmers Pioneer Ridge Trail. Enjoy.