The Seward Highway of Alaska offers many opportunities for outdoor recreation at the top of the world. While simply touring the Seward Highway's points of interest provides plenty of good hours worth of entertainment, the true recreational value lies just off the road. The ultimate outdoor destination, Alaska beckons with massive mountain ranges, deep forests, and stunning fjords and glaciers. Casual travelers seeking outdoor adventure find plenty of camping, hiking, and picnicking sites along the highway, but that's just the beginning.
Alaska represents everything the outdoor adventurer stands for. The huge expanses of open space and untouched wildlife that makes the state famous surround the Seward Highway. Most of the lands above the highway lie within the Chugach State Park and forest. Within the park, the opportunities for escapades in the wildest country in the nation don't end when the day does. Long summer days provide countless hours for exploration. If your idea of fun involves climbing ropes and a variety of wicked looking tools, try climbing the cliffs around the Turnagain Arm, glacier-hopping among the more than fifty glaciers in the park, or bagging some summits.
The abundant water surrounding the byway provides you with a pleasant variety of recreation opportunities. In Russian River, you'll find some of the nation's best fishing, where sockeye and red salmon stock the waters. Experience the river first hand by taking a serene float in a raft, explore the area in a canoe, or tackle the river's rapids in a kayak. Expert windsurfers face huge winds and waves in Turnagain Arm. The Arm's unique geographical location between mountains in the Chugach range acts as a kind of tide funnel, creating ten-foot waves and wild rides to the intrepid and skilled rider.
The seemingly endless acres of virgin wilderness invite the traveler to explore the area's diverse terrain. With Chugach State Park, Chugach National Forest, and Kenai Wilderness all near the byway, hundreds of miles of trails beckon. These protected lands, along with the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge, provide tons of wildlife viewing opportunities. While not for the faint of heart, Alaska's abundance of wildlife, remote wilderness, and roiling rivers and bays attract outdoor recreation enthusiasts looking for a truly untamed experience.
Seward Highway Overview