Travel the Path Less Trodden: Spotlight: Anchorage

Spotlight: The Tony Knowles Coastal Trail is one of the most beautiful coastal trails in the nation. The eleven mile trail goes from Elderberry Park to Kincaid Park and only has slight elevation changes along its course. Open all year, the trail is popular for a wide variety of activities: hiking, biking, rollerblading, jogging and even skiing. Keep your eyes open along the trail and you might spot moose, whales, eagles, or even a wolf. The Trail features a portion of the Anchorage Light Speed Planet Walk, designed to show to scale the size of the planets and their relative distance to the sun. Each step is roughly equivalent to the distance light travels in one second.

Location: The Tony Knowles Coastal Trail begins at Elderberry Park at 1297 W. 5th Avenue (in the northwest section of Anchorage), and winds its way 11 miles along the coast to Kincaid Park at 9401 Raspberry Road on the western part of the city (just southwest of the airport).

Cost: The trail is free, but I would recommend renting a bike since there are a couple of bike rental shops nearby.

Time: You can spend as little or as much time as you like exploring the trail and the parks along the way, but most people will probably spend 2-4 hours. To walk the entire distance of the Anchorage Light Speed Planet Walk (see link above) will take you about 5 1/2 hours (each way).

Description: After renting bikes, we made our way to the trailhead at Elderberry Park. We then continued along the paved trail through the mud flats along the northern side of the trail (by the bay). It was nice, but I wasn't overly impressed. We stopped to look at the salmon run at Chester Creek, then continued on, admiring the mansions along the southern side of the trail. Soon it entered a forested section of the trail which was stunning. At that point, you would have no clue that Alaska's largest city was only a couple of miles away. We took the turnoff to explore Earthquake Park, which revisits the devastating earthquake of 1964 which reached a magnitude of 9.2 the largest quake ever recorded in North America. From there the trail went around the airport to Kincaid Park, but we turned around because the rain was picking up and we were wet and cold.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Things You Should Know: - Be prepared for precipitation or cold. The weather can change suddenly, so you should dress in layers and have a poncho handy.
- Although Pablo's Bike shop is closer, we found better prices at another shop just north of the train station.
- Anchorage is decked out in beautiful wild flowers during the summer months.